HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Molecular Homologies? (was Re: some stuff about fruit flies)
Date: 14 Oct 92 22:15:32 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Oct12.060830.17860@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
|
|	In macroscopic features, the batrachians (frogs and toads) are
|more similar in overall appearance than our species and the great
|apes. There was even an article in _Science_ some years back that
|reported on comparing human and chimp skeletons by the same kinds of
|measurements as are used to classify frogs. The result: more
|difference.

Good point.  Yes, mosaic evolution is a given in any serious study.

|	I don't know how old frogs are supposed to be, but they must
|be at least Mesozoic, since they don't like salt water and are not
|found on isolated islands, and also since they are found on most of
|the continents, where started to separate in the late Paleozoic /
|early Mesozoic (don't quite remember exactly when). After the late
|Mesozoic (at least!) and probably the early Mesozoic, the continents
|would have been too far apart. This dispersion hypothesis can be
|tested by constructing a frog family tree. Has anyone done so?

Good reasoning.  The existance of (very rare) fossil frogs from the
Mesozoic tends to support this.  Also, the most likely ancestral groups
are only known from the Paleozoic.

|	In an even more spectacular example, molecular-evolution
|studies reveal that outwardly similar strains of bacteria may have
|_very_ great molecular distance between them, which may indicate a
|separation time of hundreds of millions of years ago, way back in the
|Precambrian. Has anyone tried to _estimate_ when the different strains
|of (say) methanogens diverged?

My guestimate - around 3 *billion* years.
Why?  Because that is the aproximate date of the 'oxygen revolution'.
The Archaebacteria and kin would have been the dominant life forms at that
time.  The surviving linieages would be the isolated, widely divergent,
survivors of the massive reconstruction of ecology when free oxygen first
formed.

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: Chimps and Humans
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 19:39:24 GMT

In article <1992Oct10.152100.4675@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>Yep, now is a good time to put in a plug for the books of Gerald Durrell.
>He wrote a really funny story about the time his mother had tea with a
>couple of escaped chimpanzees.  After scolding her for opening the door
>and inviting the chimps in, he was surprised to have her reply that the
>chimps were better behaved than some of his guests!

Back in the '60s Time/Life brought out a _Nature Library_ series of books
that can still be found in libraries and second-hand bookstores.  A lot of
the text is outdated now, but as one might expect, the photographs are 
superb.  I bought the volume entitled _The Mammals_ solely for the photos
on pp. 180-1.  One of them shows Viki Hayes, the famous home-reared chimp,
seated at the dining room table with her foster parents, Keith and Cathy
Hayes.  Viki, dressed in a child's pinafore, is eating grapes and sliced
bananas from a bowl with a spoon.  There is a glass of milk on the side.
Viki's table manners are said to have been impeccable.  However, she did
sometimes make a practice of lifting the telephone receiver to listen in
to conversations on the Hayes's party line.

-- Herb Huston
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Microevolution and Macroevolution
Date: 7 Oct 92 20:11:33 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Oct6.181522.17483@unixg.ubc.ca> morgan@sitka.triumf.ca (Morgan Burke) writes:
|onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam) writes:
|
|
|When I first ran across the terms "microevolution" and "macroevolution"
|in a creationist diatribe, I scuttled over to my nearest evolutionary
|reference (Invertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, 2ed, can't remember
|the author/editor) and found the following definitions (paraphrased):
|
|Microevolution:  evolution driven by forces of selection acting on
|	individuals of a species.
|Macroevolution:  evolution driven by forces of selection acting on
|	entire species or groups of species (sometimes referred to as
|	"species selection", if I remember correctly).
|
|The text suggested that microevolution was the primary cause of
|speciation and adaptive evolution, and that macroevolution had a much
|lesser effect on these phenomena.
|
|Armed with these definitions, I went back to my creationist literature
|to read numerous quotes from "eminent" biologists who claimed that
|while microevolution was undeniable, macroevolution was questionable
|as an explanation for the development of life.  Which turns out to be
|exactly right, ...
|
|So what is the current state of affairs?  Are evolutionary scientists
|now using the creationist definition of the terms, or do the above
|definitions still hold sway?
|
Well, it is a little complicated.  The term macroevolution really has
always been kind of fuzzy.  It is generally used for 'evolution above
the species level', and the main debate (misrepresented in the Creationist
texts) is (or was) about the nature and mechanisms of macroevolution.
[The definition your dictionary gave was based on the views of one side
of the debate].

In essence the debate was betwen those who felt that significant evolutionary
changes (and the patterns of them) above the species level required mechanisms
in addition to those involved in microevolution and those who felt that
macroevolution was simply the result of the application of the *same*
mechanisms over time.

The current position of most researchers is probably best desvribed as
some sort of compromise.  One form this compromise has taken is the
concept of punctuated equilibria as proposed by Eldridge and Gould.
[But not the more saltationalist variants of thier position proposed
by a small group of die-hard supporters of additional mechanisms].
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jmeritt@rod.mitre.org (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Alan Fauerbacher
Organization: Mitre Corporation
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 18:49:43 GMT


The tek7 mailer is bouncing the email I send to you.  Got another
email address? (maybe tektronics has an anti-origins mail bug
trajanically implanted by Bales.)


-- 
James W. Meritt:  m23364@mwunix.mitre.org - or - jmeritt@rod.mitre.org
The opinions above are mine.  If anyone else wants to share them, fine.
They may say so if they wish. The facts "belong" to noone and simply are.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: amorgan@csd-d-5.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: Applauses to Ted
Originator: amorgan@csd-d-5.Stanford.EDU
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organizatoin
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 16:28:54 GMT

In article <544-0T_@engin.umich.edu> 
  ingles@engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles) writes:

.. Large Earth, reduced gravity.

> Um... actually, that won't work. For a sphere (which Earth is, at least
>close enough for these purposes) the g outside the sphere depends only
>on the mass of the sphere, whether or not the sphere is hollow. 

Right, but wrong.  Whilest the gravity at a distance n away from the center
of either sphere will be the same, because the big Earth has a larger
radius the *surface* gravity of the expanded Earth will be less than the
*surface* gravity of the normal Earth.

All we need is an Earth with twice the radius and the surface gravity
is only 25% of what it is now.  Are you listening Ted?

>Ray Ingles

C Frog
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Applauses to Ted
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 21:34:58 GMT

In article <1558@esl.ESL.COM>, markwc@barney.esl.com (Mark Christiansen)
writes:
> In article <1992Oct12.163804@IASTATE.EDU>
> kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:
> >In article <1531@esl.ESL.COM>
> >markwc@barney.esl.com (Mark Christiansen) writes:
> >>
> >> Why does the Earth need to be hollow to be less dense?
> >
> >Of course!!!  The earth wasn't actually less dense, it was
> >the felt effect of molecular bonding.  You see, back then
> >molecules had a lower binding force, and so were much larger.
> >The result: a larger Earth (as well as everything else
> >(ie dinosaurs)).
> >
> >Since saturn was bigger it would be more clearly visible in
> >the sky and that explains all the Holden stuff.  Then, about,
> >what, 4000 years ago, the binding force increased and
> >everything in the universe shrunk.  This would even explain all
> >the stories about giants: people who failed to shrink!
> 
> Why does a less dense Earth have to be so ridiculous?  Couldn't
> the Earth have originally been formed as a less packed, larger
> body that has since gradually become more packed or dense from
> the forces of gravity?  In so doing, the forces of gravity at
> the surface would increase with time.  In fact, wasn't the Earth
> formed by gravitational collecting of "loose" matter?  If so,
> then the Earth had extremely low density at one time!

  Uh, can't happen.  If we assume the above then there is no catastrophe.  How
can we be known as catastrophists without a catastrophe?

  Oh yeah, as long as I'm working in neo-catastrophist mode: DOOM, DESTRUCTION,
DEATH, PLAGUE, PESTULANCE, THE 1992 ELECTIONS!

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: sieferme@stein.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman)
Subject: Re: pi=3 (was Re: Abuse B
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 20:31:14 GMT

In article <1bk7usINNnf6@fido.asd.sgi.com> davis@bedlam.asd.sgi.com (Tom Davis) writes:
>
>The bible is inerrant!  30 means 30, not 31.4159...
>It's all easily explained, of course, by the
>increasing value of PI through time.
>
>  -- Tom Davis

I thought that this was due to a change
in the felt effects of mathematics.  Silly me.  :)

-- 
| Eric Sieferman            |    sieferme@u.washington.edu          |
| U. of W., M.C.I.S.        |    (206) 685-3104                     |
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Methinks it's like a weasel (Blind Watchmaker)
Date: 7 Oct 92 19:05:20 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Oct5.142512.23398@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (Class Guest3) writes:
|Corey Carroll (corey@sdf.lonestar.org) wrote:
|
|: Aaaaah.  That's a good point.  There wasn't *biological*
|: evolution before life, but there was *chemical* and *molecular*
|: evolution.  ...
|
|	Just wanting to keep terminology straight (and I haven't
|read Dawkins).  Is it proper to refer to the development of increasingly
|complex chemical systems as "evolution"?   We could probably break 
|down the reactions into polymerizations, condensations, etc. but I'm
|uncomfortable calling this "evolution", because of the confusion
|it might engender with biological evolution.  There has to be a more precise 
|term, but I can't think of one at this moment.  Anybody?

This gets into a tricky area of semantics, speculation, and science.

Most of the current hypotheses about abiogenesis propose more directed
processes than the sorts you are describing ("polymerizations, ...").

These suggested processes often involve the operation of selection, or
something akin to it.  If these ideas are even aproximately correct then
the border between what is 'evolution' and what is not becomes rather
fuzzy.  Thus, it could be construed as appropriate to use the term 'chemical
evolution' for this prebiotic selection-driven phase.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: gascan@dcst16.dc (Bill Gascoyne)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: pi=3 (was Re: Abuse By t.o Regulars
Date: 8 Oct 92 17:36:23 GMT
Reply-To: gascan@dcst16.dc
Organization: LSI Logic Corporation

In article 833@trl.oz.au, jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy) writes:
> 
> >In article 14343@unixg.ubc.ca, morgan@sitka.triumf.ca (Morgan Burke) writes:
> >> 
> >> Recall:  pi=3.14... only in Euclidian geometries, and the surface of the
> >> Earth is non-Euclidian.  For large circles on the Earth's surface, 
> >> pi < 3.14...
> >>
> 
> Pi is not defined as the ratio of circumference to diameter. If it were,
> a great deal of physical laws where it enters would be false. Nice try,
> Morgan, but pull the other one.

*Drop* the other one, please.  Enlighten us ignorant heathens.  If pi is not
defined by the ratio of circumference to diameter, by what is it defined?
(Note that this is a sincere question, since I have for many years been under
the delusion that pi is defined by the ratio of circumference to diameter
of a Euclidian circle.)

---
1. Bill Gascoyne
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Atheistic creationism -- a tutorial
Date: 13 Oct 92 01:28:11 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <Bvw2pA.3np@well.sf.ca.us> keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle) writes:
|---------------------------------------------------------------------
|As the microbiologist W.F. Bodmer has succinctly put it, sex
|"facilitates the accumulation in a single individual of advantageous
|mutations which arose separately in different individuals."
|
|In terms of the individual, sex appears paradoxical because it would seem
|an inefficient way to propagate his genes, each child has only 50 percent
|of his genes, the other 50 percent supplied by the sexual partner.
|Sexual reproduction apparently has more group level advantages than
|individual level advantages.  Efficiency from the whole individuals
|point of view is then seen to be irrelevant.

Another aspect of this is brought out in the Scientific American article on
"Genetic Algorithms".  It seems that sexual recombination increases the
*parallelism* of selection (as an algorithm) and thus *its* efficiency.
[That is selection is more effective at selecting a near optimal variant
in a sexual population than in an asexual one].

[Now what's this about 'artificial life' having nothing to do with
real biology?]
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Running up the score on Colby
Date: 12 Oct 92 03:02:06 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences


	Ah, the wonder of mass storage. Ted can dredge up some old
nasty remarks that I made to Bob Bales way back in 1988, which a
Mr. D'Ineuendo has quoted out of context, and what is more I have
never confronted Mr Holden's ideas. So he has no ax to grind
with me! Somehow. I won't bother with Mr. Holden, his stuff is
too peripherial to me, anyway. I let the guys who know more physics,
math and celestial mechanics than I feed Holden his lunch.

	Oh, by the way, this post from Ted is a repeat. Maybe he
ought to try to get it into a FAQ. The trouble is it is not a
frequently asked question. People should ignore it and Ted as well.
Maybe someone ought to suggest that Valekowsky is just using his
pseudoscience to make a bunch of Biblical metaphors sound historically
right so the people who want us to believe everything in the Bible
can sleep at night.

Bruce Salem
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Subject: Re: macroevolution
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 00:55:39 GMT
Organization: Apple
Followup-To: talk.origins

In article <1992Oct7.141200.22236@cs.joensuu.fi>, asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi
(Antti Siivonen) wrote:
> ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) writes:
> >Ultimately everything is a matter of belief. You show Grand Canyon
> >to a Creationist and state that this place is the end result of millions
> >of years, and the Creationist still has faith in an ancient nomadic
> >mythology of creation. You are right, science also relies on belief,
> >belief ratified by millions of logically thinking individuals. If you
> >don't think such cases are valid, do research, publish it and maybe
> >become the next Nobel price winner. 
 
> 	"The ancient nomadic mythology of creation" excludes young earth, but
> 	I don't care what fundies think of it.   

If this is the case, show us a theory that supports the idea of a 
young earth. If you can't, then it's quite simple to map this idea
to yet another mythology with no foundations. It's over to you, show
evidence
or fade away.


Cheers,
Kent

	Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy to	investigate. -F.M.
Knowles
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu (scharle)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: New Evidence for Creation!
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:16:34 GMT
Reply-To: scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu (scharle)
Organization: Univ. of Notre Dame


     Since have seen recently how recent scientific research into the
changing body temperature of man has established that humanity is
no more than a few thousand years old, I have now discovered
new evidence that the Ark was constructed in accord with scientific
principles.  Creationism is triumphing!

    Pandering immoral atheistic evolutionist so-called scientists 
often mock the reality of the Ark by saying that it could not contain 
one pair of all kinds.  Unfortunately, some creationist scientists of 
weak faith have responded to this criticism with suggestions that kinds
are not identical to species, that not all animals need be taken on the 
Ark, or other watering down of the truth.

    One should consider this evidence.  According to Robert M. May, in 
_Scientific American_, October 1992, pp. 42-48, the critical factor in 
loading the Ark would be the largest creatures.  The number of species 
decreases by a factor of 100 when a typical linear dimension of an 
animal increases by a factor of 10.  We can approximate the total 
volume of pairs of species of animals of a given size by the following 
table:

    linear dimension   number of species   total volume    cumulative
       (meters)                             of one pair      volume
                                            of each species
                                           (upper bound)
                                                (cubic meters)
        5-10                 10              20,000         20,000
        1-5                 100              25,000         45,000
        .5-1              1,000               2,000         47,000
        .1-.5            10,000               2,500         49,500
       .05-.1           100,000                 200         49,700
       .01-.05        1,000,000                 250         49,950
      .005-.01       10,000,000                  20         49,970
 
    Or, consider the dimensions of the Ark as given in Genesis:
300 cubits by 50 cubits by 30 cubits, or (a cubit equaling .48 meter) 
144x24x15 = 51,840 cubic meters.  The difference provides quite
adequate quarters for the family of Noah.

    Finally, not only is it possible to fit all species of land and 
air animals on the Ark, but it is clear that the author of this plan
had a very good idea of the size distribution of these animals! Can 
this good fit be explained as just being a coincidence? This is 
irrefutable evidence for the reality of the Ark, the fixity of species, 
and creationism!

-- 
Tom Scharle                |cm65n6@irishmvs(Bitnet)
Room G003 Computing Center |scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu(Internet)
University of Notre Dame  Notre Dame, IN 46556-0539 USA
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Friesen on elastics and sauropod necks
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 16:32:38 GMT

In article <70@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
> In article <PHS.92Oct11161638@cassiopee.lifia.imag.fr>,
phs@cassiopee.lifia.imag.fr (Philippe Schnoebelen) writes:
>*| 1.  We no longer have such creatures, and there must be a reason for that.
>*|     If such sizes worked for sauropods, and if nothing has changed vis a
>*|     vis circumstances which might allow for such sizes, then in all the
>*|     intervening time, something, at least one life form, should have
>*|     RE-evolved into such sizes.  This is, of course, assuming the usual
>*|     multi-million-year time frames given out in schools for dinosaurs.
>*|     In reality, of course, these time frames are wrong.
> 
>*Ted, here you are BACKING AWAY from previous claims you made. (Yes !)
> 
>If and when I ever change one of my views on any of these topics, I'll be
>very up front about it...  you won't have to figure out whether it's
>happening or not.

  Congratulations Ted.  Your dredging up of posts from years ago has made a
believer out of me.

On 5 Oct 92 01:54:12 GMT news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (aka Ted) wrote article
<56@fedfil.UUCP> in which he said:
>Bigger is better
>until you come to some point at which larger equates with disfunction.  In
>some cases, that might mean blowing a niche of some sort.  In many other
>cases, such as dogs, disfunction due to size means real disfunction, hip
>problems etc.

  So now, Ted, we have a post in which you say creatures must re-evolve into
larger sizes, and one where you say they don't.  Are you going to be up front
about it?

> 5.  We've had a number of the t.o regulars claiming that a squat thrust
> is somehow a very inefficient way to come up with weight, i.e. that animals
> have some magical way of coming up/standing up with is far  more efficient.
> They ought to take their insight to the American Olympic weightlifting
> team.  Those guys have been looking for more efficient ways to get weight
> up for decades, and haven't found one.

  Ted, didn't I point out the first time I heard you bring this up that you
should really watch some PBS.  Anyone who has seen a nature special on elephants
can tell you that elephants get up one leg at a time, never lifting their entire
weight at once.

  I'm willing to bet Kaz could have lifted alot more weight if it had been
strapped to his back while he lied face down on the ground.  With limbs built
for lifting in that direction an animal could do much better.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Subject: Well, Holden?
Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 16:25:48 GMT

Subject: Re: Direct question for Holden

In article <1992Sep30.161451.9854@linus.mitre.org> jmeritt@rod.mitre.org (Jim Meritt) writes:
}
}You claim to have a unique and totally accurate understanding of various
}astronomical, physical, biological, and chemical T/S "events" that differ
}from the accepted norm by a substantial degree.  Could you please specify
}how you acquired this raw data and your qualifications for evaluating the
}material?

How many more weeks are needed for your response?


--
James W. Meritt:  m23364@mwunix.mitre.org - or - jmeritt@rod.mitre.org
The opinions above are mine.  If anyone else wants to share them, fine.
They may say so if they wish. The facts "belong" to noone and simply are.