HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Proof: God wrote the Bible
Date: 1 Sep 92 02:11:16 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In article <1992Aug31.221843.23269@dscomsf.desy.de> Hallam@zeus02.desy.de writes:
>|>How is this proof of ANYTHING, except that whoever cooked up the bible
>|>(God or otherwise) had 7 on his/her/its brain?
>
>The use of 7 as a mystical number dates back to the Greeks as does the use of a
>seven day week. The day off bit is however traceable to Judaism (well as fas as
>anyone knoweth). The number probably derives from the number of planets (pluto
>was not known then).

There were only five known planets:  Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
The Earth doesn't count since it was considered to be the center of the universe
and was stationary.  Uranus was discovered in 1781 and Neptune in 1846.  There
are however seven heavenly objects that change position in the sky:  the five
planets and the Sun and Moon.

>To understand the importance of astrology you must realise
>that in the days before TV was invented, nocturnal persuits were limited to
>bonking and looking up at the stars. Thus people had quite a lot of time to
>consider the paths of the stars etc, the wandering gods progress was quite well
>observed.

Astronomy probably came first followed by astrology.  Astrology presumes that
you've divided the sky into constellations and signs, know that planets move and
along with the Sun and Moon are in different arbitrarily defined signs in dif-
ferent parts of the year, etc.  All of this requires quite a bit of past obser-
vations, which could technically be called astronomy.

>
>The repetition of the number 7 in the Bible is quite deliberate and is to this
>day a feature of Judaism with the seven branched candlestick standing as the
>emblem of both judaism and the Israeli state.

I thought the seven candles celebrated the seven days of Creation (a la Exodus
37:17-24).  A seven week day probably arose from dividing the lunar month into
four manageable periods.

>
>What all this is meant to prove though I haven't the foggiest.
>
>--
>
>Phill Hallam-Baker


--
*Ka Chun Yu                 * "Deputy dog dog a ding dang depa depa deputy     *
*kachun@as.arizona.edu      *  dog dog a ding dang depa depa . . ."            *
*                           *                         --"Don't Let's Start"    *
Newsgroups: talk.origins,rec.games.board.ce
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: Evolution board game
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 19:21:19 GMT

CE FOLKS, THIS IS A TALK.ORIGINS CROSSPOST.

TO FOLKS, EDIT THE SUBJECT LINE IF REPLYING.

                   [?evolution board game?]

  The game is called "Quirks" from eon games, the same folks that did cosmic
encounters.  It's a great game.  Does anyone know if it survived the demise of
eon?  Who holds the copyright?

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 21:32:59 GMT

In article <73tK02X.20Ii01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>, czl30@duts.ccc.amdahl.com
(Chris Lee) writes:
> In article <1992Sep2.171035@IASTATE.EDU> kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren
Vonroeschlaub) writes:
>>  What English lacks in the complexity you refer to it more than makes up for
in
>>complexities elsewhere.  It is not an easy language to learn as a second one:
my
>>roommate has been studying since grade school (about 18 years) and still
>>couldn't write a letter that would fool a native speaker into thinking he was
>>American.
> 
> This doesn't make sense!
> 
> I am a native English speaker whom nobody would think American.
> 
> Maybe that's because I'm English.

  I disagree.  I don't think you would have much trouble fooling people into
thinking you were American.  The rest of your post strongly suggests it: If the
the content hadn't made it clear it would have been almost impossible to tell
you were not American, and you weren't even trying.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
From: mmeyer@m2.dseg.ti.com (Mark Meyer)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Proof: God wrote the Bible
Date: 4 Sep 92 19:54:41 GMT
	<1992Sep1.042620.3807@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU>
Organization: TI DSEG, Spring Creek, Plano, Tx.


	What about me?  I was born on February >10<.  February has 8
letters, and it's the second month.  8+2=10!  Furthermore, my first
name has 4 letters and my middle name (Edward) has 6.  4+6=10!  In
addition, if you add the digits of the time I was born, you get
0+9+4+7 = 20 = 2*10!  The evidence is overwhelming!  For what, you
ask?  Err... Can I get back to you on that?

-- 
Mark Meyer                                               | mmeyer@dseg.ti.com |
Texas Instruments, Inc.                                  +--------------------+
Every day, Jerry Junkins is grateful that I don't speak for TI.
                      "What is 'The Cat in the Hat', anyway?"  "A Korean dish?"
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: duffy@aslss02.asl.dl.nec.com (Joseph Duffy)
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Organization: NEC America, Inc. Irving, Texas
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 16:11:10 GMT

In article <87535@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Aug31.194922.7862@asl.dl.nec.com>, duffy@aslss02 (Joseph Duffy) writes:
>>If you follow the original thread you'll understand that I don't
>>think either side has such direct evidence that they can produce.
>>Because of this I don't believe that either side can draw an
>>"inescapable conclusion".
>
>I apologize for my creationist insinuations.
>
>Meanwhile, please explain why the only acceptable evidence for inescapable
>conclusions is that on the order of magnitude of live videotapes.  To me,
>if the only alternative is to repeatedly invoke conspiracies of coincidence,
>then the direct interpolation of what the indirect evidence says is an
>inescapable conclusion.
>
>We have no direct evidence--in your sense--regarding the building of the
>Pyramids, but I think the evidence is conclusive that they were indeed
>built, on location, roughly 3-4 millennia ago.  Do you?
>-- 
>-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)

Yes, I do believe the pyramids were built. As to exactly how they were built
I don't see how I can make any definite statments however. I can come up
with some good theories. In any event I will be interpreting the pyramids
based on my current knowledge of cause and effect, etc. What current
knowledge is there for interpreting "constructive" processes that have
occurred in the past? To continue our example, based on my current cause
and effect associations, I would conclude that the pyramids did not occur as
a result of natural processes (unaided by human intervention) in the past 
since I dont see carved stone structures occurring that way today. So I'm
just asking the question to those whose knowledge of evolution exceeds mine:
What current processes do we have that parallel those in the example above
to interpret the construction of say, the first cell?
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: sprooney@unix1.tcd.ie (Simon Rooney)
Subject: Re: Humungosaurs, etc.
Organization: Trinity College, Dublin
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 08:25:19 GMT


>In all the postings recently concerning the "felt effect of gravity", and
>whether or not the largest dinosaurs would have been able to stand or walk,
>I haven't seen anybody mention that these big boys were thought to have
>lived in *water*, with just their heads sticking up.  An indication of this
>is that they tend to have their nostrils on the top of their heads.

Also, the main, and easiest way to work out the weight of a creature
is by seeing how big its bones are, and so how much weight it has to
support.

There is a lot more evidence that a lot of the larger dinosaurs (as
in Diplodocus, Brontosaurus etc.) lived in water, such as their
fossils being found near those of early fish, and other marine
life.

Noims.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 21:41:39 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.121646.17022@cs.joensuu.fi>, asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti
Siivonen) writes:
> 	Yes, I agree with you. But the fact is that those forms are very old
> 	and they have still remained in English. I take a guess and say that in
>	say, medieval English such irregularities were much more common. 

  Au contraire, English has grown for the most part, not shrunk.  There are more
words, spelling no longer matches pronuciation (it used to), and many new rules.
English is a mish-mosh of two languages: Saxon and Norman, and has alot of the
complexities of both.

  Many newer words are just as confusing (without checking a dictionary, what is
the difference between a hologram and a holograph?  i before e except after c or
sounding like ay as in neighbor or weigh.  Pretty confusing rules to start with,
never mind exceptions like science, albeit, and height.

> 	Now, listen, you dude ! You can check that one from my texts, too !

  I hate to disallusion you Antti, but your English isn't anywhere near that
good.  I don't think anyone could read a paragraph of yours without realising
you are not a native English speaker.

> 	More words and 'th' is in modern Finnish 'd'. It vanished in 1600's.   
> 	These are the changes. 

  All of them?

> 	How do you say: "To make some one to do (something)" in one word ? In 
> 	Finnish it is "Teetatyttaa". 

  How do you say "Wanting to do something, but not enough to actually spend time
trying" in one word?  "Felicity" (sp?) in English.

>> Can you translate "sharp as a bowling ball" into Finnish while maintaining
the
>>proper expressiveness?  Does that prove Finnish isn't as expressive as
>>English?
> 	
> 	Terava kuin keilailupallo. (Dots above a:s in the first word, we have  
> 	more letters, you know).

  I may be guessing wrong, but you probably translated that "sharp as a bowling
ball" meaning "the pointedness of this is the same as the pointedness of a
bolwing ball".  "Sharp" in English also means "intelligent".  You would have to
translate it into some phrase which conveys both the sense of sharpness
physically, and links it to mental acuity, all in a single word.

  I notice you weren't interested in trying some Finnish Limericks.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
From: bvickers@valentine.ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Reply-To: bvickers@ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Irvine, Info. & Computer Sci. Dept.
Date: 1 Sep 92 04:44:21 GMT

news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>Minor problem:  the tower of Babel story is essentially true;

Hehe haha hoho.  And animals communicate telepathically with
humans too.  Oh wait, you believe that.  Shoot, so much for trying
to poke fun at you.

--
 ___            _    _     _  _        _
(  _) ___ ___ _( )__( )_  ( )( ) o  __( ) _  ___  ___  ___
(___)(_) (__=) (_)_ (_)_   (__) (_)(_((_)(_'(__=)(_) _(_)
Brett J. Vickers (bvickers@ics.uci.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: plumpton@wampyr.cc.uow.edu.au (David Plumpton)
Subject: Humungosaurs, etc.
Organization: University Of Wollongong
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 22:51:03 GMT

In all the postings recently concerning the "felt effect of gravity", and
whether or not the largest dinosaurs would have been able to stand or walk,
I haven't seen anybody mention that these big boys were thought to have
lived in *water*, with just their heads sticking up.  An indication of this
is that they tend to have their nostrils on the top of their heads.

-- 
/------------------------------\ /-------------------------------\
I       David Plumpton          I     There is a holy trinity:    |
I plumpton@wampyr.cc.uow.edu.au I N Tesla, R Feynman and C Sagan  |
\------------------------------/ \-------------------------------/
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Fred Hoyle followup (ignore if redundant)
Date: 27 Aug 92 15:03:48 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <9208211327.AA28302@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov> jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker) writes:
|
|	Fred Hoyle is a noted, nay, famous British astronomer and not
|a hack, nosirree.  I believe his expertise is radio astronomy, yet he
|became most noted for the "other" theory of the Universe, the "steady-
|state" theory, which basically stated:

Yep, he is a famous radio astronomer.  Outside of that restricted field
he is a total chowder-head.  He knows *nothing* of biology, and his spewings
on that subject are obviously out in left field to anyone who knows any
biology.

|	The Universe had no beginning and no End, and matter was 
|created spontaneously to keep the process going.  Because of the vast
|volume of Space, just a few hydrogen atoms coming into existence 
|spontaneously kept the process rolling.

And this shows that even in his chosen field he can be a little flaky.
A theory which postulates an unknown physical process is supposed to be
taken seriously??


-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Logic and God and Drew...
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 16:22:26 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.184329.13115@hemlock.cray.com>, robd@cherry09 (Robert
Derrick) writes:
> The Religious accept science only when forced to by inescapable evidence,
> and then only when much time has passed.

  I will try not to take that personally.  (Perhaps "Religious" shoudl be
rephrased).

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout)
Subject: Re: The rise of consciousness
Keywords: brain,evolution,consciousness
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 23:42:55 GMT

I wrote
>>> But noise introduced into a system cannot be the cause of a sophisticated 
>>> end product such as consciousness.

weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>>Edelman would, I suspect, say that you have the whole process backwards --
>>the noise is initially ALL that there is, and the "sophisticated end
>>product" is explicable in precisely the same way as the "marvellous design"
>>of biological species.

>mls@cbnewsm (mike.siemon) added
>And there's a growing body of evidence (Freeman? at UCB, plus many others)
>that chaos plays a central role in our brains, from storing memories to
>controlling our level of consciousness.

White noise and chaos caused by the behaviour of nonlinear equations 
are not equivalent.  The later contains information.  Evolution is
possible not because the entire universe consists of white noise but
because there are pockets of chaos in the system.  One can have chaos
just as well in vlsi/computer networks or in neural networks (artificial or
real).  There are precise mathematical descriptions of both white noise
and chaos.  White noise is completely uniform random distribution. Chaos
is not.  One cannot get anything out of white noise.  There is complete
lack of informational content and anything filtered out would simply
reflect the filter and not the source.

Analog signal processing is less reliable than digital not because of
chaos (because both can display it) but because of the introduction of
white noise.

>Your enthusiasm, Eli, is advancing faster than your reading.  I'd catch up
>on chaos theory before arguing about what noise really means.

Witty put-downs without lack of informational content often infer more
about the originator's state of mind than the intended subject. I suspect
that you are a bit out of your league when it comes to information
processing as I would readily admit I am when it comes to biology.

>-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
--
Eli Chiprout
Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
emc@doe.carleton.ca
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Date: 1 Sep 92 14:06:59 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)

In article <1992Sep1.051231.12284@cbnewsm.cb.att.com>, mls@cbnewsm (mike.siemon) writes:
>Ted's dragging in of race is utterly specious, as that has nothing to
>do with language in any case.  Race is an incoherent notion anyway,
>except insofar as it explicates the social stratifications of a culture
>that uses that or other us-vs-them categories.

Amazing.  The stopped clock had one iota of correctness in his posting,
and you berate him for this, not for his ridiculous misapplication.

Race is not incoherent.  It is not well-defined, it is frequently abused,
but it is no more incoherent than language itself.  And beyond these same
generic properties, there *are* strong connections between language and
race.  That was one of my points about how the facts of human evolution
are becoming a necessary part of modern linguistics.  See the references:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cavalli-Sforza, Piazza, Menozzi, Mountain "Reconstruction of Human Evolu-
tion: Bringing Together Genetic, Archaelogical and Linguistic Data" PNAS
85 (1988), 6002-6.

Barbujani and Sokal "Zones of Sharp Genetic Change in Europe are also
Linguistic Boundaries" PNAS 87 (1990), 1816-9.

Excoffier, Pellegrini, Sanchez-Mazas, Simon, Langanay "Genetics and
History of Sub-Saharan Africa" YEARBOOK PHYS. ANTHRO. 30 (1987) 151-94.

O'Grady, Goddard, Bateman, Dimichele, Funk, Kress, Mooi, Cannell "Genes
and Tongues" SCIENCE 243 (1989), p1651.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Creative speculation on outrageous chance
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 22:41:20 GMT

In article <960@tdat.teradata.COM>, swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
> Still, I think he is reading too much into this.  We have not really been
> able (yet) to search outside of our Solar System very effectively.

  Wer haven't really done a very good job withing our solar system.  The only
place outside of Earth where we have done any direct experiments to detect life
is Mars: and the viking experiments were woefully inadiquate.  Our search has
been so bad we may have been looking directly at "aliens" without even realizing
it ("oh, interesting rock formation!").

  All in all, I would put the probability that we have done anywhere near enough
work to tell if life exists elswhere at about zero.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: White skin-how did it develop?
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 16:41:53 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.230539.8742@cco.caltech.edu>, keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith
Allan Schneider) writes:
> markwc@barney.esl.com (Mark Christiansen) writes:
> world), then you'd get a much different answer.  The Bible is nothing more
> than a collection of the early Jewish Mythology.  You will find many similar

  Uh, perhaps you should rephrase that "Genesis and possibly Exodus are . . .". 
The Bible contains alot of historical records and propheseys and songs even if
you restrict yourself to the OT.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 16:43:31 GMT

I wrote:
>>Okay.  Can we agree on this formula:
>>
>>The evolution side cannot draw an *inescapable* conclusion, but it can draw a
>>conclusion that is really extremely difficult to escape from without ignoring
>>vast amounts of data, or the real world as a whole.
>>
>>The creation side cannot draw an inescapable conclusion too, and the only
>>conclusion it can draw is one that is very simple to escape from, for example by
>>not believing that the Bible is meant literally or not believing that it was
>>written by God.

Joseph Duffy writes:
>(I want to stress that were talking about the unrepeatable event of the
>past that was the beginning of life as we now know it.)

Oops.  I'm sorry.  I heard this "no side can know exactly" thing on t.o
several times applied to *evolution* (not abiogenesis), and I responded
automatically when I found this new formulation, without looking at the
circumstances.  Here it is less applicable.
I take that back and apologize for not listening.

>Doe's the evolution
>side have vast amounts of data to indicate how this could have occured ?
>(Please follow my logic, I don't want to be accused of things such as inability
>of one side to produce evidence automatically makes the other side the winner.)
>
>I've heard that some noted scientists such as Francis Crick codiscoverer
>of DNA think that life could have developed elsewhere and then "flew" to
>earth.(Directed panspermia?)

If you asked me if I think that life *could have* done that, I'd say yes too.
But I don't believe it *did*.  That's how scientists are.

>I only bring this up to question the certainty
>in the scientific community of the mechanisms by which life began. In other
>words do we have an established view of this that is "really extremely
>difficult" to escape from?

I don't know that.

(comments that make no sense anymore in the light of my misunderstanding above
omitted)

>Just my thoughts, no dogmatism intended.

I didn't see any signs of it anyway.

-- 
thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany
Science is like democracy - it's not perfect, but it's the best thing available.
Newsgroups: talk.origins