HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Reply-To: hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: DESY ZEUS Central Data Acquisition
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 01:37:55 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.224052.3785@desire.wright.edu>,
sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
|>In article <953@tdat.teradata.COM>, swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
|>writes:
|>> In article <1992Aug21.203827.19533@SSD.intel.com>
|>jerryg@ssd.intel.com (Jerry Gaiser) writes:
|>> |In article <1992Aug21.132442@IASTATE.EDU> kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren
|>Vonroeschlaub) writes:
|>> |>Horses sleep on their feet, why not seismosaurs?
|>> |
|>> |Just a nit. Horses do sleep standing up, but it is not R.E.M.
|>sleep. ...
|>> |least one period of R.E.M. sleep and they get that by lying
|>completely down.
|>> |
|>> |Now back to your regular programming...
|>> 
|>> True enough, but I think *birds* do things differently, and I do not
|>know that
|>> I have ever seen a bird laying down to sleep (sitting on a nest is
|>not for
|>> sleeping, it is for uncubating eggs).
|>> 
|>
|>Birds squat down, tuck a head under a wing and sleep.

Except for the Nowegian blue Parrot, they like kipping on their backs,
especialy when tired out after a long squark.

Anyone want to give the HN for a Norwegian Blue?


Phill
Xref: sparky talk.origins:10861 sci.skeptic:15916
From: ed_eck@milkwy.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Shroud exposed at early date (Tim O'Neill)
Date: 4 Sep 92 18:07:59 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


In article <1992Sep4.152038.2120@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath) writes...
>In article <LEET.92Sep1095317@dove.ims.com>, 
leet@ims.com (Lee Thomas) writes in part:
>|> 
>|> Heller gives the following results to show that the "blood" is
>|> really blood 

    [...]

>-- 
>  Robert E. McGrath
>  Urbana Illinois
>  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu

Additionally, from the pictures I've seen, the shroud "blood" is red.

Dried blood is brown.

E.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard)
Subject: Evolution board game
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 01:49:28 GMT

What do people think of making an evolution board game :-)

Have a playing board with a bunch of squares, you and your opponent get a
pile of creature markers. For each creature you have a stack of ability card
each of which comes with its benefits and penalties. You get to move your
creatures around to eat the randomly placed food (or opponents creatures),
once they get enough food you can mate two of your creatures. The mating
produces a child with a random mixture of the parents traits. You then
get to roll for a mutation if you want, which will give you a new trait
card these can either be good or bad (most will be bad or fatal). Of course
if you get a good trait then you can mate your creature to pass it on.
The player who has the last creature left wins.

Trait card
+-----------------------------------+
|          Name of trait            |
|          Benefits (if any)        |
|          Penalties (if any)       |
+-----------------------------------+

+--------------------------------+
|           Claws                |
|     +2 to eat opponent         |
+--------------------------------+

+--------------------------------+
|           Shell                |
|     +3 defense                 |
|     +1 energy consumption      |
+--------------------------------+

etc.
-- 
>>Unix/C Contract worker available 5 years C/unix work experience<<  ______
Available for Telecommuting/Travel and contracts on the T Line       \    /
in the Boston MA area. Send me e-mail for a copy of my Resume.        \  /
       -- VWIS 508-793-9568 (2400 baud), Linux support BBS.--          \/
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: White skin-how did it develope?
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 05:00:08 GMT



Lionel Tun writes:
>We have already established that
>evolution has no scientific basis and is merely a
>system of belief. A recent post by someone on the book
>`In the beginning' confirms this.

Are you also willing to admit that creationism has no scientific basis
and is merely a "system of belief"?

>How strange. I thought evolutionists reckoned that all humans alive
>today are descended from a pair of ape-men from the distant past.
>Creationists believe all humans today are descended from Adam and
>Eve. Are the two approaches so different that you can brand one as
>impossible?

Yes, the difference is several million years, without which an
evolutionary process far more rapid than is supportable by any
evidence would have to have occurred.

Keith

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: prl@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter Lamb)
Subject: If Adam had taken a rock ...
Summary: A gedankenexperiment for creationists
Organization: CSIRO Division of Information Technology
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 13:15:41 GMT

If Adam had taken a rock (let's say a nice chunk of granite) down to the
East of Eden Radiological Labs and had an Rb/Sr isochron date done on it,
what would the result have looked like?

Any creationists out there like to try this one?


-- 
Peter Lamb (prl@csis.dit.csiro.au)
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Date: 1 Sep 92 02:49:04 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <1992Aug29.154509@IASTATE.EDU*, kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:
 
* > This wouldn't work for a sauropod or any straight-legged creature or any
* > creature with knees facing forwards for obvious reasons, and it doesn't even
* > work for an ostrich.
 
* 1) Just because it doesn't work for a ostrich doesn't mean it couldn't.
* 2) If the knee has to be facing backwards, just run the tendon along the other
* side of the leg for forward facing knees.

Realistically, i suspect the joint behind which the tendon runs would likely
correspond to our heel.  I can't imagine a tendon running in front of a
mammal or mammal-like creature's knee.

* > Dinosaurs were mostly of two basic types, birdlike which included even the
* > tyrannosaur, and sauropod or sauropod-like, which were either mammals
* > outright as Dr. Velikovsky claimed, or were very similar to mammals.
 
*   Ah, yes.  Well we should always trust Dr. Velikovsky's opinions in biology. 
* What was his doctorate in again?

Psychiatry, under one of Freud's top students.  In those days, you still had
well-rounded and multi-faceted people in academia.  My understanding is that
Velikovsky and Albert Einstein used to sort of run the Prussian Scientific
Academy...  The only way I can picture Carl Sagan, Harlow Shapeley, or a 
number of Velikovsky's other prominent critics getting INTO the Prussian
Scientific Academy would be through the servants' entrance as janitors.


* > The idea that sleeping "like a bird" would come naturally to a sauropod
* > is idiotic for obvious reasons.
* 
*   Humor me: what reasons are so obvious?

The sauropods were graviportal, as are elephants now.  Their entire physiology
was designed to support weight.  The legs went straight up and down.  Any bend
in the knees of the sort which allows birds to sleep the way they do would
cause the creature to collapse.



-- 
Ted Holden
HTE
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: A False Dichotomy
Date: 3 Sep 92 19:51:59 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Sep2.153204.24035@asl.dl.nec.com> duffy@aslss02.asl.dl.nec.com (Joseph Duffy) writes:
|>
|>This is a false dichotomy.  Complex things are produced by (a) natural
|>abiological processes, e.g. snowflakes, the Grand Canyon, (b) by
|>intelligent intervention, e.g. the Pyramids, and (c) biological processes
|>not requiring intelligence, e.g. a cell reproducing or someone posting
|>to talk.origins.
|>
|
|I specifically said things of mechanistic complexity such as a V-8 engine
|McFly.Also note that we're talking about the origin of the *first* cell. Which
|category a,b, or c do you put that in?

The point is that, at our present state of knowledge, *we* *don't* *know*!
On the basis of recent (last two centuries) history, we feel justified
in tentatively assuming it will turn out to be (a) when we figure it out,
since that is how all similar unknowns have turned out in that time frame.

|>  If I
|>find a living cell where no living cell has gone before I can infer
|>diddly squat. 
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^
|
|Is "diddly squat" a synonym for "natural process"?

No, it is a synonym for "I don't know".
But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is absurd to *rule*
*out* "natural process" simply on the basis of ignorance.

|>It may be complex but it does not bear the stigmata
|>of an artifact.

Do you understand what he meant here?
This is one of the key points!
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider)
Subject: Re: Evol & God : CANNOT Co-exist!
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 02:00:47 GMT

vnelson@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gerald Vernon Nelson) writes:

>In <1992Aug27.125924.21174@linus.mitre.org> m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:

>>In article <1992Aug27.050110.21622@ccu.umanitoba.ca> vnelson@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gerald Vernon Nelson) writes:
>>}All life on this planet can only have a single point of origin.

>>Why?
> What caused the origin of the very first cell?
> Did God make the first cell?  Yes or No?  It is a binary question.
> 
> You cannot answer, god did, but it did it by itself too.

> God and evolution are contradicting theories.

The theory of evolution does not have to include the origins of life.
Evolution deals with natural selection, etc., and is not concerned with
how the first cell developed--only concerned with how that cell evolved.

keith
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Thursday, 3 Sep 1992 16:48:49 CDT
From: <U19807@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Creationism Philosophy (was: White skin--how)?
 <1992Aug31.205727.18111@aurora.com>
 <1992Sep3.025536.22852@random.ccs.northeastern.edu>

In article <1992Sep3.025536.22852@random.ccs.northeastern.edu>,
rogue@ccs.northeastern.edu (Free Radical) says:
>
>>In article <1992Aug25.102900.9620@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
>>writes:
>>
>>> Apartheid, racism, bullying etc are man-made evils. The
>>> rejection of God and man's decision not to obey God's
>>> will are the major contributors to this sorry state of
>>> the world. Where is `love your neighbour' in the
>>> evolutionary philosophy?
>
>But many very religious people are racists and supporters of
>apartheid.  Ever hear of the Church of Jesus Christ, Christian?
>They're also known as Aryan Nations.  And many South African
>apartheidists (?) strongly believe in the Bible.

If I remember correctly,the local (white) branch of the Reformed
Church was quite approving of Apartheid policies,meaning that they
were about as happy to accept Apartheid's pseudoscientific methods
of racial classification as Lionel's non-existent racist "evolutionists"
would be.

You don't even have to pile on the additional evidence of religious justi-
fications for slavery in the U.S.,religiously motivated forms of anti-semitism,
religiously motivated forms of justification for the Armenian/Azeri war in
the former Soviet Union,etc.,to prove that being pious is not identical with
being a humanitarian.

>You may argue it's not _your_ version of God they worship.  But to say
>they're 'rejecting' God is getting into a religious debate, which I'd
>rather not enter in to.

Hmmmmm. Interesting point,as it brings up the following question:

Recently,quite a few fundamentalists have been known to attack any denomi-
nation which they feel is not "Christian" enough when that denomination's
teachings differ from theirs. That being said,I have to wonder how
Lionel's gonna deal with the fact that some Christian denominations
don't try to force Creationism down the collective throats of their followers
right off the bat.

      ** Chris Krolczyk,esq.  * DISCLAIMER: My opinions are in **
      ** Maniac-at-Large      * no way endorsed by the Univer- **
      ** U19807@UICVM.BITNET  * sity of Illinois at Chicago.   **
      ** u19807@uicvm.uic.edu * So there. Nyaah.               **
From: ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Arun K. Gupta)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: behavior and evolution
Date: 25 Aug 92 16:42:59 GMT
Organization: Physics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


>From: julian@fraser.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock)
>Subject: Re: behavior and evolution
>Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 00:15:05 GMT
>
>
>>>But we accept a lot of events not scientificlly demonstrable in our
>>>live: My girlfriend loves me, if I did not accet this without
>>>reproducible evidence I would be a poor human being,
>
>>If she stopped speaking warmly with you, spending time with you, doing
>>little things for you, showing that she cares, and so on and so on, but
>>instead ditched all this into complete zero, and you went on saying that
>>you know she really loves you, she's just not showing it anymore, we'd
>>consider you stupid and gullible and being set up for a long hard fall.
>i
>I thought someone would reply thusly... but what if she has to
>go away on ajourney and cannot communicate with me for a long time?
>DO I assume "Oh, she does not love me any more"? My point is that it
>is not the reproducibility of the "acts of  love" that convince me of
>her love, they just naturally follow. Even without them I can
>trust her (or not perhaps) depending on our past history. Science can
>only show us part of the picture of our lives (and the world's).
>There is no reason to think that it exhausts the set of experiences
>and/or objects in the universe, to do so is simply an arrogant
>belief that one part of human creativity will describe everything.
>
>
>julian


The same holds for your question of what lies beyond the horizon.
Simply because we can't communicate with what lies beyond the horizon
is no reason to suppose that the laws of physics gets suspended there,
nor does it give any reason to suppose that there is then need for
something else, beyond physics, needed to explain the universe.

-arun gupta
ag3L@andrew.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Organization: AT&T
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 18:38:10 GMT
Summary: wrong on both counts

In article <1992Aug31.154733.18325@cs.joensuu.fi>, asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen) writes:
> weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:

> >In answer to the question of how biological evolution is important to
> >linguistics of all subjects, I know of two.  One is the question of the
> >origin of language itself.  The second is the origin of the variety of
> >languages.

> 	You ignore the fact that languages have developed to simpler forms 
> 	not more complicated as the so-called evolution "theory" claims. 

Both of Andreas' claims are false, and neither makes any contact with
the points Matthew made.  There is no known overall measure of language
"complexity" for natural languages, and by and large they all seem much
the same -- languages with simple inflectional morphology, for example
Enlish, tending to great complexity in word order syntax.  There is,
furthermore, no overall tendency (despite popular statements to the
contrary) for languages to move towards simpler inflections (which is
what I suppose Andreas to have in mind in the first claim.)  More
importantly, evolutionary theory makes no claim that development must
be towards greater complexity.  Rather, there is a more subtle constraint
-- evolutionary theory DOES suggest that variety increases (as species
emerge from previously interbreeding populations) which can prepare for
and allow a greater range of complexity among species.  If you start
out simple, and generate varieties that can reproduce, then you MAY
(perhaps with a high probability, in fact) find complexity in later
generations -- but that is not *necessarily* the case, however likely
it may be.

About the evolutionary origins of language, Edelman has some interesting
notions (see his _Bright Air, Brilliant Fire_ popularization of "neural
Darwinism") about the neural structures preadapting towards language,
and the general course of vertebrate mental evolution.  The origins of
linguistic variety are a good example of what Edelman terms population
or Darwinian subjects -- there is a basic variation in individual human
language use which is operated on by selective/adaptive constraints
(in this case, communication) and the spread of successful variants.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		The Son of Man has come eating and drinking;
				and you say "Behold, a glutton and a drunkard,
mls@usl.com			a friend of tax collectors and sinners."  And
standard disclaimer		yet, Wisdom is justified by all her children.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: macroevolution
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 16:12:40 GMT

ford@hpmcaa (Dan Ford) writes:

>  If I were you, I would reach for my asbestos suit.  Your comments
>are uninformed, naive, and arrogant.  Such behavior is not taken lightly
>by this group.

	And yours are not ?

>  Is it so hard to get a few facts first before spouting such ignorance?

	What facts ?

>What did you say?  Oh, you did get the faq's! so you admit it's pure
>unadulterated destructive criticism that you offer, no intent to carry on
>a rational, polite discussion where all parties benefit?

	I would love that idea, but sometimes it only seems people are not 
	mature for it. 
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
Xref: sparky talk.origins:10811 alt.atheism:16481
From: pepke@ds1.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: worthless comic strips
Keywords: creationist propaganda
Date: 3 Sep 92 21:52:24 GMT
Reply-To: pepke@ds1.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Followup-To: talk.origins
Organization: Florida State University, but I don't speak for them

In article <1992Sep2.143847@IASTATE.EDU> danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:
>or evangelical propaganda on the comics pages?  How long has B.C.
>been pulling this stuff?

Well, B.C. has *always* has contemporary hominids and dinosuars.

-EMP
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: Evolution board game
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 04:55:20 GMT


Lawrence C. Foard writes:
>Have a playing board with a bunch of squares, you and your opponent get a
>pile of creature markers. For each creature you have a stack of ability card
>each of which comes with its benefits and penalties. You get to move your
>creatures around to eat the randomly placed food (or opponents creatures),
>once they get enough food you can mate two of your creatures. The mating
>produces a child with a random mixture of the parents traits. You then
>get to roll for a mutation if you want, which will give you a new trait
>card these can either be good or bad (most will be bad or fatal). Of course
>if you get a good trait then you can mate your creature to pass it on.
>The player who has the last creature left wins.

Nawww.  There's no player skill involved, it'd be completely deterministic
beyond the random elements.  (Hey, maybe we're on to something here... :-)


Keith
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Logic and God and Vern...
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 19:19:03 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.015019.25683@ccu.umanitoba.ca>, vnelson@ccu.umanitoba.ca
(Gerald Vernon Nelson) writes:
> In <94541@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
> 
> >Also, can you back up your repeated assertion that "evolutionists"
> >take this one step further and say "... so therefore there is no
> >god." I haven't seen anybody on t.o. say that. I haven't seen
> >any evolutionary biologists say that. I (a grad student studying
> >evolutionary biology) don't claim that. I've never seen a text
> >in the field make this claim. Where are these phantom hoards of 
> >people arguing in this manner?
> 
> I'm one, and proud of it.  I was raised without religious bias
> and the idea of evolution co-existing with god is an atrocity.
> 
> All of the evidence you agree to is mutually exclusive to the 
> concept of god.  How can someone cling to such an idea?
> It is shown again and again, that things just didn't happen
> as depicted in the Bible, yet people stubbornly believe the
> general idea, there is a god, and he created all life.

   And the fallacies are...   ...drumroll...    ...(the evelope please)...

   (I) Literal interpretation of the bible is the right way to do it.
       Inspired figurative interpretation doesn't clash with evolution
       anywhere near as much.  Maybe not at all.

   (II) Confusion of "God" with the specific God described in the Christian
        beleif systems.

   (III) God, as a concept, is suseptable to evidence.  It need not be.
         Mind you _I_ don't believe in any God because of lack of evidence
         but I am forced to acknowledge this is an essentially religious 
         decision, a choice of axioms, an assumption, to wit: evidence and
         reason are paramount.

> Vern Nelson

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
From: kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Proof: God wrote the Bible
Date: 1 Sep 92 18:08:46 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In article <1802piINN1oh@sixgun.East.Sun.COM> fritz@triguy.East.Sun.COM writes:
>In article 9371@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu, kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu writes:
> Moral:  One can come up with all sorts of gibberish concerning patterns in a
> 	book if that book is hefty enough.
> 
> I'm sure there are people out there who can give better examples of this.  (I'm
> working off the top of my head.)
>
>Martin Garden(er?)'s book _Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus_ contains
>an interesting essay on this sort of numerological dreak.  It 
>describes just how easy it is to come up with these sorts of
>amazing coincidences.  He uses the example of Pyrimidologists how,
>by measure various distances inside the pyrimids could "proof"
>the that builders of the pyrimids predicted every important event
>in modern history.
>
>He then describes how he had measured the Washington Monument
>and found all sorts of amazing predictions.

I thought the Washington Monument was intentionally built to certain specifi-
cations that would be a numerologist's dream.  Isn't it 555 ft. high amongst
its other stats?

>
>Steve Fritzinger   --  steve.fritzinger@East.Sun.COM
>The First Rule of Holes:
>When you're in one, stop digging.


--
*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"    *
Xref: sparky talk.origins:10380 sci.skeptic:15404 sci.bio:3046