HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Real issues for Antti
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 18:12:04 GMT

corey@sdf.lonestar.org (Corey Carroll) writes:
>Good point, Antti, but it could you explain to me how land plants
>and fish could have survived without the warmth of the sun's
>rays?  Surely decreased visibility would have affected the
>earth's biota to some extent, right?  After all, plants need
>sunlight to photosynthesize so the fish can eat them, right?

	Right ! I think they survive in the cloudy days as well as cloudless.
	(there wasn't obviously TOTAL DARKNESS on earth).     
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
From: skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Corrupt archives?
Keywords: archives
Date: 2 Oct 92 19:57:32 GMT
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
>>Looking at these differences, it appears that bedlam is 'short'; the
>>other four have subtle errors (but hey, it's just a couple of bits
>>out of all that data - I'm sure it doesn't matter :-))) ).
>
>I have trouble convincing people on talk.origins that a little
>error is a dangerous thing. (Cf mutations.)

Probably because the DNA coding scheme is much more flexible to change than
computer processors.

>Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)


|======================================================================|
| Seth Kroger                       "If God made us in His image we    |
| skroger@pan.calpoly.edu               have certianly returned the    |
| Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo             compliment."  -Voltaire        |
From: mrl@st-andrews.ac.uk (  Michael Ladomery)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Archeopterix revisited
Date: 27 Sep 92 16:40:09 GMT
Organization: St. Andrews University, Scotland.

In article <7080@tekig7.PEN.TEK.COM> bobb@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM (Robert W Bales) writes:
>
>Just as it takes more than a bald assertion to impeach an intermediate form, it
>takes more than a bald assertion to establish an intermediate form.

Given the general features of birds,
Given the general features of reptiles,
and given the features of Archaeopteryx,
kindly explain why suggesting Archaeopteryx to be 'intermediate'
is a bald assertion.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: gmartin@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (George Martin)
Subject: Re: Let the Games Begin! (Ted Reposts his stuff)
Summary: Who is Robert Bass?
Organization: NRAO
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 92 06:06:29 GMT

In article <34@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>In article <Bv377E.32q@encore.com>, bseymour@encore.com (Burch Seymour) writes:
> 
>> It doesn't take a lot of physics to see gaping holes in his logic. Start
>> above. How does Ted draw the line between what "physics IS elegant" at,
>> and what it is not? We can send a space probe through the solar system
>> with the utmost precision, yet he claims the Earth orbited a different
>> star just a few thousand years ago and that modern astronomers/physicists
>> are too stupid to realize that.
>
>In the case of astronomers, taken as a group, I have to agree with you;
>they ARE too stupid to realize that.  I shall post my good compendium 
>of astronomer jokes shortly.

Astronomers like to laugh at themselves if the jokes have any
intelligence behind them.  I hope you won't be re-casting a bunch
of lame lawyer jokes.  However I will look forward to them.

>
>In the case of physicists, a number of the really good ones support 
>Velikovsky.  Take Robert Bass for instance.  Bass was one of the best if
>not THE best astrophysicist of our age, a Rhodes scholar, student
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HUH?
>of Aurel Wintner and of Seymour Lipschutz.  I've posted the abstract
>of his famous paper regarding Velikovskian Venus scenarios before,
>I'll post it again shortly.
>

Ah yes Robert Bass.  Early in the summer a year ago (1991) you
cited him.  I actually spent some time trying to look him up.  The
best I could tell was that it was likely that he died in the late 70's
or early 80's.  Other than your prejudiced recommendation he does
not seem to have much of a lasting influence in astropyhsics.  Not
one paper is mentioned in Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts which
started in 1969.  No papers published in the Astrophysical Journal
or the Astronomical Journal or Nature or Science that I could find
back to around 1950.  Did he ever publish anyplace other than Pensee?
(Searches in all of the above went back earlier than 1950 but may
have not been complete.)

Besides I thought then you were citing him as an expert in celestial
mechanics.  That is a quite different field than astrophysics.  Why
do you think Hale started the Astrophysical Journal anyway?
>
>-- 
>Ted Holden
>HTE
>


-- 
George Martin
Systems Analyst                     NRAO/VLA                  Socorro NM
Internet: gmartin@something.aoc.nrao.edu
"Skating away on the thin ice of the new day."  (Ian Anderson)
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Friesen on elastics and sauropod necks
Date: 5 Oct 92 23:46:05 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit


Oops, apparently dead.letter had a bit more in it than I realized.
Sorry about the junk on the end of the previous post.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Evolution Exhibits
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Date: 6 Oct 1992 00:02 MST  
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1992Oct5.095644.17818@s1.gov>, lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes...
> 
>	I discovered an interesting evolution exhibit at the
>California Academy of Sciences museum in Golden Gate Park in San
>Francisco.
> 
>	Part of it had some dinosaur skeletons (of course!), but there
>was one interesting computerized display, or rather, set of them. It
>showed evolutionary family trees, which one could climb by clicking on
>the branch ends shown on a screen. One could also click on a
>magnifying glass to display significant features of branches, such as
>the evolution of wings or a distinct larval stage in insects. Much of
>it was on the animal kingdom, though they did present a bit on
>bacteria (I didn't have time to look at the whole thing).

There's a critique of one of the exhibits in the latest issue of _Origins
Research_.  Of the four or five criticisms offered, I agreed with one or
two.  (The one I remember is that a display of family trees which had
the present at the top and past towards the bottom placed some
fossils nearer to the bottom which were much younger than others nearer
to the top.)

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
From: gascan@dcst16.dc (Bill Gascoyne)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Creationist CRAPOLA!
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:14:30 GMT
Reply-To: gascan@dcst16.dc
Organization: LSI Logic Corporation

In article 24899@city.cs, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
> 
> All it shows is that different forms of life appear in the
> fossil record at different _layers_!
> 
> As to the interpretation of that, evo's say its because of
> evo, but an equally if not more valid interpretation is that
> of hydrological sorting in the flood.
>

Please give evidence to support the claim that your interpretation is anywhere
near equally valid.

---
1. Bill Gascoyne
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Differing accounts of creation in Genesis
Date: 30 Sep 92 19:38:21 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)

In article <1992Sep28.013015.23071@trl.oz.au>, jbm@hal (Jacques Guy) writes:
>>			     Temporal sequence is thus ambiguous.

>Temporal sequences are not ambiguous. They are expressed by what
>is called in Hebrew grammars the "consecutive vav". This is the
>conjunction "ve" regularly translated in the KJV by "and",
>prefixed to the verb in the imperfective.

All a consecutive vav does (without context) is give perfective meaning
to imperfective forms.  Temporal sequence still has to be inferred.  It
is true that "then" is often a better translation than KJV "and", but
that's English for you.

>					   I do not have my 
>bilingual OT here, but I'd bet that "and brought" in the above
>quote is a consecutive vav construction.

It is.  (Gen 2:19).
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
From: jani.patokallio%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Jani Patokallio) 
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Antti's File of "Nonr
Date: 24 Sep 92 17:36:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Advanced Computer Concepts BBS, New Rochelle, NY 914-654-1981
Reply-To: jani.patokallio%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Jani Patokallio) 

-> Is there anyone out there who knows if AS is any more lucid in Finnish?
-> 
-> Because he seems to be completely missing the boat in using English for
-> his weapon.  I find it more than a little difficult to respond to anything
-> he writes because it is uniformly non-sequitor.  Giving him the benefit
-> of the doubt, maybe it is just the language barrier.
-> 
-> Maybe he could post in Finnish and someone could translate.  It couldn't
-> be any worse than this.

If you're serious about this, I'll volunteer my services...  Unless someone
in Finland could do it and thus cut down on the time between the posting of
the original and the translation, I'm in the US and it takes approx two
days for mail from Finland to get here.

No Antti, kiinnostaako ta"ma" idea?  (Systeemini ei pida" a"sta" ja o"sta")

--
Jani Patokallio                  | Amateur translator fluent in Finnish,
acc1bbs!jani.patokallio@ssr.com  | English, French and Spanish for hire

---
 . AME 1.07 . Apes evolved from creationists.
            
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Real issues for Antti
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:41:58 GMT

cust_ts@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Tero Sand) writes:
>1. The fish refers to the visibility of the sun? I'm serious. If you
>wanted to answer just one question, you could've edited the remainder
>out.

	I know that the original meaning of this word refers to visibility and
	nothing else. 
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: prl@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter Lamb)
Subject: Re: Holden and probability
Organization: CSIRO Division of Information Technology
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 23:10:09 GMT

throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:


>( My statistics is rusty... I'd appreciate any corrections or
>  refinements to the above points by other t.o. denizens.   Certainly
>  I'd love to see Ted support the 1/64 figure with the assumptions and
>  calculations he (Rose) uses to arrive at it.  )

I can give you Rose's "calculations".

	"The chances of having seven randomly-placed continental masses
	 all turn up in the same hemisphere -- let alone be clumped
	 together! -- are the same as having either all tails or all
	 heads on seven consecutive tosses of a coin: that is one in
	 2^6, or one in 64. Odds of 63 to one represent a formidable
	 problem for the proponents of Pangaea."
		Rose, "The Afar Triangle As the Nether Reaches of
			Eden and Babel", Aeon, VII, n4, pp5-28.

There is no further discussion of the assumptions which back Rose's
"calculation" of the probability in his Aeon article.

-- 
Peter Lamb (prl@csis.dit.csiro.au)
From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Deja Vu all over again
Date: 6 Oct 92 06:03:38 GMT
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link



jani.patokallio%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Jani Patokallio) writes:
>Evolution does not directly disprove God.  The existence of God would not
>disprove evolution either.  However, the two theories are indirectly in
>conflict.  If the theory of evolution is correct, then a major portion of
>Genesis gets wrecked.  If God exists, the theory of evolution would need
>major revisions.  This is why evolutionists are rarely religious and
>creationists are never atheist.

This is ridiculous.  80% of the evolutionary scientists in the U.S. profess
to be Christian, according to a 1992 Newsweek poll.  What major revisions
would evolution need if God exists?  None.  In fact, if God exists and he
created the Earth 6000 years ago and tell us so, we could only ask why he
went out of his way to cover that fact up with synthesized evidences of
evolutionary processes.  Remember, science is not "Truth", it is merely the
best explanations for the observed data under the assumption that they have
not been doctored by supernatural forces.

Keith
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger)
Subject: Re: Methinks it's like a weasel (Blind Watchmaker)
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1992 20:13:20 GMT

asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen) writes:
>bruce@supr.scm.liv.ac.uk (Bruce Stephens) writes:
>>You seem to be ignoring selection.  Dawkins quite clearly states that
>>his program uses selection, and discusses how this relates to natural
>>selection.  
>
>	He ignored it himself - correctly - in this case: When the life
>	was supposed to evolve there was no selection, just like you mix n 
>	chemicals - no selection.

Wrong, Antti.  He clearly states that when life evolved there WAS selection.
That was how life was even able to occur.  I would suggest that you stop
misrepresenting Dawkins and pulling probability figures out your posterior
in the future.

>		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint


|======================================================================|
| Seth Kroger                       "If God made us in His image we    |
| skroger@pan.calpoly.edu               have certianly returned the    |
| Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo             compliment."  -Voltaire        |
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: Dryopithecine fossil
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 09:47:06 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.174235.18587@news.nd.edu> scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu (Scharle) writes:
>    In a recent issue of Science, there is a review article and a
>research article about a dryopithecine fossil (Dryopithecus branchoi)
>which is possibly the most recent common ancestor of apes, 
                                                      ^^^^
>chimpanzees and humans yet found.  Apparently this is also evidence 
>for the idea that humans and chimps are more closely related to each 
>other than either is to gorillas.  Any comments from knowledgeable 
>people?

You meant gorillas, not apes, right?

Last week _The Washington Post_ carried a wire service dispatch on this 
find, but paragraphs on "what it all means" seemed somewhat garbled.
However, it would seem to be fossil evidence to confirm DNA hybridization
findings of Charles Sibley and Jon Ahlquist from 1984.

>    Science vol. 257, 25 September 1992
>    Ann Gibbon: Hungarian Fossils Stir Debate on Ape and Human
>Origins, pp. 1864-5

Her last name is Gibbons, not Gibbon (no joke).  I've been reading from one
of her earlier articles: "Our Chimp Cousins Get That Much Closer" from
_Science_ 250:376 (Thanks, Mickey).

>    D. R. Begun: Miocene Fossil Hominids and the Chimp-Human
>Clade, pp. 1929-33

Hominids or hominoids?  The former seems implausible.

-- Herb Huston
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard)
Subject: Re: Creationist CRAPOLA!
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 02:05:10 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.121140.24899@city.cs> lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
>All it shows is that different forms of life appear in the
>fossil record at different _layers_!
>
>As to the interpretation of that, evo's say its because of
>evo, but an equally if not more valid interpretation is that
>of hydrological sorting in the flood.

Are creationists willing to put this to the test? Construct a large pool
containing models of all the creatures found in the layers, churn the
water and see if they all settle out in the right order...

If its "creation science" then its time to start testing some of its
theories in the lab...
-- 
------          Join the Pythagorean Reform Church!               .
\    /        Repent of your evil irrational numbers             . .
 \  /   and bean eating ways. Accept 10 into your heart!        . . .
  \/   Call the Pythagorean Reform Church BBS at 508-793-9568  . . . .
    
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: Holden
Date: Sat, 03 Oct 92 23:09:19 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <n0adct@ofa123.fidonet.org> David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org writes:
>
>[...] Roger Squires is our kitchen help.
>

	And I'm proud!

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Why is it bad science? Was: Willfully Ignorant
Date: 27 Sep 92 17:29:22 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <b1Ss03tJ8eTL00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks) writes:
|
|This is my issue. Although I am not a scientist and cannot defend
|the highly technical creation science issues, it would help the issue
|if it was explained WHY creation science is bad science or no science
|at all. Some have sent me mail saying this is why they stop reading t.o.

This has, I am certain, been explained several times, but I will try again.

The *core* of science is the use of evidence to develope or modify a
*model* of how some part of the universe works.  In particular, it is
required that this evidence be *repeatable* and *independently*
*verifiable*.

An *unchanging* model is almost unheard of in science (the closest thing
I can think of to this is Relativity, and that is probably due to my
ignorance of physics, rather than a real stasis).

Thus, Creationism, with its pre-set, inviolable, model, and its requrement
that this model be retained in spite of *any* evidence, fails to even come
close to meeting the core requirements of science.

When one begins to see special pleading, or ad hoc explanations, this is
usually a bad sign, a sign of bad science.  This is as true in otherwise
respected disciplines within 'mainstream' science as it is for pseudo-
sciences like creationism.  When I see that a theory can only be maintained
in this way, I begin to *seriously* doubt it.  This is why the steady-state
theory of cosmology was rejected, this is why I tended to favor warm-blooded
dinosaurs long before the latest, essentially conclusive, evidence was
discovered (that is, I found many of the arguments *against* warm-blooded
dinosaurs to be of the ad hoc or special pleading variety).

When an entire field has *only* this sort of 'evidence', it seems reasonable
to conclude it is not really a science at all.  Thus, Creationism is
seen to be just thinly disguised religion.

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Atheistic creationism -- a tutorial
Date: 27 Sep 92 16:46:18 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Sep26.063123.5448@smds.com> rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
|In article <1992Sep23.174911.10360@wdl.loral.com> mab@wdl39.wdl.loral.com (Mark A Biggar) writes:
|>We have 5e6 breeding pairs (i'm ignoring gender so use snails) what is
|>the probability that we get a AB cross.  its about 5e6/(1e6^2) or
|>about 5e-6.  So it takes on average only 2e5 breeding seasons to get the 
|>combination you wanted.
|
|Nice try, but no cigar.  If it took 200,000 breeding seasons to effect
|one favorable change evolution would get nowhere slow.

Almost, it gets *somewhere* slow.  Hasn't it sunk in *yet*, evolution
*is* *slow*!  200,000 breeding seasons is, from an *evolutionary* time
scale, a mere *instant*, an unresolvable moment.  Ordinarily changes of
any significance occur on scales of *millions* of generations.
[BTW, 'genetic drift' effects in newly formed population isolates
derived from the 5e6 breeding pairs mentioned above can significantly
alter the time scale]

|It does not suffice to produce a single individual with the AB improvement.
|Consider the plight of such an individual.

Actually this is where the small isolated population becomses most important.
If this AB individual gets involved in a colonization event that includes
only (perhaps) a dozen or fewer other individuals, suddenly its chances of
reproduction go up, and what's more, it is virtually guarenteed that *several*
of its grandchildren will also be AB.  The combined trait is now, almost
automatically, a relatively common one, at least in this isolated population.
[This is a *brief* summary of the core of Ernst Mayr's peripatric speciation
model - it has been developed in considerable detail by Mayr and his
successors].

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: jtisdel@digi.lonestar.org (J. Michael Tisdel)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Real issues for Antti
Date: 29 Sep 92 15:26:13 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <1992Sep28.184330.19054@cs.joensuu.fi> asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen) writes:
>isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak) writes:
>>I propose a more basic quiz for Antti:  Accurately state the
>>theory of evolution by natural selection.  Briefly describe
>>at least four independent lines of evidence which support it.
>          --------------------------------------------------- 
>
>
>	Ha ha ! How can I answer such question, when I claim that there are 
>	no supporting lines of evidence at all !
>

Let me see if I've got this right -- you don't believe in evolution, therefore
you don't investigate it.  Therefore, all you know about it is what you hear
and from this hearsay, you have judged the theorey?

Now, come on.  If you are a biologist, you must have studied *something* about
evolution.  What was it?  Was it from this study that you rejected evolution or
did you come into biology prejudiced against evolution?


-- 
-----------------------------------\\\\\\\\\\\\\---------------------------
J. Michael Tisdel                   \\\\\\\\\\\\\ jtisdel@digi.lonestar.org
DSC Communications Corporation       \\\\\\\\\\\\\   ...!uunet!digi!jtisdel
1000 Coit Rd, MS 120, Plano Tx 75075  \\\\\\\\\\\\\        jmtisdel@aol.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Request for your favorite creationist words
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 23:55:01 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.062030.3959@cbnewsh.cb.att.com>, young@cbnewsh.cb.att.com
(young.u.huh) writes:
> "You can't prove that evolution is true either."
> "It takes just as much faith to believe in evolution."
> "You're only considering what you can observe with your limited senses."
> "You can't analyze it logically -- that's why you need faith."
> "It says so in [some ancient literature]."

  When I first saw this I though someone had posted forTun output.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************