HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: adpeters@sunflower.bio.indiana.edu (Andy Peters)
Subject: Re: The evolution of sexes
Organization: Program in Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior, Indiana University
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 20:27:23 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.171307.2233@news.nd.edu> scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu (Scharle) writes:
>
>    In the July 17 issue of Science (pages 324 & 326) there is an
>article titled "The Evolution of Sexes", which reports on a novel theory.
>Not being a scientist, I will not dare to summarize the article.  Are there 
>any biologists who would care to comment on the theory?

I'm in the process of reading the original papers right now.

In my opinion, this is a great theory.  The basic premise is that conflict
between organelle genomes of different parents will lead to two, and only
two, sexes in sexual organisms.  This is because zygotes which do not
have two sets of "competing" organelle genomes will do better than those
which do - therefore two types of individual will evolve - those which
donate their organelles and those which do not.  This is a great start
for anisogamy, and it will always lead to two sexes.

I'm not sure if Hurst & Hamilton (the original authors) deal with those
sexual eukaryotes which don't have organelles; it would be interesting
to see what happens there.

Again, I think this is a great theory.

The original references are:

Hurst, L. D., and W. D. Hamilton.  1992.  Cytoplasmic fusion and the
   nature of sexes.  Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 247.  189-194.

Hurst, L. D.  1992.  Intergenomic conflict as an evolutionary force.
   Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 248.  135-140.

>Tom Scharle                |cm65n6@irishmvs(Bitnet)

-- 
* Andy Peters                     * "Evolution . . . does not support     *
* Program in Evolution,           * atheism, Marxism, or fascism any more *
*      Ecology, and Behavior      * than mathematics is a plank of the    *
* Indiana University, Bloomington * Republican Party" -Dr. Mark Wilson    *
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com
Subject: Re: Elements for Life was Re: stars & carbon
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 02:14:49 GMT

In article <salem.711858513@pangea.Stanford.EDU> salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem) writes:
>The discussion about heavy element ("Metals" >He) production
>and dispersion into the intersteller medium reminds me that
>life, as we know it, consists primarily of the commonist
>elements in the universe, not the rarest. If life were
>so special, then why would it not rely on Gold, or some
>other rare element, not Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen,
>and other common elements lighter than Iron? I think that
>the reason is clear, life is not special, it evolved from
>the properties of substances here in abundance.

>What properties would allow other elements to form the
>basis for life under different circumstances. The Sci
>Fi writers like to chide us for our "Carbon Bias"

My college chemistry book has a chapter on the special role of carbon, and
they also discuss the elements adjacent to it (boron, nitrogen and silicon)
as whether life could be based on them instead of carbon.

The conclusion of the section:

Each of the neighboring elements of carbon is unable to do the things that make
carbon so important: to build long stable chains with branching, cross-linking,
and double bonds, and rings with delocalized electrons. Boron is forced into an
unfavorable geometry by its deficiency of electrons and cannot overlap p
orbitals to make double bonds.  Although N occasionally can replace C in carbon
rings and chains, and can form double bonds as easily as carbon can, long
chains of nitrogen atoms are unstable.  Silicon is hampered by the weakness of
the Si-Si bond compared to the Si-O bond and by its inability to form double
bonds.

Carbon, then, is the fortunate combination of a small atom that has as many
valence electrons as valence orbitals, and a bond to itself that is as strong
as a bond to oxygen.  Science fiction writers have long speculated on totally
alien life based on nonaqueous chemistry and an element other than carbon.
Silicon has been the favorite element....
But the more we learn about what carbon compounds do in terrestial living
creatures, the less easy it is to imagine silicon compounds performing even
remotely similar roles.  Carbon _is_ special, and its properties cannot
be duplicated by any other element.

-Mike
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Subject: Re: Elephants CAN'T gallop, damn it!!!
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 15:54:45 GMT

In article <2836@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>That Sue Bishop is incompetant is clearly seen in her 
>continuing use of the insulting phrase "you have been repeatedly told..."
>which one would normally use with a small child.

*Normally* it's not necessary to use that phrase, except with small children.

-- 
--------------thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany---------------
Do you ask a Napoleon why it has to be Moscow, of all places?  Do you ask a
Mondrian why one has to paint only in the rectangularly framed primary colours
Red, Blue, and Yellow?  Ah, how all questions are ruined in view of a persuas-
ively recited system of madness! And is there a mortar keeping those systems
together firmer than real or supposed enemies?  -  Robert Gernhardt
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: The Woman Deceived (was ? for SW)
Date: 31 Jul 92 10:57:07 GMT
Organization: LLNL

In article <1992Jul27.124856.4423@city.cs> lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
>I don't think servility and cooperation are mutually exclusive.
>Do you have an objection to husbands respecting, honouring and
>_serving_ their wives?

	If you wish to demean yourself that way, I won't try to
deprive you of your fun.

	But it's not my idea of fun, buster.

/Loren
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Category 4 / Other large animal anomalies
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Date: 21 Jul 92 12:22:52 EST
Organization: Wright State University 

In article <1992Jul20.171249@IASTATE.EDU>, kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:
> In article <1992Jul20.023230.13942@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>,
> akbloom@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Keith Bloom) writes:
>> kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:
>> What the heck, I'll do it myself.  Words omitted by Ted Holden are
>> underlined.  From Christopher McGowan, _Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and 
>> Sea Dragons_, p. 99:
>>    
>>      Elephants resolve much of the problem of supporting such a large
>>      body weight through their behavior.  They live unhurried lives
>>      and seldom do anything quickly.  They walk rather ponderously,
>>      keeping their legs relatively straight throughout, and although
>>                                                         ------------
>>      they can run at a fair pace, easily outrunning a man, their speed
> 
>    Not to mean anything against McGowan, but that doesn't seem right.  Top speed
> for an Elephant, according to my Almanac, is 25 mph, for man it is 27 mph.  Now
> granted that is for sprinting, but the Elephant speed is for charging.
> 

OK, lets put a man in front of a charging elephant.  Lots of tall grass,
uneven ground.  Wonder who will be the fastest?  I'm betting on the elephant,
he's got the bulk to just crash through the grass and the uneven ground 
shouldn't slow him up much. 

Even better idea, let's put TED out in front of the elephant!

Sue

> ***********************************************************************
> * Warren Kurt   *  "In our country we have those three unspeakably    *
> * vonRoeschlaub *   precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of    *
> * kv07@iastate  *   conscience, and the prudence never to practice    *
> *               *   either." - Mark Twain                             *
> ***********************************************************************
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Bob and DNA
Date: 22 Jul 92 19:57:37 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Jul22.133328.19237@st-andrews.ac.uk> mrl@st-andrews.ac.uk (  Michael Ladomery) writes:
|
|I obtain the sequences of the Xenopus examples (=an amphibian). I know that
|there are examples of mouse, rat and human homologues in the database. ...
| Now from
|my evolutionary paradigm I make the prediction that THE MOUSE AND RAT PROTEINS
|WILL BE VERY MUCH CLOSER TO EACH OTHER, AND THAT THEY (RAT+MOUSE) WILL BE
|CLOSER TO THE HUMAN HOMOLOGUE THAN THE AMPHIBIAN ONE. ...

Now, in case anyone is inclined to quible about this, this *is* indeed an
a priori prediction.  The relative branching points for the four species
listed was determined *long* before even the *idea* of sequencing was
thought of.  Indeed, it is rare indeed for sequencing data to require
a major reorientation of our ideas on relationships.  (In most cases, where
sequencing has produced surprising results, it has been for forms of
controversial relationships anyway).
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Quote
Keywords: vive le differance!
Date: 28 Jul 92 01:58:53 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <85Cs02Mr1bBx01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> jjh00@OUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes) writes:
|
|Taking it a bit farther, it seems to me that many secondary
|sexual preferences may be selection forces.  ...

This is hardly controversial (except amoung Creationists and Holdenites).

It is the standard explanation of odd and bizarre secondary sexual
characteristics throughout the animal kingdom, from the tail of the
peacock, to the antlers of a moose, from a robin's red breat to the
spines on a stickle-back.

Now whether some of your particular examples really beolong in this
category a more difficult question.  I doubt any of them have been
sufficiently studied to tell for sure.  They sound reasonable, but
life is not always exactly reasonable, so some sor tof checking is
usually necessary to verify this sort of idea.

|That is to say, we tend to create our descendents in the
|image of our fantasies.
|
However, this is a neat, succint way of expressing the basic concept!
I like it!

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham)
Subject: Re: The Flat Earth Error
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 02:48:06 GMT

In article <0!mm!h-@lynx.unm.edu> rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires) writes:
>
>A thread that pops up periodically on t.o and probably elsewhere,
>involves the thesis that the Middle Ages were a time of total intellectual
>darkness, a darkness specifically caused by the advent of Christianity, 
>and only lightened by the rediscovery of Greek and Roman literature and
>the growth of the scientific method; the thesis being that if only
>civilisation hadn't been shackled by Christian dogma for a 1000 years,
>we would all be better off and more advanced today.
>
>Another recent thread involved the idea of a flat earth, to which I myself
>contributed a reference to Boorstin (see below).
>
>With respect to the first of these, the more I learn, the more I become
>convinced that this thesis is a *crock*, a crock that deserves to
>be broken, and I've already spoken my mind on the subject in t.o,
>but without much documentation to back up my opinion.

If, by "the first of these", you're referring to your first paragraph,
I'd like to hear more about it.  I went looking in t.o and couldn't
find any article of yours that addresses this point.  I'm no expert
on the history of the ancient world, but I certainly have no trouble
imagining what might become of our own civilization if a certain segment
of Christianity were to gain control.  For example, I wouldn't expect
to hear much more about evolution or cosmology.  In fact, I would expect
just about all areas of scientific inquiry to be stifled, and wouldn't
be surprised if a lot of our current knowledge were lost.  I can't
imagine that the situation was all that much different 1500 years ago.
--
Doug Graham         dgraham@bnr.ca         My opinions are my own.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley)
Subject: Re: Calling Young-earth Creationists
Organization: Auburn University Engineering
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 15:16:00 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.203139.20686@dscomsf.desy.de> hallam@zeus02.desy.de writes:
>
>Could I just point out that Chineese written history goes back 8000
>years so you better go for the extreeme end of the scale. The west only
>dubbed the first 4 dynasties "Mythology" so that creationism would
>work.

There is no only written history of the first dynasty.  The only written
history of the second dynasty is on the back of a turtle shell and was
written during the third dynasty.  It was during the third dynasty that
the written language developed.  The original manuscripts and artifacts
can be found in the National Museum in Taipei and in the Louve in Paris.
Since writing was primarily for the purpose of transcribing law and history,
the Imperial Archives is where the written language actually developed.
The French took a large portion of the Imperial Archives to Paris, and
Chiang Kai Shek took what was left with him to Taiwan.  It was fortunate
that he did because Mao Tse Tung destroyed every ancient artifact that
he got his hands on.

There are two histories of China, one is the official history, and the
other is called the scholar's history.  It is believed that the scholar's
history is more accurate.

>
>
Phill Hallam-Baker
From: bruce@tcom.stc.co.uk (Bruce Munro)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Attenuated Nonsense (Lengthy!)
Date: 22 Jul 92 10:46:32 GMT
Organization: BNR Europe, New Southgate, London.

In article <1992Jul21.154124.7059@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog) writes:
>In article <711696069.11784@zooid.guild.org> 
>  gecko@zooid.guild.org (GECKO) writes:
>> 
>> Ted "Thickie" Holden writes: 
>> 
>>>    Mammoths were as big and bigger than the largest 
>>>    elephants, however, and pliestocene art clearly shows them 
>>>    galloping around.  Over and over again, this same dilemma, things 
>>>    which can't happen in our world being the norm in the antediluvian 
>>>    world. 
>> 
>>    Smegma!  Mammoths could not gallop any more than elephants can; 
>>    They're not built for it.  I'll warrant their are NO depictions 
>>    of mammoths with all four feet airborne simultaneously!  This is 
>>    not to suggest that ANY prehistoric paintings should be thought 
>>    of as scientifically accurate... 
>
>Ya ever noticed that in all these old paintings there is no
>perspective?  I guess the world was two dimensional up until
>the Renaissance.

Not to mention the fact that it was only the advent of photography that
enabled people to know whether a galloping horse had all four hooves in
the air at any one time. Also, paintings from just a century or two ago
show galloping horses with their front and rear legs outstretched
simultaneously, which as we know is not how they gallop. However, by
Ted's criteria this is proof that horses did indeed gallop like this just
a couple of hundred years ago.

-- 
Bruce Munro.  <bruce@tcom.stc.co.uk> || ...!mcsun!uknet!stc!bruce
BNR Europe Ltd, Oakleigh Rd South, London N11 1HB. 
Phone : +44 81 945 2174 or +44 81 945 4000 x2174
"There are no strangers, only friends we don't recognise" - Hank Wangford
From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Thermodynamics FAQ
Summary: validation of criticism of creationist position
Date: 27 Jul 92 23:31:07 GMT

> From: henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley)
> Message-ID: <henley.920723165933@wilbur.eng.auburn.edu>
> THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS:
>     "The entropy S, an extensive* equilibrium property, must always increase
>      or remain constant for an isolated system**.  [1, p.187]
> [...]
> * The units of extensive entropy are energy divided by temperature. The units
>   of the intensive property would be energy divided by temperature and mass,
>   or divided by temperature and moles.
> [...]
> **An isolated system is one in which there is no mass or energy transfer
>   across system boundaries.

Thanks to James for refining the terminology of "closed system" vs
"isolated system".  After reading James' FAQ, we can now definitively
say that the second law of thermodynamics only fully applies to isolated
systems, and therefore the usual creationist use of the second law is
incorrect, since there is manifestly significant energy transfer across
the system boundaries of the earth. 

> Heat transfer out is the only means of decreasing system entropy of a
> closed system.  For an open system, entropy can be transferred out with
> energy transfer out, and with mass transfer out. 

Quite right.  Heat is transfered into the closed system of the earth
via (about) 6000 degree blackbody radiation, and out of the system
of the earth via "room temperature" blackbody radiation.  That is,
the earth as a whole has a 6000 degree heat source, and a room
temperature heat sink, thus allowing useful work to be done on the
closed system as long as this situation persists.  It is easy to see
how to continuously extract work from such a system, or to increase
its entropy measure.


It might be well to caution readers, however, against basing anything
on James' notion that "pure energy exists in another dimension -
outside of the space-time continuum that we call the universe".  It
apparently is employing very non-standard terminology, and it isn't at
all clear what James might mean by this curious statement.
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw
Xref: sparky talk.origins:8557 sci.astro:8236
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.astro
Subject: Re: stars & carbon
Date: 22 Jul 92 19:16:13 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Jul21.152437.3950@linus.mitre.org> m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
|
|carbon is a product of a massive stellar event (boom!), right?  If so,
|is the locale from which OUR heavy elements were fused known?  Where?

Yes, and no, or sort of.  Compared to the galaxy as a whole, the Earth
is *young*.  In the time between the the earliest supernovas (star
explosions) and the origin of the Solar System the gas and dust of the
galaxy was mixed many times over.  So our carbon came from many thousands
(perhaps millions) of supernovas, spread out over billions of years.
(The Solar System revolves once around the galaxy in about 200 million
years, so a mixing time of about 600 MY is reasonable).

|And given that some such event has too occur first, how old would the
|universe (heavy in H, HE & a touuch of Li) have to be for a star to
|form, age, zap, then a new reform from the waste (i.e. how long ago COULD
|life-as-we-know-it form someplace?)

Well, the He and Li were essentially original.  The Big Bang itself produced
most of the lighter elements.  And since massive starts only live a very
few million years (the most massive may even live *less* than a million),
it would take very little time after the first stars formed for the process
of enrichment to begin.

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: robd@cray.com (Robert Derrick)
Subject: Re: Calling Young-earth Creationists
Date: 24 Jul 92 11:34:06 CDT

Anthony Faull asks:
: As a born-again Christian, I subscribe to the theory of a young earth
:  (6000 to 10000 years old).
:
: Does anyone have scientific evidence to support this?
: (Stuff on dating methods, dynamic vs. atomic time, etc.)
: Please e-mail or post.

No.  No one does.  Does that bother you at all?

It perturbs the heck outa me.




Alternatively:

: Does anyone have scientific evidence to support this?

Yes.  The current influx of aluminum into the oceans compared with
the current amount of aluminum in the oceans yields the inescapable
conclusion that the Earth's oceans are less than 400 years old.

: Thanks in advance,
: Anthony Faull.

You are welcome.

This may not be what you were looking for, but it is the best there is.

And times being what they are.

rob d.
From: schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul J. Schinder)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Closed vs. Isolated systems
Date: 30 Jul 92 00:51:07 GMT
Reply-To: schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center

In <131801@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> shaw@s119.es.llnl.gov (Henry Shaw 510 423-4645) writes:

>In article <btd.712385199@pv7413.vincent.iastate.edu>, btd@iastate.edu (Benjamin T Dehner) writes:

>The concept of a closed system is quite useful in the context of chemical thermodynamics.  For example, if 
>I take a bunch of chemicals, put them into a sealed container, and heat that container, I will, in 
>the general case, induce chemical reactions among the constutients of the system such that the free energy 
>of the system is minimized at equilibrium at a given temperature.  Depending on whether the "container" is 
>designed to maintain constant volume or constant pressure, either the Helmholtz or the Gibbs free energy, 
>respectively, is the appropriate energy function that is minimized.
> 

Here we're coming down to the difference between how physicists and
other scientists and engineers are trained.  I don't doubt, and I'd
guess Ben Dehner doesn't either, that there is some *practical* use
for the definition; I have, and I'll bet he has, done homework
problems along the lines that you state.  Physicists are trained to
think about more fundamental distinctions.  If you tell me that a
system is isolated, then I *know* what the entropy of that system is
doing.  If it's not isolated, and I'm asked to compute the change in
entropy, I have to work to find out, and the answer may be either that
it increases or decreases.  In this sense, the definition of "closed"
that chemists use is not fundamentally useful, since I have to be
given specifics to find out what the entropy does.  It has *practical*
use in given problems.  But for example, if the "container" is
transparent and I send radiation into the container, I can change the
equilibrium state of the contents. I can't do that with an isolated
system; once it's contents are in equilibrium, they remain there.


>-- 
>Henry Shaw, Earth Sciences Dept., LLNL |    All opinions are my own.
>Internet: shaw4@llnl.gov               |  
>CIS: 76347,2523                        |
>Fidonet: Henry Shaw at 1:161/55        |
--
--------
Paul J. Schinder
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Subject: Re: What they never told you about gyroscopes...
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 23:53:35 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.235136.14326@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>   Actually, a spinning gyroscope will not keep a steady axis when it's set in
>rotation about the Earth.  The axis will tend to rotate somewhat (just a
 ^^^^^^^^
>little bit) in the manner Ted is speaking of.

I meant orbit, not rotation.
Newsgroups: talk.origins