HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: seanna@bnr.ca (Seanna Watson)
Subject: Some answers for Chuck (on allegory)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 13:04:20 GMT

Matt Brinkman writes:
>   Oh, indeed.  But what if someone were to claim that what you view as
>history is really an allegory or a literary device or a description of 
>revelation to Moses or a poetical construct or a simple summary of only the
>important details or as a myth?*  In this case, couldn't they read exactly the
>same words as you are reading, hold entirely different historical beliefs, and
>yet still have a pretty good understanding of SIN and salvation?  I ask because
>a number of Christians (such as Augustine, Calvin, ?**, Hugh Ross, Scofield,

Chuck Maier responds:

-That's the problem.  People just want to dismiss SIN as some vague notion
-whose meaning is subject to anyone's opinion and whose existence is best
-demonstrated by someone else's action.

I do not see how this follows.  Just because one uses an allegorical description
of SIN (why are we capitalizing?) does not mean that they do not believe that
SIN is real.  Allegories frequently provide a better understanding of difficult
and important subjects than real life stories.  *Jesus* spoke in parables.  
Does the story of the prodigal son tell us nothing of sin and forgiveness
because it is an allegory?  Did Jesus not really believe in the Kingdom of 
heaven because he spoke about it metaphorically?

Chuck also writes (in response to me):

-Once again, how can these verses mean anything if A & E were not real
-people, just like u and me?
[followed by a list of probably all the verses in the New Testament which
refer to Adam and Eve]

Is it really impossible to see that the NT statements are still valid 
even if the events they refer to are allegorical?   

And I must respond to your last verse:

        54  73.    5:4    Adam begat other sons/daught.  (Where'd Cain get 
wife?)

A short time ago you were holding up Adam and Eve as a model of monogamy.
Did you now want to hold up Cain (and Seth) as models of sibling incest?

-- 
Seanna Watson   Bell-Northern Research, 
(seanna@bnr.ca) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Opinions, what opinions?  Oh *these* opinions. | Occam's razor split 
No, they're not BNR's, they're mine.           | hairs so well, I bought 
I knew I'd left them somewhere.                | the whole argument.
From: slinke@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Steven Linke)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Noah's ark incompatible...with Noah's ark?
Date: 21 Jul 92 05:03:14 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <henley.920720115545@wilbur.eng.auburn.edu> henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley) writes:
>
>"But do not forget one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a
>thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day."
>
>II Peter 3:8  _NIV_

What the heaven does that have to do with the number of birds on the
Ark?  If it read, "But do not forget one thing, dear friends: With
the Lord the number two is like the number fourteen, and 14=2."

Now, THAT would "harmonize" the two verses (and severely screw up
those uniformitarian mathematicians).


-- 
Steve Linke
Salk Institute (Gene Expression Lab)
La Jolla, CA
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger)
Subject: Re: Thermodynamics FAQ
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 21:09:37 GMT

henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley) writes:
>In article <1992Jul28.190130.11647@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu) writes:
>>No.  Work is just the integral of an applied force over distance.  You don't
>>need an "opposing" force acting against the first force.  If you accelerate
>>a rocket in space free of any other forces over a certain distance, you've
>>done work.
>
>If you accelerate a rocket, the only way to do it free of an opposing force
>is if the rocket is massless, and thus devoid of *inertia*.  Inertia *is*
>the opposing force in this case.  Think about it.  Also, the thrust of the
>rocket engines is converted to kinetic energy of the rocket.  Energy
>conversion.  To stop the rocket, you will have to do work.  If it lands
>nose down on the moon, then that work will be the displacement of lunar
>soil, and the deformation of the rocket.  The two forces opposing
>the kinetic energy are friction and tensile strength of the rocket.  
>Think about it.  *AND* if the rocket and some other object have a perfectly
>elastic collision, then no kinetic energy will be lost, ie. no energy 
>conversion.  However, the rocket will still have done work in accelerating
>the object with which it collides.  If it is a *totally* immovable object,
>then the rocket will retain 100% of it's kinetic energy (in a perfectly
>elastic collision)
>Take some physics.
>
>>*Ka Chun Yu                 * "Deputy dog dog a ding dang depa depa deputy     *
>James P. Henley Jr.

If I have a rock in my hand, and I rasie it above my head, work has been
done to the rock.  This work is done opposing gravity.  If I then lower the
rock, while still holding on, work is also done.  The work done here isn't
in opposition to any force.

If you drop a rock on an airless moon, work is done all the way down, with
no other force to stop the rock.


Also, inertia is not a force; it's a property of matter.

|======================================================================|
| Seth Kroger                       "If God made us in His image we    |
| skroger@pan.calpoly.edu               have certianly returned the    |
| Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo             complement."  -Voltaire        |
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Subject: Re: oh rah...
Organization: Mitre Corporation, McLean VA
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 12:03:02 GMT

In article <2842@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
}Here's the problem.  Most t.o readers don't have access to the various 
}binaries groups,

Who?  More specifically, who doesn't have access that neither got it the last
time you posted the same thing AND could handle it (given a lack of
familiarity)? Most!?!?!?

}> Isn't it about time for your homophobic physical threats?  Is McLean
}> easier for you to find?

}Now, if that causes YOU any perticular heartburn, then McLean is certainly
}close enough, just indicate when.

Right.  I've heard this from you before.  I gave a time and a place.
Yawn.
From: schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul J. Schinder)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: learn to read, James
Date: 31 Jul 92 17:16:06 GMT
Reply-To: schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center

In <henley.920731110909@wilbur.eng.auburn.edu> henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley) writes:

>In article <92399@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
>>
>>>Woah there Nellie!  Are you saying that biological processes *DO NOT* 
>>>have to abide by the laws of Thermodynamics?
>>
>>>Either they do, or they don't.  If they do, then those laws should be able
>>>to predict things in biological processes, including Natural Selection
>>>and Evolution.  If they don't, well...
>>
>>	They don't. BTW, evolution (the process) has been directly
>>observed -- if you reach the conclusion that it cannot due to the
>>laws of thermo, you've obviously screwed up somewhere.

>May I quote you on this?  In order to make sure that I am not misrepresenting
>what you are saying, let me be precise:

>1) Are you saying that biological processes *do not* have to obey the laws
>   of thermodynamics?

>2) Are you saying that evolutionary processes *do not* have to obey the laws
>   of thermodynamics?

>3) Are you saying that natural selection *does not* have to obey the laws
>   of thermodynamics?

>In plain English, YES or NO to items 1-3 above.

No, he's saying that the processes named in 1-3 are *observed* to both
occur presently and to have occured in the past.  Therefore, since
these processes obey physical law (they can't do otherwise), the
second law is not violated by them.  If by some line of reasoning you
conclude that they violate the second law, then you have made a
mistake.  Data takes priority over theories.

>>
>>>James P. Henley Jr.
>>
>>Chris Colby 	---	 email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu	---
>>"'My boy,' he said, 'you are descended from a long line of determined,
>>resourceful, microscopic tadpoles--champions every one.'"
>> 	--Kurt Vonnegut from "Galapagos"
>>

>James P. Henley Jr.
>Chemical Engineering Dept.
>Auburn University

-- 
--------
Paul J. Schinder
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov

--
--------
Paul J. Schinder
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov
From: twalters@world.std.com (Tim Walters)
Subject: Re: Guiness on the tyrannosaur
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 14:19:31 GMT

In article <2829@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>
>
>Every now and then you learn something new.  I've always heard a figure
>of something like 7 - 8 tons as max for a tyrannosaur.  The 91 edition
>of Guiness' Book of World Records, page 108, claims that the 7 - 8 ton
>individuals might actually have been juveniles, and that partial skulls
>have been found which indicate a length of 44', and a weight of more than
>13 tons.

Gee, what do they say about the largest known elephant? Just a few
days ago you dismissed a large elephant weight in Guiness as
"bullshit". Do you think they're more accurate about tyrannosaurs?

>That is a biped with a Holden number which is over the limit (around 30).

That doesn't surprise me. The Holden number only applies to humans
doing squat thrusts. Not only did the tyrannosaur probably not do a
squat thrust to stand up, but one look in an illustrated dinosaur book
will show you they had huskier legs than Kaz.

>If you should ever be standing around a time machine, and have some moron
>ask you your preference between bringing back the 44' trex or one of the 6'
>carnosaurs, go for the 44-footer.  You'd be in no danger that way;  he'd
>collapse in a heap under our gravity.  The 6' carnosaur would probably
>kill you.

I wouldn't worry about *anything* transported from a world of 1/4 g
(or whatever you're claiming).
-- 
Tim Walters	twalters@world.std.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Rhinos
From: lindsay+@cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 16:53:16 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon


sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>Rhinos which are large heavy animals, as large as many smaller elephants,
>CAN gallop, I have personally seen them do so on many occasions.  

There's an interesting note in the 4 July issue of New Scientist,
p.19.

Some zoologists estimated leg stress from a film of a rhino
galloping. They also measured some rhino leg bones, and conclude that
rhinos have an unusually large margin of safety. Rhino legs could be
thinner and still support their 2200 KG, or conversely, rhinos could
be heavier on the same legs.


-- 
Don		D.C.Lindsay 	Carnegie Mellon Computer Science
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Bob and DNA
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Date: 22 Jul 92 12:29:02 EST
Organization: Wright State University 

In article <6231@tekig7.PEN.TEK.COM>, bobb@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM (Robert W Bales) writes:
> 
> Sue Bishop writes:
> 
>>And why doesn't Bob address a *few* of the topics he has sidestepped in the
>>past?  Here he comes, tons of postings, none of which are on the topics
>>he promised to discuss ages ago.
> 
> Wrong.  The threads I'm pursuing now developed from individual points in
> broader postings dealing with such topics as the liklihood of theories and the
> status of _Archaeopteryx_ as a transitional fossil. *These are all topics that
> have come up before and on which I have been questioned.*

Seems to me that you dropped out of the group for a long time, came BACK in
with totally new topics, ignoring the ones that you had refused to discuss
last time.

> 
> Many topics come up in the discussion of evolution and the age of the earth.  I
> can't discuss them all in one posting.  I choose not to try many simultaneous
> threads on many topics for two reasons: I can't do all the necessary responses
> at once and having too many topics probably inhibits the discussion of the
> details on any one.
> 
> I discuss 'A' and people complain that I don't discuss 'B.'  Were I to discuss
> 'B,' people could complain that I don't discuss 'A.'
> 
>>Surely does continue to destroy credibility and heighten irritation.
> 
> Matt Brinkman and I are having a discussion on probabilities as applied to
> creation and evolution.  Max Webb and I are having a discussion on the
> supposed transition from featers to scales.  (Others, or course, are welcome
> to participate and are participating.)  Just how does posting articles on
> the topics of ongoing discussions destroy credibility and heighten irritation?
> 

They responded to a thread that YOU started.  They did not start the
discussion, you did.  After ignoring requests to address other topics....

> What logical reason would there be for me to drop ongoing, current discussions
> to discuss other old topics?  If I did so, I would fully expect to see
> something such as the following:
> 
>      "Ever notice how Bob jumps around?  He brings up a topic and then
>       immediaste drops it as soon as someone throws a few facts in his
>       direction. He then changes to something else in the hope that we
>       won't notice that he has no answers."
> 
> The postings that Sue objects to contained answers to current questions.  I am
> berated for answering these questions.  Yet if I had not, they would no doubt
> become in a short time "old" questions which I would then be berated for
> "sidestepping."

Questions that are in new threads that you started, ignoring old questions.

> 
>    Bob Bales
>    Tektronix, Inc.
> 
> I help Tektronix make their instruments. They don't help me make my opinions.


Sue

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Elephants CAN'T gallop, damn it!!!
Date: 24 Jul 92 01:26:35 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <1992Jul21.183247.3020@desire.wright.edu>, sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
 
> Ted, you have been told on numerous occasions that elephants can't gallop due
> to their conformation.  

Face it, Sue...  you and your cohorts aren't really bright enough to be telling
me ANYTHING.

Your "You have been told" refrain isn't adding anything to the conversation.

Elephants don't gallop because they're too fricking heavy.


> In case you don't know what that word means, it 
> means the way they are built.  Ostriches and kangaroos can't gallop either.

Ostriches and kangaroos are essentially bipeds.  

> And Mammoths were not larger than elephants, you've been told that repeatedly
> also.

Maybe best that you should repeatedly tell the authors of Guiness.  Page 111
of their 1991 edition mentions fragmentary remains indicating a shoulder
height of 14.5'.  I believe that's just a bit bigger even than jumbo.  Not
a whole lot bigger, mind you, but big enough that a mammoth should not be 
able to gallop.

That was the whole point.  I have at least one picture of a big mammoth,
galloping.

Russians probably see more pictures of mammoths while coming up through
school (the Russians, not the mammoths), than we do, and I've asked a number of them about this.  Several have claimed to have seen pictures of mammoths
galloping.

Again, this cannot happen in our world at present.



-- 
Ted Holden
HTE
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: rupertg@cix.compulink.co.uk (Rupert Goodwins)
Subject: FAQs of life                            
Cc: rupertg@cix.compulink.co.uk
Reply-To: rupertg@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 23:48:16 +0000

I've got a question that I know has been raised before, but I don't recall
what conclusion, if any, was reached.

How large is the sum of all FAQs on this newsgroup? I'd very much appreciate
having them all on file locally -- as some may recall, I've written about
talk.origins for the press before, and it may well happen again. I also
engage in occasional discussion with local creationists (although they're a
bit thinner on the ground in the UK. Let's hope the land bridge doesn't
surface again :) and these would be useful for this purpose too.

Now, since I have access at work (PC Magazine UK) to a considerable amount of
DTP magic together with its legitimate operators, it would be possible for me
to turn them all into a book. Would the various owners of the FAQs be
amenable to this? Are there any copyright problems? My intention, if it
proves feasible, is to do this as a service for t.o readers or other
interested individuals and just photocopy copies on request: there may have
to be a small charge for this to cover costs.

I may be proposing some gawping breach in netiquette here, if so please mail
me to say so rather than flaming me in the newsgroup. Save that bandwidth for
the malicious, rather than the innocently misapprehending... (alternatively,
if you think me malicious, flame away!).

Rupert Goodwins
---------------
rupertg@cix.compulink.co.uk         (44) 71 325 6825 or (44) 81 472 6160
rgoodwins@mci 72241.476@compuserve         fax: (44) 81 472 6161   G6HVY
42 Ladysmith Avenue, East Ham, London, UK  E6 3AR.      Or shout, loudly.

>>>MATRIX version  1.20d
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.astro
From: david@physics.unc.edu (David R. DeGraff)
Subject: Re: stars & carbon
Organization: Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Univ. North. Carolina at Chapel Hill
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 22:00:58 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.211102.23692@wdl.loral.com> mab@wdl39.wdl.loral.com (Mark A Biggar) writes:
>In article <btd.711738938@pv7413.vincent.iastate.edu> btd@iastate.edu (Benjamin T Dehner) writes:
>>>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?)
>>A supermassive star can form and go boom in about 10-20 million years.  This
>>number is stronly dependant on the metalicity (percent of stuff heavier than
>>helium) present.  I would hazard a guess that a couple of billion years may
>>suffice to form a region of heavy elements that may work for forming life.
>>As an oblique answer to your question, "long, long ago, in a galaxy ..".
>>In this neck of the woods, life forming somewhere else a few million years ago
>>would not be unreasonable, I think.
>
>The best current guess it that our star is in the 3rd or 4th generation
>of stars formed in our galaxy.
>
>On a differnt tack, this has been proposed as a partial solution to the Fermi
>paradox (Why no E.T visitors),  in that earlier star system would not contain
>enough metals to support a HiTech civilization and that we could easily be
>first!
>Mark Biggar
>mab@wdl1.wdl.loral.com

There is something I've been wondering for quite some time.  Why was the
message sent off in 1974 sent to a globular cluster?  Such a metal
poor group will have less material to form planets, let alone a
HI-Tech civilization.  Even if there were planets, the stars are so
close, they would quickly perturb any orbit, wreaking havoc to any
environment that may have formed, killing everything.

"How did you not destroy yourselves in a nuclear war, O powerful
Alian?"

"What? With no Uraniuim? How do you want us to make an atom
bomb? Porkchops maybe?" ;->
-- 
David DeGraff                               david@sloth.astro.unc.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Almost Ph(inishe)D
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley)
Subject: Re: Thermodynamics FAQ
Organization: Auburn University Engineering
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 16:33:14 GMT

I took down my Berry, Rice and Ross, out of curiousity, to see how they
defined closed and isolated systems.  Just to make sure that the other
PChem book was not an anomoly.

  "A closed system, which does not exchange matter, may still be able to
   exchange energy with its surroundings."

_Physical_Chemistry_, Stephen Berry, Stuart Rice, John Ross,  John Wiley
& Sons publishers,  1980, page 490.


By my count, that makes 5 references with the same definition as mine,
and 0 references with the same definition as the majority of the 
evolutionists on this newsgroup.  

*NOW* who is doing science?  You?  Or Me?


James P. Henley Jr.
Chemical Engineering Dept
Auburn University

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout)
Subject: Re: not understanding evolution
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 14:18:29 GMT

In <91431@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:

 
>	Group selection can only occur under very restricted
>conditions. It has only been unambiguously documented once,
>and this was in a lab population of flour beetles manipulated
>so that the criterion for group selection to operate was
>fulfilled. (Many biologists, myself included, believe that
>group selection was important in the evolution of eusocial
>insects, however) The primary level of at which selection operates
>is the individual organism; for this reason organisms do not
>evolve to perform behaviors for the good of their species (or
>group). This is because selfish individuals will always increase
>in a population at the expense of altruists.

This seems to be an oversimplification.  Social groups are known
among higher primates, as well as conflict between groups.  Altruistic
behaviour on the group level (rather than on the universal level) would
benefit the individual as his group would remain coherent and better
able to win the conflict, and by ensuring that he/she would remain
part of "the group", i.e. not be rejected by others because of the
selfish traits.  There is always, it seems to me, 
this dichotomy of group altruism verses personal selfishness.  The real
winners are often selfish individual who manage to convince the others of
their altruism.
--
Eli Chiprout
Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
emc@doe.carleton.ca
From: jjh00@outs.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Beating a dead horse
Summary: Ted exists, but is banal
Keywords: ennui
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:07:53 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@OUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

>  David Rice astutely observes:
>:  
>: Talking to Ted Holden is like beating a dead horse's ass.


  robd@cray.com (Robert Derrick) writes:
>
> Well, my guess is that TH is a real person

  I have received email confirmation from a person at grebyn.com,
  (which used to be Ted's email address), that a real person
  named Ted Holden works there, or used to work there.
  (I still owe my informant one Devonian brachiopod fossil
  in exchange for this information)

> I KILL TH ... because he is boring.

Yes, and so, ultimately,  are the responses he provokes.
If you've already put

   /news@/h:j

in your kill file, why not go all the way?  Add

   /news@/a:j

which eliminates about 80% of the replies to him.

It's so delightful, it gives such creamy satisfaction, to
enter talk.origins after a week's vacation and watch literally
hundreds of stupid Velikovsky-related postings melt away into
the bit-bucket.

---
Joel Hanes

" ...the argument from absence of transitional types boils down
  to the striking fact that such types are always lacking unless
  they have been found."
	George Gaylord Simpson, _The_Meaning_Of_Evolution_
From: scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu (Scharle)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: The evolution of sexes
Date: 27 Jul 92 17:13:07 GMT
Reply-To: scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu (Scharle)
Organization: Univ. of Notre Dame


    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?

-- 
Tom Scharle                |cm65n6@irishmvs(Bitnet)
Room G003 Computing Center |scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu(Internet)
University of Notre Dame  Notre Dame, IN 46556-0539 USA
Newsgroups: talk.origins