HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Who is Christian - a simple answer
Date: 27 Jan 93 22:20:10 GMT
X-Sender: newtout 0.06 Jan  3 1993


 
From: rlg@omni (Randy garrett)
What: <1k191hINN3d1@dmsoproto.ida.org>
 
??> "What's the relevance to talk.origins?"
 
Rg> "I was just responding to an article that appeared within this
Rg> group. Perhaps you are right and the original article and
Rg> all subsequent postings such as your own are inappropriate.
Rg> On the other hand, since Jesus claimed to be Creator, His
Rg> claims may be entirely relevant."
 
On the other hand, since people claimed that Jesus claimed
Creatorship, their claims are entirely irrelevant. If my spouse
told you that I created Everything, and told you that there are
thousands of witnesses to my Creator status, you'd believe I was
the Creator, right? Right! Of course you would!
 
??> And why don't you argue this question with a real expert on
??> divinity, our favorite Veda-thumper Kalki Dasa?
 
Rg> I don't know, why don't I?
 
Er, because your occult prattle, and the Kalkii's, is a waste
of time and effort to read?
 
In another message, ID: <1k19ppINN3d1@dmsoproto.ida.org>
you wrote, in part:
 
[cut concerning Gish, et al]
 
Rg> "ICR is pretty precise about quoting references, so I'll bet
Rg> someone did say this in print.  You may be right in saying that
Rg> the quote is absurd, but I have seen some pretty absurd things
Rg> in respected journals and texts myself."
 
The ICR is pretty precise in lying, slandering, and misquoting
others to further their agenda, and things like morality and
ethical conduct be damned. There is a FAQ running around that
well documents the ICRs lies and misquotes.
  
 
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Subject: Re: The Uranus Myth
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 03:39:55 GMT

rh@smds.com (Richard Harter) writes:


>>>> Well the answer to all these is simple once you recognize one simple _fact_:
>>>>Uranus is a superconductor.

>>> This, of course, flies in the face of all that we know about superconductors.

>>  Which isn't very much right now.  Are you visiting from the future in a time
>>machine?

>You ignore a fundamental principle of talk.origins science.  If it isn't
>in the text books *right now* it isn't science.

I think the >>>> poster had his tongue firmly in his cheek, or perhaps, if
I dare a horrible pun, in somebody else's cheeks. "Uranus is a superconductor"
sounds suspiciously like "your anus ... ditto".                              

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: dgt@phy.duke.edu (Dinko Eduardo Gonzalez)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Voyagers on the Ark of Noah
Date: 27 Jan 93 14:57:23 GMT
Organization: Duke University Physics Dept.; Durham, N.C.

The story of Noah's Ark is just Hebrew mythology.  There are several 
other semitic peoples that had similar stories about floods and 
people building boats to save mankind + animals.  The myth  probably
originates from floods of the Euphrates and the Tigris.  The rest of
the story is all fabricated and distorted, there is no way that anybody
could store all species of animals within a wooden ship, assuming that
such ship was ever constructed in the first place.  Think about this too:
what about plants.  There is no mention of them in the Noah story, and
they surely must have died in a flood, deprived of sunlight and 
nutrients.  What about birds?  Did they stay in the air during all 40
days and nights?  Give me a break!  If it were up to you people, we
would still believe that  Earth is the center of the Universe. 
     
-- 
Dinko Gonzalez Trotter
dgt@phy.duke.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: twalters@world.std.com (Tim Walters)
Subject: Re: Yet Another Saturn Myth Variant
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 01:26:31 GMT

In article <234@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>Again, the historical evidence, or the evidence involving large antediluvian
>life forms either one alone would be sufficient grounds for believing in
>SOME form of Saturn myth.

Actually, your "large animal evidence", if true, would only imply that
the "felt effect" of gravity was less some time ago than it is now.
You've never demonstrated that the only way this could have happened
was by some sort of Saturn myth. You've just claimed that this fit in
with the idea of the Earth orbiting Saturn.

Now, Ginenthal seems to be suggesting that the Earth was in a
configuration which didn't affect gravity, namely between Jupiter and
Saturn. You've always claimed that the evidence about large animals
was conclusive. Are you willing to go on the record against Ginenthal
and tell him that his configuration is impossible because it doesn't
lower gravity?

>Perhaps the earth was being held
>in an electro-magnetic baricenter, and the gravitational forces were yet
>unequal.

Now it sounds like you're scratching around for a way to save your
gravity theory, rather than being able to say that it provides some
sort of support for Ginenthal.
-- 
Tim Walters	twalters@world.std.com
From: justinf@cco.caltech.edu (Justin Fang)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Muscle tissue from mouse to sauropod
Followup-To: talk.origins
Date: 23 Jan 1993 10:59:54 GMT
Organization: chaotic
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: macintosh50.cco.caltech.edu

In article <1993Jan23.075907.11829@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>,
amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog) wrote:
 
> In article <243@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
 
> >If Kaz couldn't stand in our gravity at 70,000 lbs, then neither could a
> >sauropod dinosaur.
 
> If Kaz can't high jump 8 feet than neither can anything else (except
> maybe a Cuban).  If Kaz can't long jump over 29 feet then neither can
> anything else (sorry Powell).  If Kaz can't run 100m in 9.86 seconds and
> do a flying 100 in 8.8 then neither can anything else (bummer Carl).

If Kaz can't walk around on four limbs all day then neither can any
four-legged animal. If Kaz can't digest cellulose then neither can any
herbivore. If Kaz can't use Internet then neither can anyone else (guess
none of this exists).
  
> >Ted Holden
> >HTE
> (His Tired Excuses)

(Hawks Trash Eternally)
 
> C Frog
> FCE

Justin Fang (justinf@cco.caltech.edu)
                               This space intentionally left blank.
From: bvickers@valentine.ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Johnson uses Argument from Personal Incredulity
Date: 26 Jan 93 21:28:08 GMT
Reply-To: bvickers@ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Irvine, Info. & Computer Sci. Dept.

Richard Dawkins wrote:

	Even if we found one example that we *couldn't* explain, we should
	hesitate to draw any grandiose conclusions from the fact of our own
	inability.

tycchow@cayley.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow) writes:
>Curiously, though, when someone like Lionel Tun tries to apply this
>reasoning to the Bible instead of to biological phenomena, he is
>instantly flamed.  Exercise: translate flamage against Tun into
>flamage against the argument quoted above, figure out a response,
>and translate back into a defense of Tun.

As far back as I remember, Lionel has never claimed to be unable to
explain anything.  The Bible has the answers to everything.  Ask him.
He will probably agree.

Now there are probably other Christians much more humble than Lionel
who would claim that it is not possible to explain every circumstance
or every event in the Bible.  This is perfectly acceptable.  All it
means is that the Bible is not complete.  Unfortunately, the Bible is
not a changing, growing entity like evolutionary theory is.  So, while
evolutionary theory is far from complete, it certainly has the ability
to approach completeness.  The ultimate yielding to explanation that
Dawkins was getting at is a result of evolution's (and science's)
ability to adapt, grow, take new evidence into account, and adapt
again.  Fundamental Christianity is immutable, fixed in granite,
unswaying in its conclusions.  That is why creationism will never grow
as a science and why it will continually be falsified as new evidence
and new theories are established.

Thus, when Biblical literalists are unable to explain something, we
are free to draw the conclusion that such an explanation will not be
forthcoming in the near or distant future.  After all, the Bible does
not grow, nor does supernatural evidence arise every day.  Dawkins'
claim is peculiar to naturalistic science.
--
Brett J. Vickers
bvickers@ics.uci.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: bseymour@encore.com (Burch Seymour)
Subject: Re: Holden and venus
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 13:19:48 GMT


>: From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
>: Message-ID: <231@fedfil.UUCP>

>: Basically, I have shown that, in order to satisfy their own preconceived
>: notions, astronomers are presently falsifying/doctoring/concocting weird
>: explainations for three entire classes of phenomena, [...]

Hmmmm... Does claiming the Earth played pinball around the solar
system just because one has trouble believing that dinosaurs could
walk maybe fall into this category as well? 

Nah. Didn't think so......

-bs-
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu (Broughton, Wayne Jeremy)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Has Macro-evolution Occured?
Date: 27 Jan 93 08:31:00 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
NNTP-Posting-Host: juliet.caltech.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1993Jan26.164949.3683@hsr.no>, onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam) writes...

> ...  (it was then widely misbelieved that humans are at the top of the
>evolutionary hill) ... 
> 
> 
>Onar.

I recall that a few months ago, you were taking a lot of heat on t.o.,
trying to defend your ideas about macroevolution (I forget the details).
I might be mistaken, but I think a lot of the debate was based on your
claim that there was some sort of way to define "complexity" that was
compatible with the idea that species often (usually?) became more
"complex" as they evolved.  If I am right, do you still think this?
(NOTE: I am _not_ trying to open this can of worms again, I was just
curious as to whether your prolonged silence on the topic was indicative
of a changed perspective).

I would have thought that on a range of "complexity", humans would
generally be considered to be "at the top of the evolutionary hill"
indeed.  (If not, then even your intuitive notion of complexity 
seems to be unusual).  How does this relate to your quoted comment
above?

Maybe I am making a lot of noise about nothing... :-)

Wayne.
**********************************************************************

Wayne J. Broughton                 Take the road less travelled by.  
waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu    

Caltech has no idea what my opinions are;  
they think I'm working right now...
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow)
Subject: Re: Topic for Discussion?
Organization: None.  This saves me from writing a disclaimer.
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 19:14:15 GMT

In article <1jvl9vINNl54@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying.   I'm not saying
>that there can't be unreachable places in such a graph.   I'm saying
>that you can't prove in general that divergence has some limit.

Articles in this thread are arriving at my site in wildly mixed-up order,
so please be patient if what I say here has already been addressed.

Johnson suggested that macroev might not be cumulative microev.  Your
article seemed to me to be arguing the following.

(+)	There is nothing to stop cumulative microev from producing
	unlimited change.

My objection was that there might be isolated pockets in a genotype graph.
If you agree with me, then you can't claim to have established (+) using
your methods of argument.  Now, however, you seem to be saying the following
instead, which is totally different.

(++)	One cannot *prove* in general that there is something that
	stops cumulative microev from producing unlimited change.

Having straightened this out, let me further object that you haven't
established (++) either.  For (++) states the impossibility of a certain
proof.  To establish (++) you must either establish (+) (for if (+) is
true then certainly (++) is true), which as I argued before you haven't
done, or you must show that *all* attempts at proof of Johnson's claim
are doomed to failure.  But to create a proof of Johnson's claim it
seems to be enough to exhibit all possible genotypes and show that
all extant genotypes lie inside disjoint isolated pockets.  Granted, it
is extremely unlikely that we will ever be able to do this, but you
haven't shown that it is *impossible*, which is what (++) seems to require.

Furthermore, even if you did establish (++), what would that gain you?
Would you claim to be able to *prove* (+)?  If not, then it seems that
showing that Johnson can't prove his position doesn't get you very far.
-- 
Tim Chow     tycchow@math.mit.edu
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs
30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh
only 1 1/2 tons.                               ---Popular Mechanics, March 1949
From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Population pinches (was Re: does the bible imply evolution?)
Date: 22 Jan 93 21:03:33 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1jn32jINN94i@dmsoproto.ida.org> rlg@omni 
     (Randy garrett) writes:

>Could you explain, or point to references that explain,
>more about the connections between genetic variations
>that exist within a specie[s] today and population
>pinch points that occurred within the past.  

So far as I can tell, one of the principle measurements of how much
genetic variation exists in a species is the measurement of the number
of loci at which an individual of the species is heterozygous.  For D.
melanogaster, the number is around 12%.  For H. sapiens the number is
around 6%.  In E. coli (the current winner) the number is around 47%.
The heterozygosity of the cheetah, polar bear and elephant seal are
all "practically nil".  My source for these statements is:

Ohta, T. (1992). "The Nearly Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution",
   23:263-286. 

Ohta cites a different reference for every organism above, but I suspect
that the source you'd be most interested in is:

O'Brien, S.J., Wildt, D.E., and Bush, M. (1986).  "The Cheetah in
     Genetic Peril", Scientific American, 254(5):68-76.

>Randy G.

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Who is Christian - a simple answer
Date: 22 Jan 93 23:16:53 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1jpnkmINN272@dmsoproto.ida.org>, rlg@omni (Randy garrett) writes:
|> : 
|> : So any person who accepts Christ's teachings _as a whole_ can be
|> called a
|> : Christian.  So I, a free-thinker who does not believe in Christ's
|> divinity,
|> : who does not believe in Heaven or Hell, call myself a Christian, for
|> I accept
|> : the Golden Rule.
|> X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
|> 
|> But Christ taught that He was divine.  How can you accept His teachings
|> and not accept that?   Or do you only accept some teachings and not
|> others?  In which case, how do you choose? 
|> 
|> It seems to me that C.S. Lewis's Lord, Liar,
|> or Lunatic argument holds a lot of logical validity:  
|> 
|> If Jesus were not divine, then given His clear claims, He must have
|> been the greatest Liar who ever lived as well as the greatest
|> hypocrite since He condemned very strongly the smallest lies.
|> So, I certainly wouldn't want to have anything to do with the
|> teachings of someone like that.

You appear to have neglected the possibility that he sincerely
believed he was divine, but was mistaken.    That makes him a
person in error, not a liar.    It also makes him no hypocrite,
since preaching against lies says nothing about situations in
which you may genuinely and sincerely be in error.

|> 
|> Or,
|> 
|> He was simply a Lunatic, on the order of someone who says they're
|> Napolean, a poached egg or some other more creative object.

Being in error on a single subject, even for fairly nutty - aka
religious - reasons, does not make you a lunatic in general.   If
being wrong on theological matters makes you a lunatice, then there
are an awful lot of lunatics walking around today, all busily debating
their lunacy with one another.

|> In this case, I certainly wouldn't put any credence in any of His
|> teachings.

That only shows how silly *you* are.   If someone says we are to
forgive our enemies, and also holds some nutty theological ideas,
you're going to "put no credence" in forgiving your enemies?

Pretty silly, if so.   In reality, having nutty opinions on one
subject, far from inavlidating everything else a person says, is
a fairly common occurrence.    I suspect we all have nutty ideas
on some subject or other.

|> 
|> Or 
|>   We're in a heap of trouble if what He claimed was true ...

You mean you can speak for him?   Now who's the nut?

jon.
From: prl@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter Lamb)
Subject: Re: Muscle tissue from mouse to sauropod
Organization: CSIRO Division of Information Technology
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 02:32:05 GMT

prl@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter Lamb) writes:

[about Ted, Desmond Halstead and Haldane, and neglects to provide
the citations - bah!]

The missing citations are:

[1] Desmond, Adrian J, "The hot-blooded dinosaurs : a revolution in
	palaeontology," New York : Dial Press/James Wade, 1976. (page 182)
[2] Halstead, L. B, "The pattern of vertebrate evolution,"
	Edinb., Oliver and Boyd, 1969 (page 142, cited in [1])

-- 
Peter Lamb (prl@csis.dit.csiro.au)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: lindsay+@cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Ideology and Indoctrination
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 21:53:45 GMT


philjohn@garnet.berkeley.edu (Phillip Johnson) writes:
> Most revealing of all, Niles Eldredge confessed in
>print that "We paleontologists have said that the history of life
>supports [the story of gradual adaptive change], all the while 
>really knowing that it does not."  That is a smoking gun indeed.

A nice piece of courtroom flummery, there. Eldredge *does* believe
that there is extensive evidence for common descent with
modification, i.e. evolution. This quote refers ONLY to the question
of whether the rates are constant or variable. How does that support
Creationism? So he attacked other scientists about a strictly
technical point: so what.

>An excellent example is the standard Darwinist delusion that the
>peppered moth example illustrates "evolution" in any non-trivial
>sense.  That this unremarkable instance of population shifts has
>anything to do with the great creative process that produced
>moths and trees and scientific observers in the first place is so
>absurd to any unprejudiced mind that my lecture audiences
>consistently laugh when I explain it to them.

The moth is an *excellent* example of natural selection causing a
change in the relative frequency of a gene pool's alleles. This
processs is important, and we have lots of experimental evidence to
show that it happens. We have math to show how fast it happens. We
have evidence that it (alone!) can cause speciation. 

(There are, for example, species which exist in three successive
geographic regions, A, B and C. Individuals from A and B can mate
successfully, ie they are the same species. Individuals from B and C,
likewise. But individuals from A and C, cannot.)

That you didn't understand this, does not change the evidence.

>If you don't understand that explaining the
>origin of all that information presents a serious problem,
>it is probably because indoctrination in the notion
>that population fluctuation in the peppered moth is the paradigm
>example of evolution in action has a tendency to cloud the mind.

Finding that explanation is *not* a problem, because we *have* that
explanation. If you would *ask*, instead of attack, you might learn
something.

>I recognize that this frank talk will cause offense.

I'm mostly offended by your closed mind. You do not respond to posts:
you merely issue further broadsides. I see no dialogue here.
-- 
Don		D.C.Lindsay	Carnegie Mellon Computer Science
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: epowers@mccoy (POWERS)
Subject: Re: They want to debate Phillip Johnson
Organization: New Mexico State University
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 23:11:36 GMT

In article <1jvlplINNl54@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com  
(Jon Livesey) writes:
> In article <C1DrDw.39y@world.std.com>, pduggan@world.std.com (Paul C  
Duggan) writes:
> |> In article <1993Jan24.134326@IASTATE.EDU> kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren  
Vonroeschlaub) writes:
> |> >In article <qXiuXB1w165w@kalki33.lakes.trenton.sc.us>,
> |> >system@kalki33.lakes.trenton.sc.us (Kalki Dasa) writes:
> |> >>The basis of Darwinism is materialism, i.e. the proposition that 
> |> >>there is nothing in existence except matter and material energy,  
and 
> |> >>nothing ever influences matter except other matter or material  
energy.
> |> >
> |> >  False.
> |> >[...]
> |> >  If you cannot devise a test for these things, then they might as  
well not
> |> >exist.  What difference does it make?
> |> 
> |> A test that a scientist would use would be a test involving material  
energy
> |> or matter, would it not? So how is that you describe the materialist
> |> presupposition of Darwinism as "False"? You seem to be saying the
> |> exact same thing by your request for a material test.
> |> 
> |> Am I mistaken?
> 
> You can have a material test for the material effects of immaterial
> influences.
> 
> jon.

	No, you can't.  Anything observed is always assumed to have a  
natural cause, whether or not a naturalistic explanation is immediately  
apparent.  The supernatural is automatically cut out of science.
					Erik Powers
From: sandvik@newton.apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Evolution on Christian TV
Date: 26 Jan 93 05:40:54 GMT
Followup-To: talk.origins
Organization: The Language Game Inc.

In article <1993Jan25.142943.1@woods.ulowell.edu>, cotera@woods.ulowell.edu
wrote:
> It's interesting to note that a Gallup poll, either from '91 or '92, said that
> something like 80% of Americans don't believe in evolution.

If statistics was a way to show that something is real, then you would 
also agree that astrology works due to the majority of Americans believing
in it.

Kent
---
sandvik@newton.apple.com. ALink: KSAND
Private activities on the Net, opinions are not Apple's, they are mine.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: russpj@microsoft.com (Russ Paul-Jones)
Subject: Re: SWAA Lecture
Date: 23 Jan 93 22:33:51 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <1993Jan22.005356.1337@icaen.uiowa.edu> cdminter@icaen.uiowa.edu (Corey D Minter) writes:
>russpj@microsoft.com (Russ Paul-Jones) writes:
>
>>Natural selection can be briefly described as "survival of the fittest".  
>>This can degenerate into a tautology if we define fittest as those 
>>that survive the best, but it is usually possible to observe 
>>objective characteristics of those individuals that have the most 
>>offspring that survive.  A non-Darwinian observation would be 
>>individuals that objectively are less fit having more offspring (over
>>the long run) than the more fit.
>
>On this note, is that really a problem 'degenerating into a tautology'.
>The real problem is when you try to get people to accept that this is
>all there is.  Many say 'oh there must be more to it' and that I guess
>is where most of the disagreement arises.

The danger of tautology is in the definition of "fittest".  If we 
determine fitness merely by the ability to survive, than the phrase 
"survival of the fittest" is a tautology.

>-- 
>cdminter@icaen.uiowa.edu / cdminter@eng.uiowa.edu (Qlink: EarthsWake)
>"The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face."
>"We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients.  But we can't scoff at them
>personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me."  -Jack Handy, SNL

-Russ Paul-Jones
russpj@microsoft.com