HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: livesey@solntze.esd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: Water Sorting
Organization: sgi
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 20:11:27 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.131208.23016@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
|> In article <n0b4et@ofa123.fidonet.org> David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org writes:
|> >Tag: Lionel Tun (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
|> > 
|> > 
|> >LT> "All it shows is that different forms of life appear in the
|> >LT> fossil record at different _layers_! [P] As to the interpretation
|> >LT> of that, evo's say its because of evo, but an equally if not more
|> >LT> valid interpretation is that of hydrological sorting in the flood.
|> > 
|> >Alas, you haven't been paying attention. Just how did water sort
|> >the fossils by their age?
|> 
|> Hahaha, hahahaha. As the old saying goes, Circular Reasoning (TM)
|> strikes again! You jest, no?

No, he doesn't jest at all.   How did hydrological sorting leave
things in a sequence that you would *not* expect to occur if they
were sorted by weight, or by size or by bouancy or by any of the
criteria that you would expect if all that is involved is the 
physics of corpses in water.    There is not, so far as I know,
any argument that gets you from "corpses plus water" to the
nicely ordered sequaces we see today.

If all your answer boils down to is "Whatever the water did, 
that's hydrological sorting" then two things emerge.  One is
that you havn't explained anything, and the other is that you 
aren't thinking.

Oh, and perhaps a third thing.   If this really is your 
answer, you also conflict with people like Morris, who *do* 
attempt to explain how the Flood sorted things by age (and 
who fail miserably, but that's another story).   Now I can 
imagine you arguing with mere scientists, but are you really 
ready to take on Christians "authorities"?   Oooooooooh scary.

jon. 
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Subject: Re: Real issues for Antti
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 02:15:32 GMT
Organization: Apple
Followup-To: talk.origins

In article <97811@bu.edu>, colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) wrote:
> In article <ksand-051092193949@wintermute.apple.com> ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) writes:
> 
> >> 	Right ! I think they survive in the cloudy days as well as cloudless.
> >> 	(there wasn't obviously TOTAL DARKNESS on earth).     
> 
> >You
> >are implying that the fish and plants had quite a radical different
> >way of surviving during the first 3 days.
> 
> To be fair to Antti (why I'd want to be fair to him is beyond me,
> but anyway) I don't think this is really a problem. Organisms
> could live three days (if we are talking 24 hour days) without
> light. Take a houseplant sometime and stick it in your closet
> for three days, I doubt it will croak. Creationism has serious
> problems (no explicit theory exists and -- of course -- no
> evidence for it exists), I don't think its neccessary to go
> this far afield to criticize it. 

Actually, yes, I was thinking about the other Creation Science
dogma where one God-day is thousand years. Yes, animals could survive
without light for three real days. So actually this would imply
that the notion of thousand-year God days is WRONG! And if 
someone still maintains that we are dealing with long days, then
these have to explain how these animals and plants looked like,
and how their ecological system worked without light as a resource.
Quite a speculative world, indeed!

Cheers,
Kent
	Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy to	investigate. -F.M.
Knowles
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.
From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Automated statement of Neo-Catastrophist position
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:13:04 GMT
Followup-To: alt.flame
Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA

In article <17@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
} 
}This group, talk.origins, is dominated (at least in terms of decibles) by a
}rough group of thirty or so individuals who basically ruin the group as
}far as it being any sort of a forum for debate or discussion.  Views
}other than the standard evolution/uniformitarian view of earth origins
}are usually just shouted down.

Darn.  Nothing messes up a good preaching^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h discussion
on views more than these @ssh@l*s who keep bring up facts,  Good for Ted
for preaching on the true worth of mindlessness!

Ever wonder how a tty manages to shout?
}While I may occasionally respond to clear up a legit point of confusion
}on the part of other posters with legit questions, I intend to mostly
}ignore the rabble (Meritt, Hyde, Bishop, Rice, Day, Petrich, Frog etc.
}etc.) from here on in.

Promises promises.

That does simplify the artificial stupidity code that seems to keep
posting the same refudiated things over and over and over, though.
From: lking@athena.mit.edu (Loren King)
Subject: Re: Cain's wife (was Re: A brief tirade)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 20:40:16 GMT

In article <1482@esl.ESL.COM>, markwc@barney.esl.com (Mark Christiansen) writes:
|> 
|> In article <1992Sep29.133530.28628@bcrka451.bnr.ca>
|> seanna@bnr.ca (Seanna Watson) writes:
|> 
|> >Amusing conversation (well at least I thought so :)
|> >
|> >Nicky (5):  Did the people in the olden days hear the Big Bang?
|> >Me: No, there weren't any people around when the Big Bang happened.
|> >Nicky:  Oh, I guess the dinosuars heard the Big Bang.
|> >Me: No, there weren't any dinosaurs then, either.
|> >Nicky:  Oh.  I guess only God heard the Big Bang.
|> 
|> AMUSING, but perhaps TRUE!
|> 
|> Mark


  Well, not literally.  It would be difficult to hear anything before there is
actually a space-time continuum, and it's not clear to me why God needs ears ...
reminds me a bit of Star Trek V ... "but why does God need a starship?"

________

Loren King
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: amorgan@csd-d-3.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: Methinks it's like a weasel (Blind Watchmaker)
Originator: amorgan@csd-d-3.Stanford.EDU
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organizatoin
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 18:15:09 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.160042.232@cs.joensuu.fi> 
  asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen) writes:
>amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog) writes:
>>>	Yes, but the probability of evolution is the same as a monkey would 
>>>	type the whole Shakespeare. 
>
>>Whereinthehell did you get that figure?  Shakespeare wrote about 1000 pages
>>(off the cuff guess).  Each page contains 500 words (2500 characters) for
>>2.5 million characters.  Are you really saying that the probability of
>>evolution is 1e-350,000 ?????
>
>	Yes.

Dandy.  Whereinthehell did you get that figure?  Dawkins doesn't use it.

>>Yes but (oh dear) if you had looked carefully at the book you would 
>>realize that it *doesn't* take that long for that sentence to occur,
>>does it?  And *why* doesn't it?  And why is that reason relevant when 
>>discussing evolution?
>
>	He showed it with 60 steps, but I have doubts with his method. 

Do you?  Would it help if I posted a program that did more or less the
same thing his did (note: I don't have such a program yet, but I can
write one in a day I imagine)?  That way you will be able to test it for
yourself.  I don't suppose you have actually *tried* his method, have
you?

>		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

C Frog
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Yes, Virginia, Mutation is Enough (long!)
Keywords: artificial life, Tierra
Date: 29 Sep 92 01:49:37 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <s9y-ZhB@engin.umich.edu> ingles@engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles) writes:
|
|Introduction:
|
| Once upon a time a professor decided to try to simulate evolution
|on a computer. He set up a block of memory and a language so that
|programs could copy themselves. He set things up so that the programs
|would "die" (be deleted) after a while, and they would "mutate" (bits
|would occasionally flip). ...

This has become a rather popular form of research.  Each person tries
to outdo the others in terms of sophistication or realism in some aspect
of the simulation.

So far *every* simulation has tended to confirm, or clarify, some aspect
of evolution.

The article on "Genetic Algorithms" in a recent issue of Scientific
American was quite enlightening. (It pointed out something I had not
truly realized before - sexual reproduction *improves* the efficiency
of natural selection, allowing a much more rapid convergence on a usable
solution in the current environment).
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Kazmaier and standing up at 200,000 lbs:  why it can't happen
Date: 3 Oct 92 13:03:24 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <1992Oct3.064526.16716@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode) writes:
*In article <45@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:

*>I have (sufficiently often), on t.o.  presented a rather simple and
*>elegant demonstration as to why nothing now evolves into any size beyond
*>that of the largest elephants, and the regular crew of t.o has never
*>been able to comprehend it.

*Actually, it seems that the problem is 

[Other blatter indicating that Trygve read as far as the first paragraph
of my post omitted]

Try reading the rest of the article, and then get back to me.




-- 
Ted Holden
HTE

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: prl@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter Lamb)
Subject: Re: Egg-shaped antediluvian world
Organization: CSIRO Division of Information Technology
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 03:57:45 GMT

news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:

>In article <Bv3F7o.EE5@cs.dal.ca>, hyde@cs.dal.ca (Bill Hyde) writes:

>*	Peter Lamb has done a good job of refuting Rose's geological
>*	imbecilities, but there are a few points I'd like to add.

>Several of Rose's points are logically irrefutable;  the fact that a 
>number of posters on t.o claim to have refuted them indicates a lack of
>comprehension on their part.

Do tell. Which ones, exactly, are logically irrefutable?

>Again, one of Rose's points is as follows:  evidence in support of this
>notion of egg-shaped world is available right on any globe.  You only
>have to go to the nearest world map;  it isn't that hard to find.

>The split between Africa and Arabia also defies conventional logic.*

>The fits between the sides of the Red Sea are very good, as is the fit between
>the sides of the Gulf of Aden.  You could fit either together, but not
>both at the same time;  there would be a 20 degree open on one side or
>the other.  You basically have a 90 degree angle inside a 110 degree
>angle.  Such a splitting cannot be explained within the context of the
>standard uniformitarian belief system.

Ted, this is simply not true. I gave quite detailed instructions in my post
about how the fit should be made (paraphrasing Bullard's paper which
is quoted by Rose). Try reading the instructions. I get a *better* fit
than the fit shown in Rose's paper.

-- 
Peter Lamb (prl@csis.dit.csiro.au)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Friesen on elastics and sauropod necks
Date: 6 Oct 92 21:56:35 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <91759@netnews.upenn.edu>, rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe) writes:
 
*>2.  The only creature with a neck even remotely similar to a sauropod's in
*>    our world is the giraffe, and he holds his neck up for two very good 
*>    reasons:  to lessen the torque stress, and to get at high leaves.  The
*>    strength of these two motives would have been vastly greater for a
*>    sauropod.

*As I've pointed out to Ted on two or three previous occasions, not
*only are these conclusions unjustified, but the "data" on which he
*bases them is downright spurious.

*Female giraffes hold their necks horizontal while they eat.  Because
*of this, male and female giraffes tend not to compete for the same
*resources.  Despite Ted's fantasies, giraffes have little difficulty
*supporting their heads with their necks horizontal, even though
*they're not mechanically designed for it as diploducids were.  What
*giraffes do have difficulty supporting is Ted's arguments.

You've missed the entire point here, which makes you a member in good standing
of what I refer to as the t.o regular crew;  that's the norm.

I can hold 60 or 70 lbs out from my body with my elbow at my side easily
enough...  for a few seconds.  Maybe even for a minute or so.  But all day?

I don't think so.

The giraffe can hold its neck out horizontally long enough to drink or 
perform some other function of short duration.  No problem.

But all day long?  I doubt it.

Scientists are now claiming that sauropod dinosaurs held their heads out
horizontally, all day long, every day of their lives, because they could
not have gotten blood to their brains otherwise.  

Get the picture?


-- 
Ted Holden
HTE

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: corey@sdf.lonestar.org (Corey Carroll)
Subject: Re: Real issues for Antti
Organization: Best lil' ol' Pubnix in Texas
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 20:11:02 GMT

>
>	By the way, your reference to "Kingdom is at Hand!" was false - there
>	were no such things as you claimed. (Did you think I don't have that
>	old book to look references from ?)
>-- 
>
>		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint
>
>	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !

Uh, I hate to jump in again, since I don't know what reference
Alan was talking about, but could the reason that Alan's
reference is "false" be the fact that the Watchtower Society has
an annoying habit of re-editing versions after the fact?  Read
_Crisis of Conscience_...I think they like to re-edit things
after prophecies don't come true to make it look like "Oh we
didn't REALLY say that now, did we?"


-- 
corey@sdf.lonestar.org  214-296-0458   Corey Carroll
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
Subject: Re: Observations
Organization: City University, London
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 11:44:57 GMT

In article <qe5e904@zola.esd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.esd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>In article <1992Sep28.123356.25628@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
>>
>> You just need to be at the right place at the right time. There
>> are numerous examples of withered arms and legs being grown back
>> or re-created by God. Check out one of these maybe.
>
>If there are "numerous" cases, then it should be easy to 
>give us a reference to a few of them.

Pick up a copy of `Only Love Can Make A Miracle' by
Mahesh Chavda, published by Kingsway. There are cases
of people with _no eyeballs_ having their sight
restored. There is also a picture of the signed death
certificate of a boy who died and whom God restored to
life.

>While you are at it, explain how you distinguish between a
>spontaneous recovery, and "God did it".       I've always 
>wondered about that one.

There are no hard and fast rules - but if you nip off
a sliver of skin from the end of your finger and it
grows back, thats no great miracle. But if you have a
withered arm and it instantaneously grows back...

>jon.

--
Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Subject: Re: Egg-shaped antediluvian world
Reply-To: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Organization: The Aurora Group
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 16:31:10 GMT

In article <38@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>2^8 = 64, the odds against all continents simply drifting
>into one hemisphere, which represents half the earth.  The area occupied
>by Pangaea represents considerably less than that, hence the odds against
>all land ending up in wuch a confined space may be said to be greater than
>64/1.

This is too easy a target to pass up.

First, 2^8 = 256; 2^6 = 64.  I'll assume this mistake is simply an
oversight, although it effectively foreshadows the mistakes to come.

Second, it takes at least three points on a sphere to determine
a particular hemisphere.  Until you have a particular hemisphere
for continents to fall in, you can't start to calculate the chance
that they will fall in it.  Hence that odds against n continents
falling in one hemisphere at a given time are not 1 in 2^n, but
1 in 2^(n-3), or, for 2 continents, 1 in 8.

Third, this assumes that the location of continents is random.  Our
understanding of the movement of continents is far from complete,
but plate tectonics makes no such assumption.

Fourth, we are not talking about a given point in time, but a long
period of time.  Given long enough, pure chance says that it's
practically certain that all the continents will fall near each
other sooner or later.

Finally, look at a globe sometime.  The Pacific Ocean covers nearly
one hemisphere by itself, so the continents effectively do fall
all in one hemisphere.  Given that it has happened, the odds that
all continents will drift into one hemisphere is exactly one.
-- 
Mark Isaak           "Every generation thinks it has the answers, and every
isaak@aurora.com      generation is humbled by nature." - Philip Lubin
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Ted shoots himself in foot.  Film at 11.  (Was: Re: Friesen ... )
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 03:58:06 GMT

In article <50@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>In article <1992Oct3.153131@IASTATE.EDU>, kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:
> 
>>   Hey Ted, a question:
> 
>>   Since cave paintings exist from before the change in the felt effect of
>> gravity (a la your galloping elephants), why aren't there any cave paintings of
>> dinosaurs?  
>
>
>Really old Jewish literature describes a number of really big animals, including
>one or two which Noah was supposed to have tied down on the decks of the ark 
>because they would not fit in any of the cages.  These are described as 
>being very rare, however, sort of like the California condor now.  
>
>Then you have to ask yourself, what kind of a guy would live in a cave (aside
>from astronomers).  What would somebody like that know about rare animals?

Well, Ted...I think you've thoroughly discredited your own arguments here
(not that this is the first time or anything).

Why would dinosaurs be rare before the change in the "felt effect" of
gravity?  After all, you said that larger animals have competitive
advantages over smaller ones.  Since dinosaurs were the largest creatures
to exist during that period of time, that would make them the most
competitive, thus the most successful, and thus very plentiful, right?

So: *one* of your statements, either that bigger -> more successful, or
that dinosaurs were rare before the change of the felt effect of gravity,
is false.

Which is it?

>Ted Holden
>HTE


-- 
Kevin Brown					kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
This is your .signature virus: < begin 644 .signature (9V]T8VAA(0K0z end >
	    This is your .signature virus on drugs: <>
			Any questions?
From: jsanders@phys.ksu.edu (Justin M. Sanders)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: New Evidence for Creation!
Date: 3 Oct 1992 04:55:46 GMT
Organization: Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan KS, USA
Distribution: na
NNTP-Posting-Host: bohr.phys.ksu.edu

In article <1992Oct2.211226.4503@desire.wright.edu> 
sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>In article <91106@rphroy.ph.gmr.com>, hamilton@hydra.cs.gmr.com 
> (William E. Hamilton CS50 CS/50) writes:
>> In article <1992Oct1.135043.23660@cbnews.cb.att.com> 
>> ran@cbnews.cb.att.com (Robert A. Neinast) writes:
>>>
>>>A new scientific study has now given us the data to show that the
>>>creation certainly occurred after 33,000 BC and strong evidence
>>>shows that it probably occurred in 5386 BC.
>>>In the "Journal of the American Medical Association", Philip Mackowiak has
>>>recently measured the average human body temperature (he's at the University
>>>of Maryland).  His result is 98.2 degrees F.  There is significance to these
>>>new findings, since the 1868 study of Carl Wunderlich showed that,
>>>in humans, the average body temperature at that time was 98.6 degrees F.  He
>>>collected the data using OVER ONE MILLION PEOPLE.  

>I read something about this recently.  But the info *I* read said that the
>latest studies put average body temperature at *99.2* or theres-abouts.  
>If this study is true then your whole wild fantasy crumbles immediately.

On the contrary it becomes even more accurate, even more exact, and
EVEN BETTER!  Taking the temperature to be 99.2 deg F in 1992 and
98.6 deg F in 1868, indicates that the temperature of the human body
was 32 deg F (freezing point of water) in 11897.04 BC!  Clearly THAT IS
when the Creation occurred!

***For the sarcastically challenged:  8-) *****
--
Justin M. Sanders    "The science of mathematics has no more 
Dept. of Physics       bowels of mercy than has a cast-iron dog." 
Kansas State Univ.      --Rep. John A. Anderson of Kansas, 1882
From: shouse@oscar.UUCP (claude shouse)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Creationist CRAPOLA!
Date: 28 Sep 92 21:20:07 GMT

In article <714@oscar.UUCP>, shouse@oscar.UUCP (claude shouse) writes:
> In article <1992Sep28.121140.24899@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
> > of hydrological sorting in the flood.
> > 
> > --
> > Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
> > Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889
> 
> Hydrological sorting.  OK Lionel, I'll buy that if you can tell me
> two things:  1.  Where did all the water come from.  and  2.  Where
> did it go.  Remember, no miracles.  This is science not belief.

Just to be clear about this Lionel, the amount of water needed to cover
the earth to the height of Mt. Everest is about 3.25 Billion cubic
miles (give or take a few hundred million cubic miles).

Now I am going to get on some shaky ground here so some net.scientist
can perhaps help me, but I believe this amount of water to be at least
two to three times the amount of water extant on earth.  

All this water had to fall on the earth in the span of 964 hours.  


Over to you Lionel.

Claude Shouse

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker)
Subject:  Astronomical hotline (was Worlds in Collision)
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 19:27:49 GMT

	Nothing really to do with the Velikovsky rebuttal, but 
today's Washington Post had an article describing the recapture of 
Comet Swift-Tuttle, associated with the Perseid meteor shower (which
happen every year on my birthday, which is why my ears perked up).
The last couple of Perseid showers were very intense, indicating the
possible proximity of Swift-Tuttle.  Swift-Tuttle will be brightest
around December, reaching approximately naked-eye magnitude.  "Sky and
Telescope" should have a breaking news story for amateurs trying to
locate it.
	Swift-Tuttle now becomes the longest short-period comet, with
a period of approximately 130 years.  Halley's 76-year period was the
previous record.

	Jim Acker
	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Real issues for Antti
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 11:58:35 GMT

sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>Perhaps Antti doesn't realize that most of us in this group can describe
>the vast majority of arguments that creationists have proposed.  If he

	I do and I want to avoid it. 

>can't counter with a concise explanation of what is the theory of evolution
>then he might as well leave.

	Why ?   
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
Newsgroups: talk.origins