HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 15:42:36 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.171831.346@acuson.com>, lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)
writes:
> There is another point I've been meaning to bring up on this thread.
> The anti-faith side of this debate questions why the evidence points to
> long times, evolution, etc.  Perhaps the "evidence" is not pointing.
> As an example, let me bring up the old "canals" on Mars topic.  They
> were clear evidence that there was an advanced civilization on Mars.
> More recent views is that they just happen to be there and aren't
> evidence of anything.  They just appeared to be canals.

   Science advances a trial hypothisis that turns out to be wrong when
better evidence becomes available.  Business as usuall.  Until the 
evidence for evolution drys up and blows away like the Martian canals
it IS the evidence pointing.

   The Martian canals had one line of evidence that involved an immature
technology.  How many lines of evidence supported by which technology 
support evolutionary theory?  I thought so.  Bad example, you get 
_no_ scooby snack.
 
> Ask all the questions you want, but don't be so arrogant to think that
> God must run the universe on your terms.

   You are, I take it, adressing the creationists?
 
> Perhaps I have an easier time with this because I am a programmer.  I
> can think of variables and structures as real while I know that they
> are just convenient concepts.  I look at evolution the same way.

   Being a programmer has nothing to do with it.  I'm a programmer (hell, I get
royalties for one of my programs) and I don't see reality as being observer
dependent.  Tell you what, next time a truck makes an illeagle left turn
through you just view it as an immaterial data structure and pay someone else
to tell us how well it works.  The truck and evolution are equally real.

   Evolution is grounded in reality very firmly as are data structures.
Incorrect data structures can kill; it is mere bigotry on your part as 
a material being to declare them non-existant upon your whim. 

Materialist!
 
> Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,
> lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
From: epp@mala.bc.ca (Lorne Epp)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Kinesiology - how I heard about it
Date: 12 Aug 92 22:25:26 -0700
Organization: Malaspina College

In article <x94mws=.sheaffer@netcom.com>, sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
> Actually, I think that "kinesiology" means something like 'exercise without
> motion using opposing muscles  to generate force.' Lock your fingers
> together, then pull your arms apart: something like that. 
>

I believe you're thinking of isometrics.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Lorne Epp                                               epp@mala.bc.ca
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:14161 sci.physics:12721
From: albert@bsovax.UUCP (Albert van der Horst)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,sci.physics
Subject: Re: help needed with a thought problem
Summary: Speed of sound less than speed of light
Date: 12 Aug 92 09:36:35 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic
Organization: BSO/AT Utrecht bv., P.O.Box 8052, 3503 RB UTRECHT, The Netherlands

In article <mcirvin.713485917@husc8>, mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin) writes:
> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>
> [about superluminal communication by shoving perfectly rigid rods]
>
> [ other stuff deleted. ]
>
> It's the same problem.  A real one-foot rod isn't a rigid body on
> time scales of nanoseconds.  The acceleration of the rod will
> propagate as a wave through any real material.

Let us be more specific. Pushing or pulling a rod propagates with the
speed of sound for that material. For all known materials the speed
of sound is of the order of Km/s at most. Much less than the speed
of light. Furthermore, there is theoretical insight in the
speed of sound, indicating that it must be less than the speed of
light in vacuum.

--
"If it weren't for Salt-N-Peppa, I wouldn't make it through midlife crisis"
           Albert van der Horst    BSO/Automation Technology
           P.O 8052  3053 RB   UTRECHT       The Netherlands
           uunet!sun4nl!bsovax!alcohux!albert
From: Ken.Stuckas@iphase.UUCP (Ken Stuckas)
Sender: FredGate@iphase.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: origin of life articl
Date: 12 Aug 92  17:40:00 EST

-> >   Just to nit pick, but given a fair coin, the previous 1,000,000 >
->   tosses have absolutely no bearing on the next.  The odds of the >
-> next toss being tails are still 50-50.  I understand your point, >
-> but your analogy is flawed.

IMHO it depends on the question you ask in advance of flipping any coin.

Q#1: If I flip this coin, what are the odds that it will come up heads?
     (Obvious answer: 50/50)

Q#2: If I flip this coin, what are the odds that it will come up heads
      1,000,000 times in a row?

Once the coin has been flipped, you can't go back and ask the question in retrospect, because the question has no relevance.  Or does it?

 * Origin: Aether (1:112/2020)
20 

Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: mccreary@sword.eng.hou.compaq.com (Ed McCreary)
Subject: Re: Autistic children and Prime Time live
Organization: Compaq Computer Corp.
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 15:41:33 GMT

In article <6130004@hpfcbig.SDE.HP.COM> gt@hpfcbig.SDE.HP.COM (George Tatge) writes:
>
>>Down here in Oz there was a recent hoo-hah about this kind of thing.
>>Extreme doubt has been cast on the ability of these children to
>>communicate because they were unable to reproduce their
>>astounding skills when their facilitators weren't supporting their hands.
>
>I don't understand how this casts any doubt.  The premise is that 
>something is required to stabilize the child's hand because the
>autism keeps them in uncontrolled movement which overcomes any
>attempt by them to do something as precise as poking a particular
>key on a keyboard.
>
>If you'll forgive me a reductio absurdum (sp?), it's akin to saying
>that doubt has been cast upon the claim that some people can fly
>because when their planes were taken away they were unable to
>reproduce their astounding skills.
>
>I still think that fair tests could be devised.  Given that it
>involves the lives of very many unfortunate children, it would
>seem worth taking a long, hard, fair look.
>

I felt uneasy with it originally because the material being
written by these children seemed to be far more advanced that
one would expect any 5 year old to be capable of.  In the work
I saw being done, there was no way to prevent the adult from 
influencing what was being typed.

I agree that more stringent testing methods should be devised
and we should find out what is really going on.


--
McCreary@sword.eng.hou.compaq.com     Computers are like Old Testament gods;
Me? Speak for Compaq?  Yeah, right.   lots of rules and no mercy.
"By this time my lungs were aching for air..."               Joseph Campbell
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,sci.physics,alt.folklore.science
From: p257shu@fs1.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Susanne Huettemeister)
Subject: The dangers in microwaved food...
Organization: Max-Planck-Institut f"ur Radioastronomie
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 13:49:53 GMT

Recently the German NewAge journal raum&zeit (space&time) carried a
long 'scientific' study that supposedly proved that microwave-cooked
food will unconditionally lead to cancer in anyone eating it. The proof: 
luminescent bacteria swimming in milk from a microwave oven 'shine'
longer, and other arguments of that level. But still, this paper has
been taken serious even by usually skeptical people, because at first
glance it looks sound. Anyway, could someone lead us to serious reviews
of the health risks (or even benefits) inherent in microwaved food?
Since the technology has been on the market for a while and extremely
widespread these days, studies should abound. Thanks!
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:14759 talk.origins:9827
From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Date: 20 Aug 92 17:35:40 GMT
Reply-To: lawson@aldia.UUCP (Drew Lawson)
Organization: ACUSON, Mountain View, CA

Seth   == skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger)
Jim    == jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks)
Warren == kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)


Warren> If God's intention was to confuse us wouldn't he have
Warren>made the tree rings, ice cores, lake bottoms, and coral reefs all disagree to
Warren>some extent as a hint?

Jim   >His intention was not to confuse us.

Seth  >If he didn't intend to confuse us, then why did he do this?  Mr. Omnicience
Seth  >surely would have known what what such things would have been taken for.

There is at least one misconception and one BIG assumption running
through this.

The misconception is that omniscience implies that God is forcing
actions upon us.  Simply knowing that we will do something does not
imply that God intends us to do it.

The flawed assumption is that our mistakes are the result of God's
deception.  If you become confused while reading my postings, it does
not mean that I have tried to confuse you.

Likewise, allowing artifacts to be in the world which are now taken to
indicate evolutionary origin is not the same as trying to lead us to
believe evolution.  You have the choice of interpreting the findings
with or without the context of faith and revealed truth.  If you choose
to ignore God in the process and conclude that it happened without God,
that is not evidence that your conclusion is correct.  It may be
logically correct, but that is not the same as being true.


Since there is chocolate in the world, God obviously intended us all to
be fat.

-- 
Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,
lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
From: bear@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Bear Giles)
Subject: Platypuses
Organization: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Adminstration / Boulder Labs
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 02:17:35 GMT

>>bear@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Bear Giles) writes:
>>>God the Incompetent.
>>>At least that explains the platypus.

I was making a cute reference to the fact that (as I recall) Creationists
in the 19th Century seized upon the platypus as proof that God truly
created the animals of the earth.

After all, Nature/Evolution could never create a creature such as the
platypus! (Wags, of course, commented on the sobriety of a god who would
deliberately create the platypus).

BTW, it should be remembered that in the late 19th Century Nature was
a giant piece of clockwork, entirely deterministic.  Physics was almost
a dead science, nothing much left to do after we understand why certain
rocks cause new-fangled photographic plates to get fogged....

Anyway, someone asked me about this and I realized I've forgotten where
I read it.  I'm fairly certain it was a scientific/skeptic book, but I
can't recall which one.

Does anyone else remember reading about this debate, or know where to
find more information?


Bear Giles
bear@fsl.noaa.gov
From: Ken.Stuckas@iphase.UUCP (Ken Stuckas)
Sender: FredGate@iphase.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: shroud exposed at ear
Date: 12 Aug 92  17:53:00 EST

-> I suggest you read (or re-read) Heller's book; he claims that many
-> Shroud details were discovered only after modern scientific analysis,
-> details that a medieval forger would not have needed to include.
-> I.e., microscopic particles of dirt on the feet, the abrasion of the
-> tip of the nose, the precise pattern that a Roman flagrum produces in
-> human flesh, the two paths that the blood took in running down the
-> arm during crucifixion, ... why were all these details so carefully
-> included?  A true skeptic does not simply dismiss the details, but
-> rather explains them so the "believer" has no room for belief.  And
-> let me turn

I especially liked the spike marks being in the wrist and not in the palm of the hand which experts claim would have ripped out.  I believe that the shroud is a fake, but I'm sure we foundthings that the forger did not know would be found.  Maybe it was created by a group of people who went to the length of actually putting some human through the whole ritual of crucifixion (a volunteer, of course).  I'm sure there would have been many volunteers in the religious community at that time.

We have a human tendency to disbelieve the science of others.  as a result a number of events just keep on being brought up over and over. Marilyn Monroe, John Kennedy's assasination, UFO's, Darwinism.  There is only one cure that I know of, and that is personal education with an open mind rather than a profit motive.   Say, when is the next Bermuda triangle book coming out?   :)

 * Origin: Aether (1:112/2020)
20 
20 
20 

Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:14802 talk.origins:9897
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Date: 21 Aug 92 22:53:00 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic, talk.origins
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <536@texbell.sbc.com>, lm8637@tnessd.sbc.com (Lou Montgomery (214+464-1049)) writes...
>        Carbon 14 dating.
>       1) LIVING Mollusks have been dated by the carbon 14 procedure
>       and assigned an age of 2300 years old. These results were
>       recorded in Science, vol. 130, Dec. 11, 1959.

Not that I could find.  I went through the whole Dec. 11, 1959 issue of
_Science_ and found no such article.  The closest thing I found was
Charles A. Reed, "Animal Domestication in the Prehistoric Near East,"
_Science_ 130(11 Dec. 1959):1629-1639, which on p. 1630 complains about
C14 unreliability without mentioning mollusks.

On the other hand, I do know of M.S. Kieth and G.M. Anderson,
"Radiocarbon Dating: Fictitious Results with Mollusk Shells,"
_Science_ (August 16, 1963):634, referred to frequently by creationists.
I've already addressed why this article is NOT an argument against the
general reliability of C14 dating.

>       2) Nature, vol. 225, March 7, 1970, reported a carbon 14 test
>       done on organic material contained in the mortar of an English
>       castle. Although the castle was known to be 787 years old, the
>       carbon 14 test gave an age of 7370 years.

This is M.S. Baxter and A. Walton, "Radiocarbon Dating of Mortars,"
_Nature_ 225(Mar. 7, 1970):937-938, a letter to the editor.  As I
speculated yesterday, this *does* give the reason for the bogus
dates--contamination by ancient carbon.  The authors conclude that
C14 dating is unreliable for dating mortars made from calcareous
sands or uncompletely kilned limestone.

>       3) Anarctic Journal of The United States, vol. 6, 1971 reported
>       that freshly killed seals were carbon 14 dated at 1300 years.
>       In the same series of tests mummified seals that had been dead
>       30 years were dated by this method at 4600 years old.

I couldn't find this journal.

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: hacrat@CATFISH.LCS.MIT.EDU (Nate Osgood)
Subject: Skeptic perspectives on dowsing
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 22:23:55 GMT


I'm looking for skeptically minded articles analysing the phenomenon
of dowsing for water.  I have a skeptical friend who swears that
dowsing (via copper rods) is highly effective at locating near-surface
water.  I've got a few theories as to what might be going on (e.g.
existing expectations of water based on subtle [perhaps subconscious]
cues, divergence of the rods caused by slight depressions in the
ground associated with near-surface water, etc.), but suspect that
there have been some serious analyses of the subject in the scientific
literature.  (By considering only "skeptically minded" articles I
don't mean to rule out articles arguing for the existence of some
NATURAL phenomenon at work that causes the practice to work).   Could 
anyone recommend sources I might look into?


Any help greatly appreciated!

Nate Osgood
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nate Osgood			| ARPA: hacrat@catfish.lcs.mit.edu
CS Graduate Student		| 
MIT LCS Room NE43-636		| UUCP: ...!uunet!catfish.lcs.mit.edu!hacrat
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Bush interview as quoted in Alt.Atheism FAQ
Date: 12 Aug 92 18:10:46 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Followup-To: alt.atheism,sci.skeptic
Distribution: world,local
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <11AUG199206402267@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu> lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes:
|In article <876@tdat.teradata.COM>, swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes...
|>I have since discovered that the 1st ammendment is indeed written using
|>the phrasing 'Congress shall make no law ...', so it is indeed, as written,
|>a blanket, absolute, right.  I believe the *other* parts of the Bill of
|>Rights, however, are worded differently, and may well only apply to citizens.
|
|You may be thinking of the Fourteenth Amendment (which isn't part of the
|Bill of Rights), which says, in its first section:

No, I was thinking of the fact that the other 9 ammendments in the Bill
of Rights do not use the unambiguous formula "Congress shall pass no law",
but rather some other formula that does not necessarily imply a blanket
ban.  This then leaves the door *open* for interpreting these items as
only applying to U.S. citizens.

I am, and have always been, aware that there is no *explicit* mention
of citizenship in the Bill of Rights.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: jmv@grip.cis.upenn.edu (Jean-Marc Vezien)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Mensas farce?
Date: 20 Aug 92 20:16:02 GMT
Organization: GRASP Lab

In article <19920820113317SKH4161@MVS.draper.com>, SKH4161@MVS.draper.com (Kjeld Hvatum) writes:
> >I easily meet their entrance requirements, but wouldn't be caught dead
> >in that group of ego-stroking losers who populate Mensa...
> 
> Then you'll probably want to avoid the even higher IQ societies
> like TNS, Prometheus, and Mega, which are, respectively, 20, 667,
> and 20,000 times more exclusive than Mensa.  Until the recent
> emergence of the High 5 Society, Mensa was the lowest-IQ active
> high-IQ society - hardly something with which to stroke one's ego. :-)

Gosh, How many people are there in Mega ?
I mean besides me :)


JM.
From: patricka@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Patrick Anderson)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: 17 reasons ... the clincher for me
Keywords: Areopagus,Millhouse gate,insecticide
Date: 16 Aug 92 00:19:18 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


This part was priceless:
 
"But if the dinosaurs lived at the same time as man, they
would have had to have been on the Ark, and that's impossible!"
Is it? The Ark was about one and one-half football fields long,
75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall. It had a cubic footage of
1,518,750. There would have been plenty of room on the Ark for
the dinosaurs (especially considering that only a few were of the
enourmous size of Tyrannosaurus or "Brontesaurus.") Also, the
Bible states that Noah was to take two of every kin(d?) onto the
Ark. Many dinosaurs and reptiles were of the same kind, but much
smaller. Dinosaurs pose no problem for creation science.
 
(Brontesaurus was originally a spelling error but I left it in to
amuse myself)
 
I am now born-again, where do I send the check?
 
Love,
Xenu
Alpha State University
From: swells@triton.unm.edu (Earth-daughter)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: calling "planet." (personal message)
Date: 12 Aug 92 15:44:24 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

dear "planet" -sorry for the public e-mail.
i've not heard from you in a while and i've lost your
address.

do you still exist in net.land or have you finally been
bumped off?

shannon
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: Tim.ONeill@english.utas.edu.au (Tim O'Neill)
Subject: Re: Barbara Thiering's "Jesus the man". Any comments?
Organization: University of Tasmania (Australia)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 02:22:36 GMT

In article <391@bsovax.UUCP>, albert@bsovax.UUCP (Albert van der Horst) writes:

> Are these legitimate scientific conclusions? Sensational rendering
> of a newspaper from a scientific conclusions? Crackpot science?
> Is the book worth reading at all?
> Comments any one?

Completely crackpot, Thiering's book is one of the funniest books
I've read since Von Daniken. The only problem is that people are 
taking it seriously. I gave a paper to the Tasmanian Branch of the
Australian Skeptics on the Thiering Hypothesis last friday night
and it went down quite well. Since I've already promised alt.atheism
and talk.religion.misc that I will post a detailed critique of 
Thiering's ravings I suppose I'd better get off my arse and do something
about it. I'll crosspost it to sci.skeptic as well.
Cheers,
Tim O'Neill
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: john@anasazi.com (John R. Moore)
Subject: Re: Mensa (was Re: Kinesiology - how I heard about it)
Reply-To: john@anasazi.com
Organization: Anasazi Inc, Phoenix AZ USA
Distribution: world,local
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 14:41:59 GMT

Keywords: 

In article <1992Aug17.092452.27338@cco.caltech.edu> keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
]The IQ isn't meaning less, but MENSA is.  That is, the IQ has some merit
]for some abilities, but MENSA exists only for self-flattery and egotism.

Hmm... when I was a member, I found very little of that going on. It was
a social club, and a way to find those of similar intellectual
interests (not easy otherwise in a place like Phoenix, AZ).


-- 
John Moore NJ7E, 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253  (602-951-9326)
john@anasazi.com ncar!noao!asuvax!anasaz!john anasaz!john@asuvax.eas.asu.edu
Get into Ham Radio today! Morse Code no longer needed! It's a hobby, a sport, a
convenience, a technical challenge, a public service. Go rec.radio.amateur.misc
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
From: bear@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Bear Giles)
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Organization: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Adminstration / Boulder Labs
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 00:33:57 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.121048@IASTATE.EDU> kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:
>  I have to agree with Dan, you a presenting God as a liar, purposefully doing
>His best to trick people into believing something false.  I don't know about
>you, but that isn't the God I worship.

Ah, so you're saying He unintentionally tricks us despite His omniscience
and omnipotence.

God the Incompetent.

At least that explains the platypus.

Personally, I see a _lot_ of hubris in this discussion.  It's call
"the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy."


Bear Giles
bear@fsl.noaa.gov
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic