HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik )
Subject: Re: On God and Science
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 22:40:50 GMT
Organization: (Evil Eye Creature from Mars, Inc.)
Followup-To: talk.origins

In article <1992Dec18.130553.20138@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel
Tun) > >|> >Or, out of many alternative Universes, we happen to be in the
one
> >|> >whose physical laws have the right chracteristics for us to be alive.
> >|> 
> >|> Hahahahaha!

> >Would you care to be more specific?
> 
> I laughed out of amazement and amusement at the tenacity of
> evolutionists in coming up with outrageous ideas in an
> effort to convince themselves of the non-creation of the
> world and of themselves.

I don't see anything really amusing about this one, we are alive
in this universe, i.e. the universe is capable of sustaining 
carbon-oriented life forms. If this is outrageous, then there's 
something most of us are missing. Maybe we are not really alive,
or that Plato was right?

> I am a little sad too, that so much effort is used to avoid
> the Creator, when the same effort could equally be used to
> seek him.

Note that the core problem is that whatever you do, you can't 
avoid the issue of randomness that is capable of creating life
in a universe suited for the life process. If scientists could
someday even show that the meta-universe spawns off billions/trillions
of universes every second, then the status of random life forms
is more and more valid. Or then we have a creator that acts in
a random manner, hey that would be something really amusing, or 
what?

Kent
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.		
"Don't just do something!  Stand there!"  -- Mystery Science Theater 3000
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: comparing theories
Date: 17 Dec 1992 05:00:05 GMT
Organization: sgi
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <n120et@ofa123.fidonet.org>, Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org writes:
|> 
|>  > From: lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
|>  > Message-ID: <1992Dec15.140325.4331@city.cs>
|> 
|>  > colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
|>  >>The fact of common descent and the
|>  >>details of phylogeny are inferences, i.e. conclusions drawn from data.
|> 
|>  > Since when has common descent been established as a fact? It is
|>  > merely a theory, and a poor one at that.
|> 
|> Well then i guess we'd better compare it to the theory of creationism then.
|> Could you please state it for us?

Heck, I'd be happy if the guy just explained the Fossil record using
a Flood model.   He claimed - before the Flood, it seems now - that it
would be easy.

jon.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: On God and Science
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 19:05:21 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.170145.12306@julian.uwo.ca>, jdnicoll@prism.ccs.uwo.ca
(James Davis Nicoll) writes:
> In article <1gp0riINNi86@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon
Livesey) writes:
> >In article <Z2XuVB2w165w@kalki33>, kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
writes:
>>>
>>> O'Keefe accepts that life developed on earth entirely through physical
>>> processes of the kind envisioned by Darwin. He stresses, however, that
>>> many features of the laws of physics have just the right values to allow
>>> for life as we know it. He concludes from this that God created the
>>> universe for man to live in -- more precisely, God did this at the
>>> moment of the Big Bang, when the universe and its physical laws sprang
>>> out of nothing.
>>
>>Or, out of many alternative Universes, we happen to be in the one
>>whose physical laws have the right chracteristics for us to be alive.
>>
>>jon.
> 
> 	Why  is the  contribution to this thread so lacking  in  commentary
> from intelligent replicating  patterns  not possible  under  the present
> set  of  physical laws?
> 
> 							James Nicoll

   Very high potential barriers in the way and lack of an internet 
connection, obviously.  More seriously I thought that the question
of other universes with their own physical laws was wide open and
pretty worthless (for lack of observations). 

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Response to Bill Jefferys, part 2
Date: 18 Dec 1992 03:58:14 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

In article <7995@tekig7.PEN.TEK.COM> bobb@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM (Robert W Bales) writes:
>
>>In other words, when using the isochron method, you will KNOW if the system
>>has not remained closed. Such rocks are not used in isochron dating. They
>>CANNOT be used for proper isochron dating,
>
>Then why is it that  non-creationist geologists recognize a "problem of
>inherited age?" [3] The authors in question believe that the age has meaning
>for events before the rock was last crystalized, but say that their results
>could be caused by contamination.

	Because the method can in fact deal with some contamination. If there
is more product of the decay than there really ought to be, the age would
appear to be older, and if the parent is enriched, the measured age would
appear older. The dating method provides a least upper bound for the age.

>More importantly, if you want to claim accuracy for isochron dates, you need
>to know which rocks CAN be used.  This seems to be determined from isochron
>theory.  You choice of rocks is only as good as the theory. *And until you
>have verified the theory against data obtained from methods completely
>independent of isochrons, you do not know how good the theory is.*

	This is why we have petrologists. These people look at the mineralogy
and texture of rocks to determine the events in their history. Candidate
rocks that would be poor choices for isotope dating as to age would be
wheathered and hydrothermally altered rocks, and metamorphic, but at
least the latter might give the age of the metamorphism. Igneous rocks
that are unaltered would make good candidates and for the plutonic
varietues there are fresh rocks that are stratigraphically very old and
which give old radiometric ages, as well as young ones.

	The petrology of a candidate then, is an independant indication of
its reliability for dating as the suitable minerals can be determined and
the history of the rock can be deciphered to determine that it has not been
altered since its origin. Igneous rocks in sedimentary sequences as tuff
and flows inturcolated into undatable rocks can be used to bracket their
absolute ages as the needed unaltered minerals could be found in the
igneous rocks.

Bruce Salem
From: Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Permission denied.
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Nov 17 1992
Date: 15 Dec 92  17:21:00

 > From: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
 > Message-ID: <728gVB1w165w@kalki33>

 > To all the people who were too lazy or cheap to get hold of the
 > book Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science, here's some news:
 > Dr.
 > Richard Thompson will not give permission to copy the chapter on
 > information theory.

Bawk! Bawkbawkbawk Bawkbawk Bawk!

 > If you want the book, you'll have to buy it or borrow it.

OK, i hereby ask to borrow your copy. Send it to the snail address below.

 > Meanwhile, look for his new book Forbidden Archaeology, coming
 > soon.

Great, send me that one too.


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---
From: bvickers@valentine.ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers)
Subject: Evolution/creation controversy in the news
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Irvine, Info. & Computer Sci. Dept.
Date: 18 Dec 92 20:57:35 GMT

Summary:

  On December 16, ABC World News Tonight aired a piece on the recent
  electoral victories of several fundamentalist Christians in local
  schoolboard elections.  In Vista, California (a small suburb outside
  of San Diego), enough fundamentalists were elected to the schoolboard
  to give them a majority voice.  One of the new schoolboard members
  is even a member of the ICR (John Tyndall).  According to the report,
  the board will discuss at its next meeting whether to include
  "scientific creationism" as part of its district's science
  curriculum.  It is expected that some attempt to shoehorn creationism
  into the classrooms will be made and will probably succeed.

This is one of the reasons why I can't accept arguments that
creationism should not be attacked on the basis that it is not
science.  I read the _Quarterly_Journal_of_Speech_ essay recommended
by James Lippard, and I agree that creationism needs to be fought on
the basis of its poor scientific results.  However, I disagree with
the essay's thrust in that I think it is just as important to define
why creationism is not science, and why it does not deserve a voice in
public school classrooms.  Simply disproving creationists' claims is
not enough to keep creationism out of the schools; they are a
tenacious bunch, and will continually try to foist their "science"
upon students until it becomes clearly evident how ascientific they
are.
--
Brett J. Vickers
bvickers@ics.uci.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: Evilutionary Biology
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 21:33:54 GMT

In article <101608@netnews.upenn.edu>, weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P
Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Dec10.141512@IASTATE.EDU>, danwell@IASTATE (Daniel A Ashlock)
writes:

[speaking of 

>>   Yeah, people look far more like earthworms or fishes than they do like
>>Chimps.  Right.  Chris Colby is right: you really are stupid.
> 
> I have the impression that Ray looks like a tunicate.  Perhaps this is
> what is confusing him.

   This is EXACTLY why science must constantly question itself.  Sometimes
there is a hypothisis out there that just makes everything fall into place
and make sense, and with out constant questioning you won't find it.

   YOU'RE BRILLIANT MATT!

> -- 
> -Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: On God and Science
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Date: 20 Dec 1992 14:09 MST  
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1992Dec20.003729.10684@aurora.com>, isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak) writes...
>In article <1992Dec18.130553.20138@city.cs> lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
>>I laughed out of amazement and amusement at the tenacity of
>>evolutionists in coming up with outrageous ideas in an
>>effort to convince themselves of the non-creation of the
>>world and of themselves.
> 
>Yes, honesty isn't always pleasant and often takes a great deal of effort.
> 
>I, too, once marveled at the unlikelihood of everything in the
>universe coming together in such a way to create me.  Such an occurrance
>seemed wildly improbable.  Then I realized that, had all circumstances
>not been as they were, I wouldn't be around to marvel, so questions of
>probability are meaningless.  The probability of my existence, given that
>I exist, is exactly one, no matter what my theological assumption

This seems like a bad argument, to me.  Suppose I'm put in front of a firing
squad of fifteen men.  They all fire, but I don't die.  I continue to
exist.  By an argument analogous to what you've given, I shouldn't marvel
at my own continued existence or wonder how it happened--the probability
was one.  But if, in fact, all fifteen men *missed* me, there is an unusual
fact there that requires some sort of explanation.  The fact that if they
hadn't missed me, then I wouldn't be there to puzzle over my existence, does
*not* explain what is curious in this situation.  Likewise, the fact of
life's existence requires some sort of explanation other than the supposed
"explanation" offered by the anthropic principle.

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: stone@cwis.unomaha.edu (Travis Stone)
Subject: Speed of Light *NOT* Constant
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:03:17 GMT



The speed of light is *not* absolutely constant;
according to quantum mechanics, if you pass photons
through the space between two charged capacitor plates
in vacuo, theoretically the light *speeds up*---but
the theoretical effect is about 1 part in 10^30 or so...

T.R. Stone
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: On God and Science
Date: 18 Dec 1992 01:15:29 GMT
Organization: sgi
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.48.150.6

In article <1992Dec17.140135.28343@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
|> In article <1gp0riINNi86@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|> >In article <Z2XuVB2w165w@kalki33>, kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us writes:
|> >>
|> >> O'Keefe accepts that life developed on earth entirely through physical
|> >> processes of the kind envisioned by Darwin. He stresses, however, that
|> >> many features of the laws of physics have just the right values to allow
|> >> for life as we know it. He concludes from this that God created the
|> >> universe for man to live in -- more precisely, God did this at the
|> >> moment of the Big Bang, when the universe and its physical laws sprang
|> >> out of nothing.
|> >
|> >Or, out of many alternative Universes, we happen to be in the one
|> >whose physical laws have the right chracteristics for us to be alive.
|> 
|> Hahahahaha!

Would you care to be more specific?

I only ask because it seems to me that the last several postings
that I have seen from you have had no content except for random
expletives.

Now, I don't expect you to present evidence.   I've yet to see
a creationist do that.

I don't expect to see you you post interpretations of evidence.
I figure Bob Bales has about the minimal IQ required for that,
and you are no Bob Bales.

I don't even expect to see you post references to interpretations
since that would involve you in looking something up.

I don't even expect you to tell us of someone who has posted a
reference to an interpretation of a piece of evidence.

But I do expect better than "Hahahahaha!"

jon.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: muttiah@thistle.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah)
Subject: Re: Men Evolved from Women
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 03:40:06 GMT

In article <n118ft@ofa123.fidonet.org> David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org writes:
>Who: cotera@woods.ulowell.edu (Ray Cote)
>Only to your eyes, it seems. I look remarkably like a chimp
>myself, and I suspect you look remarkably like a babboon.
>What of it? Do -YOU- have a good explanation of why humans
>(not just the men [see your sentence reproduced above]) look
>so much like primates? 

To make a very long story very very short:  the primates were here
before us, and they created us in their image.  

>Any explanation at all? 

Yep, the simplest explanation of a phenomena wins.  Note that
the explanation didn't last but one solitary sentence.

>Coincidence?

Nope, purely deterministic.
From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Response to Bill Jefferys, part 3
Date: 18 Dec 1992 04:11:21 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

	Bob, you can debate with Bill about what science is or is
not, and whether he put words into your mouth, but having cammand
of facts and a practical knowledge of the methods is what makes you
a competant critic. And competant you are not. In this latest series
of posts you have made statements several times that reveal that you
have no grasp of the problems a geologist has in getting reliable
dates and a means to accept them. You do not have a grasp of the
data or how it is gathered.

	Your repeated assertion about erosion rates is just wrong.
It has nothing to do with what rocks have which ages, and you obviously
have not an inkling about how rocks are used for dating, which ones
can be used. Why don't you go read some books on mineralogy, petrology,
and structural geology before you make any more stupid assertions. You
just don't know what you are talking about and you don't understand
any "data", descriptive geology, to be able to know when someone has
explained to you a solution to your problems.

	So, give it a rest, and go to the library.

Bruce Salem


Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: btd@iastate.edu (Benjamin T Dehner)
Subject: Re: Robert Bass on Velikovsky and Physics
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 19:33:04 GMT

In <724481784@sheol.UUCP> throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:

>: From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)
>: Message-ID: <174@fedfil.UUCP>
>: 3)  If one started Venus in an orbit lying entirely between the orbits
>: of Jupiter and Saturn, with precisely the appropriate initial position
>: and velocity, it would within LESS THAN TWO DECADES work its way inward
>: into an orbit lying entirely between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

	I don't have the original article around any more -- does anyone
have the references to the Robert Bass stuff mentioned earlier?  Anything
will do, but I'm hoping to find out what sort of modeling the guy has done.

Thanks,
Ben

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin T. Dehner    Dept. of Physics and Astronomy 
btd@iastate.edu       Iowa State University 
                      Ames, IA 50011
From: Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: comparing theories
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Nov 17 1992
Date: 15 Dec 92  19:27:00

 > From: lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
 > Message-ID: <1992Dec15.140325.4331@city.cs>

 > colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
 >>The fact of common descent and the
 >>details of phylogeny are inferences, i.e. conclusions drawn from data.

 > Since when has common descent been established as a fact? It is
 > merely a theory, and a poor one at that.

Well then i guess we'd better compare it to the theory of creationism then.
Could you please state it for us?

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---
From: jsanders@phys.ksu.edu (Justin M. Sanders)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: In case Bales has convinced you of his honesty
Date: 18 Dec 1992 14:42:02 GMT
Organization: Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan KS, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: bohr.phys.ksu.edu

In article <1992Dec18.051937.5940@panix.com> mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon) writes:
  [Large amounts of good stuff deleted above and below]
>
>Have you the SLIGHTEST understanding of what a "standard" is??????
>It is nothing BUT a (consensually nonproblematic) method against which
>*other* methods may be checked.  You are *trying* to summon out of some
>realm of ghosts a "problem" with radioactive dating methods.  This is
>particularly ludicrous in view of the STANDARD for time measurement
>being a particular radiative decay (Cesium, I think?).
>

The standard for time measurement is NOT a radioactive decay.  It is an
electronic transition in the cesium atom.  The second is defined as
9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition
between the two hyperfine levels in the ground state of cesium 133.

However, the remainder of Michael Siemon's argument is sound, and indeed
the point he was trying to make-- that rates of radioactive decay are
well known (and the uncertainties in them are well known also) and the
constancy of them is well known and well verified-- is quite true.

--
Justin M. Sanders    
Dept. of Physics     "I could not fail to disagree with you less."
Kansas State Univ.                           -- Gabriel Weinreich
From: bobb@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM (Robert W Bales)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: In case Bales has convinced you of his honesty
Date: 17 Dec 92 21:24:08 GMT


Simon  Clippingdale writes:

>Your `dispute' with me is getting a little one-sided, in that I have now
>issued no less than four invitations including my original followup (five
>if you count this one) for you to respond to my allegation that you have
>used statistics in a bogus manner

I did not see the original followup.  I have seen at least most of the
other invitations.

I know I did not intentionally deceive.  I might have said something wrong.
Or Simon could have misunderstood me.  By all means, post the response again
and/or email it to me.  (Some members of this group have reached me by email,
some apparently have failed.)  I am not working next week, but will endevor
to keep up with the news until Christmas.  After that, I will be out of town
until New Year's Eve.

>If you regard allegations of "intentional dishonesty", backed up with
>evidence, as a trifling matter unworthy of a response, there are those
>here who do not.

I certainly do not.  I should have answed before this.  I gave higher
priority to answering allegations the specifics of which I saw than to those
I didn't.

   Bob Bales
   Tektronix, Inc.

I help Tektronix make their instruments. They don't help me make my opinions.