HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Re: Why bible nonsense in t.o.????
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: 29 Jul 92 07:13:28 GMT

	Funny first name in this context.

dreiswig@nyx.cs.du.edu (Darwin E. Reiswig) writes:

	The following makes my point rather well that the
whole enchelada of creationism and the like turns upon
justifying the belief that morals are trancendant, that
is the point of C.S. Lewis, whom I found very disappointing,
in the quote below.

>>It seems to me, to toot my own horn, my morals and ethics,
>>which are based upon equality and compassion, are far superior
>>to ones based on ancient occult mythologies, aka bibles.

	Which are based on patriarchy and theocracy.

>   "I am not yet within a hundred miles of the God of Christian 
>theology.  All I have got to is a Something which is directing the
>universe, and which appears in me as a law urging me to do right
>and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong.
>I think we have to assume it is more like a mind than it is like
>anything else we know--because after all the only other thing we 
>know is matter and you can hardly imagine a bit of matter 
>giving instructions."
>		C. S. Lewis, _Mere Christianity_


	So it justifies morals to make them larger than the fabric
of the Mere Universe, maybe that should have been the title of the
book. Or, it justifies theism to make it so?

>I suggest you take a look at where your morals actually came 
>from.  C. S. Lewis offers a highly logical argument for God.

	Aye, and the two don't follow. What if morals are to some
extant arbritary and to some other extant a distillation of animal
behavior, even from such influiences straight out of evolution as
sexual selection and kinship bonding of packs and living groups
of animals adapted for neotany and long period of immaturity of
offspring? There is your "Family Values"!

>Have you a better one?  If so, I really suggest you take a 
>look at this book first.  More than likely, he will shoot down 
>any argument you can come up with.

>-Darwin E. Reiswig

	I was singularly unimpressed when I read this little volume.

	The best argument for God is that He is needed. You tell me
why in some detail why if we can't prove He exists why it is necessary
that he exist. I think that the reason is to make morals trancendant,
and that is the reason for creationism too, for the moralizing folk
attack Evolution the most because they fear the result that it really
does provide an alternative explaination for behavior, choice, and
morals than the Judeo Christian Mythology.

Bruce Salem

>--
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by 
>the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what 
>God's will is--His good, pleasing and perfect will.      Romans 12:2
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: _adaptive_ mechanisms of evolution
Date: 23 Jul 92 20:49:47 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <srutt.711683421@beagle> srutt@boulder.Colorado.EDU (DNA Kaifeng) writes:
>colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:

>>Evolution is simply a change in the gene pool, natural selection
>>is the mechanism that brings about adaptive change.

>This is just a minor criticism: natural selection
>is a mechanism that brings about adaptive change.
>  ^^^
>Other mechanisms include genetic drift and molecular drive.

	BZZT, selection is the only adaptive mechanism of
evolution (unless you count directed mutagenesis). Drift
is just sampling error -- it doesn't cause adaption. Molecular
drive (a term - no longer used - that collects several of the
mechanisms that bring about the pattern of nucleotide variation
in repeated DNA called concerted evolution) is not adaptive
either.

>                        -steve

Chris Colby 	---	 email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu	---
"'My boy,' he said, 'you are descended from a long line of determined,
resourceful, microscopic tadpoles--champions every one.'"
 	--Kurt Vonnegut from "Galapagos"
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Bad predictions of Velikovsky
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministery of Silly Walks
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 21:34:05 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.232139.10076@uwm.edu>, markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark
William Hopkins) writes:
>I read the source and know it well.  This is what he said in the section
>on the temperature distribution of Venus:
>------------------------------------------------------------
>Current (1950) scholastic debate holds two positions regarding Venus.  First,
>on account of the uniform distribution of heat that has been observed on
>Venus, one camp holds that Venus must be rotating fast.  Second, on account
>of more direct observations, the other holds that Venus is rotating so slowly
>that it's probably even locked in sync with its orbit or its relative position
>with the Earth.
>
>I propose to reconcile these two observations, on the basis of the worldview
>I've advanced, that: (1) Venus does indeed rotate slowly in the manner
described
>by the second camp, and (2) the uniform distribution of heat exists because
>Venus is far hotter than currently believed, and in fact is even incandescent.

  Gee, he makes two predictions, both of which were admittedly already known. 
That means they weren't even predictions.

> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>There is no logical connection between the observation "Venus is hot" and the
>rest of the Velikovskian worldview.  It is just an astute reconciliation of
the
>currently known observations, that just happened to be prompted by his
>worldview.

  V. has one so called "prediction" right and hundreds wrong, so we should
believe every word he says?

***********************************************************************
* Warren Kurt   *  "I believe there is an inteligence to the universe *
* vonRoeschlaub *   with the possible exception of certain parts of   *
* kv07@iastate  *   New Jersey" -Woody Allen                          *
***********************************************************************
From: schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul J. Schinder)
Subject: Re: Thermodynamics FAQ
Reply-To: schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 16:44:04 GMT

In <henley.920731101459@wilbur.eng.auburn.edu> henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley) writes:

>In article <1992Jul31.070434.10557@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard) writes:
>>
>>Basically it depends how you want to define mass, I believe
>>defining it by its inertial (and thus weight as well) is more
>>useful. I generally use rest mass to refer to what you are
>>refering to as mass. Although I guess it really doesn't matter
>>as long as people know which definition you are using.

>Is there some way that I can define matter as meaning something with a 
>rest mass?  Or should I just talk about "forms of energy that have a 

Nah, I thought about that and decided that it's really not a useful
distinction.  The same equations describe both massive and massless
particles.

By the way, you still don't get it about energy.  Matter is not a
"form of energy", it "has energy".  Particles *have* a measurable
quantity called energy, but energy isn't a Lorentz invariant, the way,
say, baryon number or lepton number (or rest mass) is.  It's not what
I'd call a "fundamental" property of a particle.  Standing on the
ground, you'd measure the kinetic energy of a tree as zero, while
riding in a car at 55 mph, you'd measure a non-zero kinetic energy.
Both are perfectly valid measurements.  You'd measure the same rest
mass for the tree as anyone else would, you'd count the same number of
baryons, etc.  (Physicists like invariant quantities.)

>rest mass".  I would like to be as precise, *and* correct as possible.
>How about it Paul?  Would that be a clear enough distinction - one
>that we can both live with?  Bob?  Any other physicists out there who
>have problems with my distinctions?

I don't have any problems with most of your distinctions, except that
you want to then make them absolute when they are not.  When an
approximation breaks down, you get the wrong answers.

>Remember that we need something simple, for a wide audience.

>>-- 
>>>>Unix/C Contract worker available 5 years C/unix work experience<<  ______
>>Available for Telecommuting/Travel and contracts on the T Line       \    /
>>in the Boston MA area. Send me e-mail for a copy of my Resume.        \  /
>>       -- VWIS 508-793-9568 (2400 baud), Linux support BBS.--          \/


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

--
--------
Paul J. Schinder
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: Why bible nonsense in t.o.????
Reply-To: hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: DESY ZEUS Central Data Acquisition
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 12:38:42 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.035821.3770@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>,
dreiswig@nyx.cs.du.edu (Darwin E. Reiswig) writes:

|>I suggest you take a look at where your morals actually came 
|>from.  C. S. Lewis offers a highly logical argument for God.
|>Have you a better one?  If so, I really suggest you take a 
|>look at this book first.  More than likely, he will shoot down 
|>any argument you can come up with.

Point of information, your Judeao-Christian God ain't so popular round
China, Japan, or Africa. However many cultures there have historicaly
treated women far better than Christianity has traditionaly done so. In
fact the Church has consistently taught that women are inherently
inferior to men by virtue of Adam being made in Gods image and Eve being
modified.

Given the Vaticans recent green light to gay bashing, you can keep your
divinely inspired morals. In fact they are no such thing, they are
merely predudices which you cannot defend with reason and so resort to
unreason. Your faith is the product of your need to defend your moral
values, not the other way round.


Phill Hallam-Baker
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.astro
From: buell@phyast.nhn.uoknor.edu (Jim Buell)
Subject: Re: stars & carbon
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 18:00:40 GMT

buell@phyast.nhn.uoknor.edu (Jim Buell) writes:


Due to my rushing this I have some corrections.

>m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:


>>Given a preference for carbon-based life, I started wondering...

>>carbon is a product of a massive stellar event (boom!), right?  If so,
>>is the locale from which OUR heavy elements were fused known?  Where?

>Actually it depends on what elements you are talking about. Both 
>supernovae and planetary nebulae are considered significant producers
>of carbon, and nitrogen. Supernovae are significant producers of the
>elements from oxygen up through iron. Elements significantly heavier than
>iron are formed by neutron captures onto iron and heavier elements.
>There are two types of neutron capture reactions, the slow process and
>the rapid process. The slow process involves the capture of neutrons
>at a rate slower than the corresponding beta decays. This process accounts
>for the elements up through about atomic number 116 or so. This process
                                          ^^^^^^
                                           mass
>occurs in stars that range in mass from 1-3 solar masses. These stars
>eject these elements into the ISM by mass loss during the red giant
>phases and during planetary nebulae formation. The rapid process occurs 
>when the rate of neutron capture exceeds the rate of beta decay. This
>accounts for elements above 116 or so. The site of this reaction is
>unknown. Supernovae are a leading canidate but it could also be binary
>neutron stars.

>>James W. Meritt:  m23364@mwunix.mitre.org - or - jmeritt@rod.mitre.org
>>The opinions above are mine.  If anyone else wants to share them, fine.
>>They may say so if they wish. The facts "belong" to noone and simply are.

>Jim Buell

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley)
Subject: Re: Thermodynamics FAQ
Organization: Auburn University Engineering
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 17:44:03 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.153200.28584@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> ecg@po.CWRU.Edu (Edward C. Goodwin) writes:
>	Please consider the following thought experiment:  Take some dirt, 
>your favorite house plant and water and seal it inside some large glass
>tank to make a terrarium.  Next, sit it in the sunlight and check back
>on it in a few months to see what has happened.  The plant has GROWN.
>It has encorporated highly disorganized carbon dioxide into a highly
>organized structure (likely cellulose) and while in a "closed system".
>A miracle?  A violation of the second law?  Hardly.  The sunlight
>provides the energy necessary to drive photosynthesis which ultimately
>results in the "fixation" of carbon dioxide into organic carbon; an
>event which forms the basis for the vast majority of modern life (the
>hydrogen sulfide bacteria being an exception).  The plant in a box
>meets all the criteria for a "closed system" and yet results in a
>decrease in entropy (within the box!).
>	It seems reasonable that once "life" occurs, and we know it does,
>evolution does not result in any additional pseudo-violation of the second
>law.

Actually, the entropy will have increased.  What happened is that the work
being done by the Sun was chemical.  That increased entropy is in the form
of chemical entropy.  If the plant does not grow, or reaches a state in
which it sheds leaves as fast as it grows new one, and there is sufficient
microbial activity to cause the leaves to decay as fast as they are being
shed, then you have reached steady state.  As long as you can complete the
biological food cycle, the system can continue to live.

Try the following experiment:

Take the same sealed container, surround it with artificial sunlight 24 hours
a day.  The second law of thermodynamics predicts that the plant will not
be able to survive - you will reach equilibrium, and all internal processes
will cease.  This should be easy enough to try. 

It is the cycle of energy in at day and energy out at night that drives the
growth cycle of the plant.  This is a closed system and must obey the 
second law of thermodynamics for closed systems.

>-- 
>Ed Goodwin
>ecg@po.cwru.edu           "Facts do not cease to exist because they
>ecg@po.cwru.edu@cunynm     are ignored"          Aldus Huxley

James P. Henley Jr.
Chemical Engineering Dept
Auburn University
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: 9'th Category of Evidence / Saturn Myth details
Date: 28 Jul 92 18:51:34 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <2841@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
|
|Cronos, as we know, was the planet Saturn.  Ovid describes the golden
|age in part:

Not quite.  Chronos was the Greek deity traditionally equated with the
Roman deity Saturnus, after whom the planet was named.

A subtle but important distinction.

(BTW, if you will check you etymologies you will find that Chronos
is Father Time!)
|
|        Spring was eternal, and the gentle breezes caressed the flowers,
|        all springing forth without seed, with clear warm air.  Soon,
|        also, the unplowed earth was rich with grain, and fields always
|        fertile, were white with the heavy beards of corn.  Then rivers
|        of milk, then streams of nectar flowed forth...

Ah yes, when Time ruled the Earth, there was no aging or degeneration.
How unsurprising.

And when Time was cast down, and put into a the Underworld, and thus put
into a deep sleep, Time became time as we know it.  (This is just the
basic legend of Father Time as a sleeping giant).

It is all very standard mythic symbology for the origin of nature.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Elephants going bump in the nightREFRESH
Date: 21 Jul 92 23:36:31 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Jul12.215943.1@cuavax.dnet.cua.edu>
     winner@cuavax.dnet.cua.edu writes:

>There has been a fair bit of traffic recently about how elephants are in such
>grave danger of falling.  (You can decide if the pun is intentional.)  I'm
>having a difficult time with this.

...

>Secondly, elephants are rather expensive animals.  You may have
>noticed that zoos these days take good care not to damage their
>expensive animals.  ...The zoos I have been to tend to enclose the
>elephants with moats.  ...

Not that I'm backing Ted or anything, but at the Philadelphia zoo,
there are many signs requesting that people *not* try to feed the
elephants across the moats.  The reason is that one of our elephants
died due to complications that resulted from falling into the mote and
breaking her leg.  I think that she lived a couple of years, but I can
assure you that the moats are quite dangerous to the elephants.

...

>Also, elephants stampeed.  

Do they really?  I don't know either, but...

>Now when cows stampeed they often fall down.  I'd 
>have to go back and watch my tarzan movies (more footage of
>stampeeding                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

...I hope this isn't your only piece of evidence.

...  
>Sorry folks, but I think elephants (like babies) bounce better
>than they break.

While I think Ted overstates the case even with elephants (and of
course it's ludicrous to extend any firm conclusions to an animal with
such a distinctly different shape--e.g. a Tyrannosaur), it does seem
to be correct that elephants don't deal all that well with falls.

>-Jim Winner

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley)
Subject: Re: Elephants going bump....
Organization: Auburn University Engineering
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 14:45:06 GMT

In article <EePkG1i00iQCIMp4IW@andrew.cmu.edu> "Arun K. Gupta" <ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>
>Considering that elephants have been used in warfare until modern
>times, I'm surprised that there is no manual on the pitfalls of
>pachyderms or something like that around. I mean, humans have had
>a long history of living with elephants; surely something more than
>conjecture is available ?
>
>-arun gupta
>ag3L@andrew.cmu.edu

I suppose you should talk to people who study elephants.  There are some
you know.  Seem like I saw something about how they have to race against
time anytime they tranquilize an elephant.  Too long and the elephant
suffocates from lying down too long.

I have watched a few elephants in the wild myself.  I stayed at Kilimanjaro
Buffalo Lodge, where Hemingway wrote _The_Snows_of_Kilimanjaro_.  I can
say from my (very) limited observations that the elephants stick to the
flattest parts of Amboseli National Park.  The park has all sorts of
terrain, but the only parts where I saw any elephants were flat as a 
pancake. 

Does that have anything to do with large reptiles?  Don't ask me!
Although the crocodiles were somewhere else - namely in the water.

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

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: davidli@simvax.labmed.umn.edu
Subject: Re: Anniversary with Ted (& Holden "felt effect" followup)
Reply-To: davidli@simvax.labmed.umn.edu
Organization: Health Computer Sciences, U of MN, Mpls
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 21:01:44 GMT

In article <2831@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>Don't stop at 20 or 30.  You can COUNT on seeing this stuff at repeated 
>intervals as long as usenet exists.   
>
>Again, this is not for the majority on t.o;  it's for the intelligent minority,
>which DOES exist.

Can we COUNT on seeing revisions at repeated intervals as well?  Or are you
going to continue to provide us with incorrect information such as you posted
about Hannukah being a =7= day festival of lights?  (It's an 8-day celebration
whose origins are well documented in the Jewish faith, Ted.)

-- David Paschall-Zimbel
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard)
Subject: Re: The Woman Liberated
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 04:29:40 GMT

In article <Bs5o8o.4IE@news.cso.uiuc.edu> cmaier@uiuc.edu writes:
>In <1992Jul28.124750.29318@medtron.medtronic.com> ds0007@buhao (Dale Skiba) writes:
>Face it.  You're just using some fifth grade tactics to try to 
>justify your faith in evolution, for which there is not a single
>verse anywhere in the Bible.  

The bible doesn't contain a single verse about silicon chips, does
that mean I shouldn't believe computers work?

Show me any evidence for the bible thats anywhere near as good as
the evidence for evolution.
-- 
>>Unix/C Contract worker available 5 years C/unix work experience<<  ______
Available for Telecommuting/Travel and contracts on the T Line       \    /
in the Boston MA area. Send me e-mail for a copy of my Resume.        \  /
       -- VWIS 508-793-9568 (2400 baud), Linux support BBS.--          \/