HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: macroevolution
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 19:11:32 GMT

mrl@st-andrews.ac.uk (  Michael Ladomery) writes:
>In any case, are you proposing an alternative? Perhaps God? I see.
>Well, let me ask you: what is the probability that God arose
>from non-God......

	Good question. Dawkins said that creationists say God has always been 
	and then he could say as well, that cell has always been. 

	I knew this - we aren't getting far with this kind of discussion. But
	discussion about evolution always leads to this point.

-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout)
Subject: Re: Deja vu all over agai
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 21:41:20 GMT

In <713@oscar.UUCP> shouse@oscar.UUCP (claude shouse) writes:
>In article <emc.717532405@ro>, emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout) writes:

>> The line between Agnosticism and Atheism is actually very thin
>> or nonexistant.  I suggest you tune in to alt.atheism.  

>The argument that Agnosticism being virtually the same as Atheism is
>simply not valid.  And the fact that you will find Agnostics over
>on alt.atheism as a demonstration of your assertion is just plain
>puerile...

Usage and meaning of words is the result of  a community of users,
not by a private declaration.  I would ask atheists how they define
themselves before I resort to your personal validation.  (Just as
I would ask Christians how they define themselves).

>To put this question is perspective one must separate belief and
>knowledge.  Being Theist or Atheist is a question of belief and
>has nothing to do with being Agnostic which is a question of
>knowledge.  My view is that True Believers (tm) very often take
>belief to be equivalent to knowledge and that the failure to 
>recognize the difference is the reason that many find them arrogant
>and severely lacking in common sense.  The statement of Mr. Chiprout
>above is a consequence of this failure.

Do you mean to say, that if I answer epistemological questions such as:

-How do I come to knowledge?
-How well does my knowledge represent reality?
-What is the value of secondary sources of knowledge (as
 opposed to direct experience)?
-How well do I have to define something before I
 am ready to judge its possibility as true or false knowledge?
-How much "proof" do I need before belief becomes knowledge?
-How much knowledge from experimental evidence do I need before 
 I believe that a proposed theory corresponds to reality.
Etc.

that there is no element of belief in the answers?  In attempting
to find a clear demarcation between belief and knowledge you 
have only backtracked one step, but still face the same problem
as the atheism/agnosticism one.  The big problem in the
philosophy of "science" (as an acknowledged method of obtaining
knowledge) is that it is difficult to define a
universally accepted "Scientific Method". Yet, somehow, we all believe
we know what "science" means (oops! there is that word believe again).

(This discussion is better carried out in talk.religion.misc,
talk.philosophy, or, God forbid, alt.atheism)

Also, if you are going to quote me, please don't ignore relevant
statements that I made to the argument, such as:  it is 
possible to find people (however few) who feel their knowledge 
is complete but still reject God  -- "strong" atheism.

>Claude Shouse
--
Eli Chiprout
Dept. of Electronics
Carleton University	
emc@doe.carleton.ca
From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: 200 lb postdiluvian pink flamingos
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:16:35 GMT
Followup-To: alt.flame
Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA

In article <33@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
}There ARE a few topics on which I profess complete and total ignorance.

And demonstrate it in many, many more.
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Differing accounts of creation in Genesis
Date: 30 Sep 92 20:15:09 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)

In article <1992Sep28.183350.8305@s1.gov>, lip@s1 (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>	I feel that this attempt to argue away the inconsistent
>chronological ordering when one puts the two tales together is pure
>special pleading.

Exactly.  Any attempt to replace an ambiguous text with an unambiguous
text is "special pleading".  Regardless of whether this is done to prove
consistency or contradiction.

>		   Each tale, however, is fairly coherent (I'm not
>going to insist that each one is _perfectly_ coherent, however); it's
>just the two together that produce the blatant contradictions.

No, G1 is explicit about the order of creation.  G2 seemingly couldn't
care less.  As such, G2's language simply does not tell us any temporal
sequences, although certain ones (the "blatantly" contradictory ones)
appear more obvious than others.

>       Not only the order is different, but other things. For
>instance, in the first story, God seems very happy with what he has
>done, while in the second story, God does not seem very happy with
>the way Adam and Eve had behaved.  [...]

You're starting to discover literature!  Congratulations.  Indeed, there
is a definite tension between G1 and G2.  No more nor less than you would
expect from multiple points of view.  (Cosmological vs anthropological,
in this case.)  The animals are brought into G2's narrative at the moment
that Adam has something to do with them.  God is happy in G1, because
that's the cosmic viewpoint.  (Creation!  Neat stuff!  Wow!  Weekend!)
God is unhappy in G2, because that's the human viewpoint.  (Sin, death.
Sweat, pain, eviction, work.  Maximal Bummer.)

All in all, multiple contradictory viewpoints are standardly used in
good literature to get a kind of stereoscopic understanding of complex
characters and situations.  This is normal, because most things worth
writing about are not one-dimensional.

>	I suspect that these two stories were included in the same
>book because both were "recognized traditions", as it were, no matter
>how embarrassing the two tales look side by side.

Nobody finds them embarrassing, except people who miss most of the
point in the first place.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Subject: Re: Abuse By t.o Regulars
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 07:08:24 GMT

David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org writes:

>To my mind, "Creation 'Science'" is just more New Age psudo-science
>babble. Couched is "scientific" sounding jargon, the Creationist
>attempts to disguise their occult doctrine behind science. Sounds
>like astrology and Edgar Caseyism to me.

With this difference that astrologers have not demanded equal time
with astronomy in schools and universities, and do not refer to
celestial mechanics as a "theory". Loony they may be, but not
downright dangerous. Not dangerous, the creationist lot? What of
their constant harping at Einstein's relativity? Given them that
inch, and next they'll want equal time to teach that pi is exactly
3. It says so in the Bible.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ford@hpmcaa.mcm.hp.com.mcm.hp.com (Dan Ford)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: The Creationists???
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:40:54 GMT
Organization: HP Cardiology Business Unit - McMinnville, OR
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Recently Jim Lippard posted the following:
 
I've just seen a new book which should be of great interest to both
creationists and their opponents in this newsgroup.  The book is
Ronald L. Numbers, _The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific
Creationism_, 1992, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf.  The back cover has favorable
comments from Martin Gardner, Walter Hearn (of the American Scientific
Affiliation), and Henry Morris.  Numbers is a professor of the history
of science and medicine at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  His
previous contributions to the history of creationism include the book
_God and Nature_ which he co-edited.

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721


I'm very curious about this book.  It sounds very interesting, however I
find it difficult to imagine the same book getting good reviews from
*both* Martin Gardner AND Henry Morris.  

Could someone post a brief review of the book.  I've been tempted to order
the book, but at this time I'm not interested in yet another book chock full
of creationist propaganda and strawmen arguments.  If someone has the book,
would you mind posting if nothing else, the table of contents?  I would
appreciate it.

Thanks,

Dan Ford
From: ran@cbnews.cb.att.com (Robert A. Neinast)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: New Evidence for Creation!
Date: 2 Oct 92 20:02:39 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T


I thought long and hard about smileys, but decided that they really
would spoil it.  Instead I settled for this:


 |
 |
 v
>I n the "Journal of the American Medical Association", Philip Mackowiak has
>r ecently measured the average human body temperature (he's at the University
>o f Maryland).  His result is 98.2 degrees F.  There is significance to these
>n ew findings, since the 1868 study of Carl Wunderlich showed that,
>i n humans, the average body temperature at that time was 98.6 degrees F.  He
>c ollected the data using OVER ONE MILLION PEOPLE.  This pretty well points
>  .
>  .
>  .
>S urely, body temperature could never have been above the boiling
>p oint of water.  This equation shows that body temperature would
>o f been 212 degrees in 33286 BC, so it is clear that the creation must
>o f occurred after that date.  We can better pin down the date
>f or creation by considering the perfection of God.  What better
>  .
>  .
>  .

I should mention, I made an error in reading the Science News article
I took the data from.  The original data used only 25,000 people, but OVER
ONE MILLION MEASUREMENTS (thanks to Richard A. Schumacher for pointing
this out).

Also, just in case you didn't catch it, this was a take-off of the
decaying-value-of-the-speed-of-light "analysis".

Finally, thanks to those of you who liked the parody.  While I enjoyed
doing it, I also think it was flawed: it was a bit too dry--not enough
fervency.

Regards,
Bob
-- 
                                                                  _
". . . and shun the frumious Bandersnatch."                 Nipetlahuini.
Robert Neinast (ran@cblpo.att.com)
AT&T-Bell Labs
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Real issues for Antti
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 18:48:16 GMT

adpeters@sunflower.bio.indiana.edu (Andy Peters) writes:
>Heck, Antti's already failed this one.  He's used the phrase "survival
>of the fittest" several times.

	I'm sorry, but my English is not good in this area :( - biology is more
	East European science than Anglo-American. 

>Briefly describe
>>at least four independent lines of evidence which support it.

>Here we go, asking those Marxist questions again :-P

	Hahaa, you found the point !

	Btw., now publicly, you can post the answers I gave you privately to
	talk.origins - I think they have a general interest. 

-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
From: stassen@alc.com (Chris Stassen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: "Hydrological sorting" (was: "Re: Creationist CRAPOLA!")
Date: 1 Oct 92 14:40:49 GMT
Organization: The Lion's Den, San Jose

Lionel Tun writes:
[In response to an article of mine.]
> But to piece together assorted layers from round the world and
> assemble a supposed historical timescale is entirely another.

As has been pointed out to you before (with references), this is a lie.
You Londoners are sitting right on top of formations from all periods
Cambrian through Tertiary overlain in the proper order.  That is how the
column was originally assembled; that is why early geologists got the
ordering right, even though they were young-earth creationists.

The only criticism of the timescale which you have managed to present is
this lie, which you've repeated even after it was exposed in gory detail.
To me, that is an indication that you have no legitimate arguments on
this topic.  (You would present something better if you could, eh?)

I'd bet money that you can't do better, and here's how you can prove me
wrong:  address some of the evidence which supports the magnitude of the
timescale.  A few days ago, I discussed some of this data in a posted
article (<1992Sep27.185110.29772@alc.com>).  I'll supply you with
references to the technical literature if you need them.

Finally, there is a grain of truth behind your false claim, but it is of
no help to you.  It is true that one can find formations, with layers of
similar or identical fossil content, overlain in the same order, on all
continents.  However, these correlations are used to match layers of
identical ages.  They are not (per your fantasizing) arbitrarily stacked
on each other.  The success of these correlations is not good news for
those who wish to believe in a 10,000-year-old earth.
--
Chris Stassen			408-943-0630			stassen@alc.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: prl@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter Lamb)
Subject: Re: Methinks it's like a weasel (Blind Watchmaker)
Organization: CSIRO Division of Information Technology
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 21:52:12 GMT

asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen) writes:

>prl@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter Lamb) writes:
>>to find anywhere where he says this, and have pointed out that much of the
>>"Watchmaker" is devoted to demonstrating why the "typing monkeys" are a poor
>>analogy to abiogenesis. How do you derive that "the probability of evolution
>>is the same as a monkey would type the whole Shakespeare?"

>	There is a chapter about the beginning of the life. He uses this 
>	example for a few pages. 

No, Antti, Dawkins uses the "Methinks it is like a weasel" example
for a few pages. Where does he say that the monkey
typing the whole of Shakespeare is the same as the probability
of evolution?


-- 
Peter Lamb (prl@csis.dit.csiro.au)
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Observations
Date: 5 Oct 92 00:46:36 GMT
Followup-To: talk.origins
Organization: Apple

In article <1992Sep28.123356.25628@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel
Tun) wrote:
> 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.

Give us a pointer or two to serious scientific papers that describe
this phenomenon, and we will believe. If not, this is of no importance.

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.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: Kazmaier and standing up at 200,000 lbs:  why it can't happen
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 21:34:44 GMT

In article <49@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
> There's no law which I know of which would REQUIRE every species of animal
> to have attained sauropod sizes, given lesser perceived gravity.

  You have said, on several occasions, that "Bigger is always better" and that
"if it is possible, it must happen".  Are you now retracting these claims?  If
so it would put a big dent in you insistance that if animals could get as big as
sauropods now, they would already have done so.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
From: Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Holden jokes
Date: 29 Sep 92 05:43:00 GMT
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Sep 21 1992


 > From: markv@pixar.com (Mark T. VandeWettering)

Q: Why can't Ted do fancy pool shots?
A: Reduced effect of felt.

Q: Why did Ted stick his head in the microwave?
A: So the electromagnetic field would enable him to communicate with the
poodle.

Q: How does Ted get such good gas mileage?
A: He drives behind a saturn which makes his car lighter.

+--------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| 10                    2  | Garden Grove Institute of Technology |
|        DR PEPPER         | Community Outreach Center            |
|                       4  |                                      |
+--------------------------+ Snail Addr: Unit #1, 7872 Trask      |
| Real americans don't     |             Westminster, Ca  92683   |
| pledge allegiance, they  | Modem:      714-894-7039             |
| make the government earn | Fidonet:    1:103/241                |
| it.                      | Candynet:   42:1001/1                |
|                          | Internet:   Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1   |
|                          |              .fidonet.org            |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------------+

---
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: <None>
Date: 30 Sep 92 03:23:26 GMT
Organization: Wright State University


Trygve,

Your very good statement about weight lifting is not anything new, (great
calcs, but not new).  Many, many of us have stated this to Ted before.
Unfortunately Ted is fact-proofed to the 'inth degree, he just is so blinded
by his own strange beliefs that he can't even do math properly.  You will
probably be the target of one of his insulting name-calling posts.  If so,
welcome to the group.

Being insulted by Ted has become a badge of acceptance here!

Sue
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ds0007@buhao (Dale Skiba)
Subject: Re: Favorite astronomer jokes
Organization: Medtronic, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 05:42:53 GMT

news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
: 
[jokes deleted]
: 
It appears obvious to me that Ted should be congratulated here.
These jokes are the best evidence he has presented so far that
Immaneul Velikovsky's theory is correct.

--
Dale Skiba
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Creationist CRAPOLA!
Date: 1 Oct 92 00:47:00 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Sep30.115509.26590@city.cs> lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:

|>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.
|
|1. The water came from the water vapour canopy around the earth.
|2. The water ended up in the oceans.
|
|This also explains why lifespans became shorter after the flood,
|because of the cosmic rays getting through and causing ageing.
|I can supply details of lifespans if you wish.
|
No thank you, I can read the Bible as well as you can.

What we *want* is details of the supposed *hydrological* *sorting*.

You have many details in this area to explain that seem to most everyone
else to be *incompatible* with hydrological sorting.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Uneven felt gravity
Date: 4 Oct 92 12:20:44 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <BvJuyC.9u8@world.std.com>, twalters@world.std.com (Tim Walters) writes:
> Ted's theory of a reduced "felt effect" of gravity 

The theory isn't really mine in any sense.  The only thing which I have
added to the idea, which wasn't there before, was the notion of contrasting
elephants or sauropods to a scaled version of one of our strongest men.




-- 
Ted Holden
HTE
From: bruce@uxb.liv.ac.uk (Bruce Stephens)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: evolution and natural selection
Date: 1 Oct 92 17:31:23 GMT
	<1992Sep30.181424.15171@unixg.ubc.ca> <97169@bu.edu>
	<1992Oct1.101103.21283@hsr.no>
Organization: Centre for Mathematical Software Research, Univ. Liverpool, UK

>>>>> On 1 Oct 92 10:11:03 GMT, onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam) said:

> I think I need to explain myself. I was hoping that people would see
> that I was not using the exact defenitions. On the other hand I must
> apologize for not being more precise. Let me remind you guys that
> this is a field of discussion where extremely many of the readers
> does not adhere to evolution.

Oh really?  I wonder what proportion of, say, biologists reasearching
at universities believe in evolution.  Did I hear 100%?  (or pretty
nearly 100% anyway.)  I thought so.

> For them an example of micro evolution is no good. EVERYBODY accepts
> microevolution. Macroevolution is the problem. Give them an example
> of a specie turning into another, not just "change in allele
> frequencies! 

The moth example is not an example of speciation, no.  There *are*
examples of speciation, but not very many, simply because evolution
takes a long time.  If there were hundreds of examples, we ought to be
very worried.

> And you CAN'T,

CAN!

> because micro- and macro-evolution are
> unrelated topics.

"Unrelated"?  Surely not; you can argue that they're different, but
they're certainly related topics.
--
Bruce Stephens
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Antti's File of "Nonreligious Objections" (was: Thanks etc)
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 13:47:05 GMT

keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle) writes:


>asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen) writes:
>>  I'm sorry, I've been off for a week, collecting ideas and visiting
>>  libraries. I found the Blind Watchmaker by Dawkins. Now, before I say
>>  my own points about it, I would like to ask you, evolutionists, how well
>>  this book describes your views.

>I think among other things, Blind Watchmaker clearly demonstrates that the
>probability arguments against evolution are bogus.  His simplified computer
>simulations demonstrate that you do not need very many components for
>evolution as a process to operate, and in fact, that it does operate on
>any system that accumulates errors and is filtered by any kind of selection
>process.

	That is in the other part of the book. Remember, such processes 
	haven't yet become into existence - - we discuss about the possibility
	that life could have arisen in some planet in a year, and THEN the 
	probability is 

				1
		----------------------------------
				350,000
			      10

	as shown before. I think an intriguing idea could be: Why didn't two
	completely different lives arise ? Or n ?

-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: livesey@solntze.esd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Subject: Re: Creationist CRAPOLA!
Organization: sgi
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 00:41:21 GMT

In article <BvEqEn.AE0@cs.dal.ca>, hyde@cs.dal.ca (Bill Hyde) writes:
|> In article <1992Sep30.115509.26590@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
|> |> 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:
|> 

I find it very interesting that Mr Tun's original assertion
was that the fossil record could be explained "just as well"
by a Flood model.

But then, when people ask him to do that thing: namely explain
it, he just throw out a bunch of random assertions about vapour
layers and water condensing, and does not attpemt to explain 
the fossil record *in the least*.

Mr Tun.   You claimed to be able to explain the fossil record,
so go ahead: explain it!

jon.
Newsgroups: talk.origins