HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Free Will QM etc.
Date: 6 Apr 92 21:36:43 GMT
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany

In article <8038@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>, dekorte@next2.scri.fsu.edu (Stephen Dekorte) writes:
>Q: do cells have 'free will'? 
>
>If not, how can free will be a characteristic of a being composed
>of cells, such as ourselves? 

I don't want to start the free-will avalanche again, but this
argument is not logical.  A system can show behaviour its
components don't show.  A computer can do things a flip-flop
couldn't dream of.

-- 
-Caddy--(thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany)-----
The question of whether the electron is a wave or a particle
has a clear and definite answer:  No.
From: dwatson@lookout.uswest.com (Darryl D. Watson)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Free Will QM etc.
Date: 6 Apr 92 17:12:53 GMT
Organization: US WEST Communications

In article <8038@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>, dekorte@next2.scri.fsu.edu (Stephen Dekorte) writes:
> In article <1992Mar16.010834.7995@hellgate.utah.edu>  
> tolman%asylum.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:
> .......
> > Hmmm, I am not sure about animals having free will.  Maybe.
> 
> Q: do cells have 'free will'? 
> 
> If not, how can free will be a characteristic of a being composed
> of cells, such as ourselves? 
> 
> dekorte@next2.scri.fsu.edu

We see ourselves both as a collection of individual cells,
and as a single entity.  At least, I do.  Frankly, I am
consciously unaware of any of my single cells; i.e., I
am not aware of cell number 7,236.

Kind of... obvious, don't you think?
From: trdgav01@uctvax.uct.ac.za (Gavan Tredoux)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: rationalism, empiricism and astrology
Date: 11 Apr 92 04:09:12 GMT
Organization: FACCS LAB, UCT

In article <tgee.702349273@cunews>, tgee@superior.carleton.ca (Travis Gee) writes:

> Is it not more rational to believe that IF such
> forces exist, and indeed modify the psyche of the fetus, then the
> accurate measurement to which astrologers pretend is impossible,
> because such forces work on the fetus for a period of 9 months, plus
> or minus the two weeks of error variability surrounding the normal
> gestation period? This reduces the concept of the 'sign' to gibberish,
> because there is no way of determining it unless the exact moment of
> _conception_ is known. 

Is it not more telling that the gravitational force exerted by the
mid-wife, doctors, hospital equipment etc. is much greater than
star-constellation influence (an empirical fact)? 

In which case you'd better pick your entry into
the world very carefully. 

Your argument doesn't refute anything an astrologer has ever said, because
every one of their claims is irrefutable, because their claims are so weak. In
reply to your argument, they would simply deny that planetary force is the
medium involved, or devise a star sign for every birth instant etc. Why bother
with this nonsense anyway? Humour value only.
-- 
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Gavan Tredoux, Dept. Math. |  "Einstein and people like Einstein said that |
| University of Cape Town    |   the world was flat" T(uesday) Lobsang Rampa |
| Rondebosch 7700 RSA        |                                               |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
From: Rick.Moen@f207.n914.z8.rbbs-net.ORG (Rick Moen)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Why Psychics don't win
Date: 11 Apr 92 04:46:52 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.110816@IASTATE.EDU>, danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel
A Ashlock) writes regarding precognition as follows, responding to
Dave Kraus:

   >> Come on you skeptics, is it that hard to say.. "I don't know."

   > Come on, Dave, _I_ personally said I didn't know (about the
   > existence of) God, Free Will, (the truth of) the Riemann
   > Hypothesis, the Goldbach Conjecture, (the veracity of) personal
   > anecdotes from San Diego and Boca Raton in the last month.

   > I also state _for the record_ that I do not know if there are
   > forces beyond the standard ones or peculiar manefestations of the
   > standard forces; its just that precognition has terrible evidence
   > compared to many far less plausible theories like evolution or
   > the big bang.

Actually, I knew you would say that.  ;->

You should know by now that it's a standard paranormalist's dodge to
distract attention from a lack of meaningful evidence by appealing to
the allegedly vast expanse of what is _not_ known about a subject.
This is just part of the usual rhetorical game, selectively appealing
to the inconclusiveness of knowledge, and ignoring the fact that _all_
scientific knowledge is tentative.

Playing theoretical footsie with skeptics on "open-mindedness" is
_always_ more attractive to your average paranormal advocate than is
examining actual evidence for testable claims of fact.

Best Regards,               "In the struggle between you and the world,
Rick Moen                    back the world."
Vice-Chair, Bay Area Skeptics                -- Frank Zappa

 * Origin: The Skeptic's Board in San Francisco - Bay Area Skeptics (8:914/207)
From: K.Haigh-Hutchinson@bradford.ac.uk (K.HAIGH-HUTCHINSON)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Evolution and God
Keywords: Evolution,proof
Date: 7 Apr 92 13:36:37 GMT
Distribution: sci.skeptic
Organization: University of Bradford, UK
Originator: s1497@asic

2) Popular science quotes evolution as a fact. I believe however that the
relevant specialist divisions discuss the 'Theory of Evolution' as the
best hypotheses that fits the observed facts. If pure science can not 
conclusively prove anything then Evolution can not proven conclusively either.

3) Evolution and adaptation within species is not under dispute. Iunderstood
the question to refer to evolution from one species into another. I believe
the absence of intermediate forms is one reason why the theory remains an
hypothesis.

Kathy HH
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:8052 talk.religion.misc:6850
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center
Date: Monday, 13 Apr 1992 09:46:50 EDT
From: <SECBH@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: The Historical Jesus VI: Conclusion and References

In addition to Mr. Squires references I recommend the following
book:

_The_Christ_
Charles Guignebert

It is very readable and covers both the life of Jesus and Paul's
founding of Christianity.

It is in paperback.

Jack Carroll
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Subject: Re: Why psychics don't win Lotto
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 14:38:02 GMT

In article <1992Apr3.222745.22985@donner.SanDiego.NCR.COM> kraus@cheers.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dave Kraus) writes:
>I personally think that there isn't a psychic good enough to do it.
>Psychic powers tend to demonstrate themselves at lower levels of
>intensity then what people are asking for here.

When the intensity is so low that it's indistinguishable from a state
of non-psychic being, I cease to care whether psychic powers exist.
-- 
Ted Frank          + "He wanted to be the car rather than the thimble or the
1307 E 60 St, #109 +  hat."  -- District attorney explaining Marc Cienkowski's
U o' C Law Skool   +  murder with bow and arrow of Michael Klucznik in
Chi, IL 60637      +  Doylestown Borough, PA over a game of Monopoly.
From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Evolution AND or OF God??
Date: 14 Apr 92 10:37:23 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England

In article <92104.121619U21192@uicvm.uic.edu> U21192@uicvm.uic.edu writes:
> [...deletions...]
> What if we are dealing with an entity that STARTS out subjectively, and
> develops gradually into some immense force that influences our society
> to such extremes thruout history. Note the developmental stages of it.
> [...]
> Xtians, or Allah in the minds of muslims? If those entities DO NOT
> carry some objective truth with them, how come they manage to influence
> our societies so strongly?
> [...]
> Is it a matter of survival maybe? Are these entities just trying to
> simply attain immortality by "using" us to carry their ideas thru time?
> If the later is tru, some 'gods' have been doing a pretty good job for
> thousands of years. And of course someone's immartallity is his/her
> creations, undeniably. So, what exactly is meant by immortallity?
> [...]


Some would suggest that it's the *ideas*, not the god/s, which are
the survivors, albeit in a constantly changing form.

I think you might be interested in the idea of a "meme", which is
essentially a thought/idea/belief, deliberately considered in a way
analogous to a gene, i.e. in terms of replication, drift, mutation,
selection, and so on in a population of minds. I can't give you a
decent reference, I'm afraid, but the subject seems to come up on
various boards on usenet fairly often (try sci.skeptic,
talk.religion.misc, alt.atheism; I dunno about the philosophy boards).


> John Galidakis; another little nobody.
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A little harsh on yerself, John? You're not religious, are you? :-)


Cheers

Simon
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Every morning when you wake up and look in the mirror, check yourself
for signs of collective identity" - Consolidated on "This Is Fascism"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Seeking opinions about the work of Wilhelm Reich.
Date: 13 Apr 92 21:30:39 GMT
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany

Martin Gardner writes about him in "Science.  Good, Bad, and
Bogus", 1981, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y.,  Chapter 1
(previously published in "Antioch Review", Winter 1950-51.

-- 
-Caddy--(thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany)-----
The question of whether the electron is a wave or a particle
has a clear and definite answer:  No.
From: gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Correcting past injustices  [survey result and comments]
Date: 7 Apr 92 23:39:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: onion.GERRY.92Apr7183917
Reply-To: gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston)
Organization: Field Robotics Center, CMU

Jim,
Thanx for the constructive comment.  This question arose out a a
conversation with my SO who claimed that the organization I work for
is "bad" because we have no females in technical positions.  I tried
to point out to her that the number of qualified female applicants,
for any openings that we would have, is significantly smaller than the
number of qualified males, and that we are not a prejudiced outfit
(based on this one point of contention anyway).

In the correction to my post, I though about stipulating the
percentage of groups X and Y in the population as a whole, but I felt
that that would muddy up the issue.

--
Gerry Roston (gerry@cmu.edu)    | The story of Jesus Christ appearing after
Field Robotics Center,          | he was dead is the story of an apparition,
Carnegie Mellon University      | such as timid imaginations can always
Pittsburgh, PA, 15213           | create in vision, and credulity believe.
(412) 268-3856                  | Stories of this kind had been told of the
                                | assassination of Julius Caesar...
The opinions expressed are mine | Thomas Paine
and do not reflect the official | 
position of CMU, FRC, RedZone,  | 
or any other organization.      | 
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: Fermat's Last Theorum
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 01:34:37 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.212630.10438@hsv3.uucp> 
  mvp@hsv3.uucp (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>In article <1992Apr8.004108.2697@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU> 
>  dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
>>What's tantalizing about FLT is this fabled note that Fermat wrote before
>>he died saying that he found an "elegant proof."
>>
>>There are two possibilities:
>
>Actually, many more than that...
>
>The most amazing thing to me is that the problem remains so
>intractable.  That of all the mathematical conjectures that Fermat
>could have picked to write in the margin of his book, he picked one
>that even today we have been unable to (1) prove, (2) disprove, or
>(3) prove that it can't be proved, is pretty amazing.  If it had
>been proved, disproved, or proved insoluble, Fermat's last
>theorem would have been mostly forgotten.

I don't think it is possible to prove FLT insoluble, although that doesn't
keep it from *being* insoluble. 

>Mike Van Pelt          | It was a typical net.exercise -- a screaming

C Frog
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.religion.misc
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Twin Studies
Date: 17 Apr 92 14:39:04 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

It would seem to me, naieve as I am, that the best way to study twins
would NOT be to seek out those relatively small numbers of twins
raised apart, and thus deal with so many socio-economic variables that
are almost impossible to allow for. Rather, concentrate on the great
majority of twins who are raised TOGETHER, and compare fraternal vs.
identical twins. Presumably, in those cases "nurture" would be the
same, but while "nature" would be the same in the identical twins,
it would not be in the case of the fraternal. If the variations in
intelligence, behavior, and other traits were much less for
identical twins than for fraternal, that would be a strong argument
for the heriditability of such traits. On the other hand, if in a
proper double-blind study, the two groups are found to display no
significant differences, then that suggests that the role of heredity
is not terribly great. Has anyone ever perofrmed such a study?
-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

     "In the 1970's the world will undergo famines - hundreds of millions
     of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs 
     embarked upon now ... in 1985, when it is calculated [under the most
     optimistic scenario] that the major die-back will be over, ..."
       
                       Dr. Paul Ehrlich, "The Population Bomb," 1968
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:7871 alt.pagan:4458
From: ttw@beta.lanl.gov (Tony Warnock)
Subject: (PM)atrichy
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 19:17:55 GMT

   It seems difficult to apply the terms patriarchy and matriarchy
   to the organization of primitive societies. First: it is not
   clear that politics is developed to a level to even have an
   an "archy" at all.
 
   In some societies such as hunter-gatherer and perhaps the Pueblo
   Indians, there was an explicit division of labor between men and
   women. The women often did agricultural work or gathered, built
   houses, wove cloth, etc. The men hunted, defended against invaders,
   fished, told stories, etc. The primary division was along the
   lines of danger. The men did the most dangerous jobs because they
   were expendable (from the point of view of society.) A society
   continues only if there are enough child-bearing females; the
   number of males doesn't matter.
 
   Counter-examples are welcome.
 
 
 
                                               Tony
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: Endo- vs. exo-heresies (was Re: Consensus: Too Sluggish or Too Hasty?)
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 21:18:01 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In article <12122@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> jrblack@ns-mx.uiowa.edu (James Roger Black) writes:
>
>At the risk of starting a fruitless flame war, it should be pointed out
>that Ufology is an "endoheresy".  Over the years, many of the "big
>names" in UFO research have been astronomers, physicists, military
>intelligence officers, pilots, historians--precisely the people whose
>expertise ought to have debunked the whole thing in a minute.  Perhaps
>the best example is Hynek, who spent ten years as the Air Force's paid
>debunker and then decided there was really something there after all.
>
Well, not really. The physical scientists have always been the most
*consistently* skeptical about claims of UFOs. If I had a nickel
for every astronomer or physicist who thanked me for trying to
promote critical thinking about UFOs, I'd be a wealthy man. It is
true that you can always find a few, a VERY FEW physical scientists
who think "there's something to it". Hynek was one such, as is James
Harder, an engineering professor at U.C. Berkeley, or even physicist  
Peter Sturrock of Stanford who, unlike Hynek, is well-known for his 
"normal" research. But no group as large and diverse as "scientists" will
ever be unanimous on any subject, and I think it is safe to say 
that better than 99% of physical scientists think that UFOs
are misperceptions and hoaxes. Hynek made it his crusade for the
last 10 or 15 years of his life to "convert" his scientific
colleagues to his viewpoint on UFOs. The effort was a complete and total
failure, because he could offer no evidence that even remotely
approached the standards required by science.

As for military intelligence officers, pilots, and historians, while
I consider them worthy people and all that, they are *not* scientists,
and their participation in a scientific debate does not make it an
"endo-heresy."


-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

     "In the 1970's the world will undergo famines - hundreds of millions
     of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs 
     embarked upon now ... in 1985, when it is calculated [under the most
     optimistic scenario] that the major die-back will be over, ..."
       
                       Dr. Paul Ehrlich, "The Population Bomb," 1968
From: sichase@csa1.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Spelling God with the Wrong Blocks
Date: 10 Apr 92 18:22:26 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: na
Reply-To: sichase@csa1.lbl.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.196
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   

Has anybody else out there read "Spelling God with the Wrong Blocks" by 
James Morrow?  I recommend it to all.  It's a short SF story which turns the
tables on the Creationists in a hysterically funny way.  You'll enjoy it.
I found it in Nebula 27.

The premise is that some Harvard sociobiologists wanted to see how machine
intelligence would evolve if left alone without human intervention.  So they 
build some (thousands, presumably) robots, and put them on a nearby planet.
Some time later, a couple of science educators go to this planet to discover
that these robots worship Darwin, quoting "Origin of Species" and "Descent of
Man" as if they were gospel, and refuse to believe that they were produced by
special creation.

The idea makes great reading.  It'll take you only 15 minutes, and it shows
you how stupid today's scientists would look if we argued for evolution the way
the Creationists argue for special creation.  Enjoy.

-Scott
From: loren@lintilla.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: books
Date: 7 Apr 92 01:06:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: lll-wink.121911

In article <z_njx#q.sheaffer@netcom.com>, sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
|> In article <9378.29DE073A@ofa123.fidonet.org> David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org (David Rice) writes:
: >                   RE: THAT "OLD-TIME" RELIGION
: >                       HISTORY & MATRIARCHY
: > 
: > According to prof, all
: >of these authors agree that there has never been a matriARCHY, and that
: >every culture ever studied back to its earliest days bears evidence that it
: >started as matriCENTRIC.

	Personally, I find that statement a bit on the strong side,
but it would appear to be at least partially true.

:  We seem to have an interesting dilemma here. The concensus of "womens'
:  studies" texts is indeed as he indicates. However, the concensus of
:  historians, sociologists, and anthropologists is otherwise. Isn't
:  it a pretty paradox when one branch of "knowledge" contradicts
:  another? What do you suppose might explain this error? Surely it
:  could not be: political agenda (i.e., Lysenkoism)?

	What "consensus"?

	Is it a consensus that results from calling disssenters
Marxists and Mommy-Goddess worshippers?

:  It is most surely *not* true that "every culture ever studied back
:  to its earliest days bears evidence that it started as matriCENTRIC."
:  For one thing, the "earliest days" of various cultures occurred at
:  different times.  The unobserved "earliest days" of, for example,
:  ancient Egypt occurred many thousands of years ago, while some
:  remote tribes were still in their "earliest days", as far as contact
:  with outsiders goes, in the twentieth century. Yet *none* of these
:  cultures remain in their "matri-centric" phase TODAY. (This is
:  why Leacock finds "colonialism and imperialism" such a useful
:  thing for explaining the relatively sudden change.) So "matri-centrism",
:  societies in which women are more important than men, are a
:  phenomenon that displays a "shyness effect." Like PK and monsters,
:  it refuses to appear when we are *looking for it*, always perversely
:  manifesting itself in some unobservable place or time.

	Hint to a certain S.M.: Leacock provides _evidence_ that
imperialism and colonialism have been an influence.

:  As skeptics, I would think we would have an extreme suspicion
:  of any claimed phenomenon that would seem to be hiding from
:  those who disbelieve in its existence.

	Hiding? Phenomena can easily "hide" from those who do not
_want_ to believe that they exist.

/Loren
From: lhbran@bb1t.monsanto.com
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Evolution and God, Kathy HH
Date: 8 Apr 92 12:50:55 CST
Organization: Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO

	Don't be confused as to what is a scientific theory and an hypothesis. 
An hypothesis is a statement as to how a process occurs.  The experiment is
designed to DISPROVE the hypothesis.  If the result of the experiment does not
disprove the hypothesis the hypothesis stands until it is either disproved,
modified or becomes Theory.  In the case of Evolutionary Theory many many
experiments have been performed and observations made which do not disprove the
original hypothesis.  The mechanism of Evolution as mutation of genetic
material followed by selection via environmental pressure is generally accepted
by the Biological Scientific Community, it is therefore Theory.  I have
described here the Scientific Method.  You may reasonably believe what you may
but that which you believe cannot be couched in scientific terms unless you can
devise and carry out experiments which are specifically designed to DISPROVE
your belief or hypothesis.  This is the reason that creationism is not science. 
Simply that an experiment has not and cannot be devised to DISPROVE it.  I
strongly suggest that you read Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker" or if you have
any background in biology or chemistry read Don Johansen's "Blueprints". Both
of these books describe the Theory of Evolution very nicely with the
experimentation which supports it.
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic