HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: julian@fraser.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock)
Subject: Re: Science and God
Keywords: Science, God
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 17:20:35 GMT

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

>And Julian Shillcock writes:
>>I prefer to start form the christian assumptions
>>AND the scientifc method and see where I go. You are perfectly free to
>>start anywhere you choose but don't make out that christians are always
>>starting from wacko assumptions while others (evolutionists? atheists?
>>somebody) start from an inheerently superior position.

>The problem is, that the christian belief system is based on the idea
>that they start from an inherently superior position.  Superior to
>all non-christians, in that their viewpoint is somehow more true.

This is confusing the content of belief with the attitude of the
believer. Christain doctrine asserts that God exists and acts. IF
this is true then ipso facto someone who disbelieves that God exists
is "wrong". But a believer can still respect a non-believer's views
and hold them as equally intellectually valid as her own without
agreeing that God does not exist. We would not be posting articles
here if we despised the other person's view. But how we argue will 
show whether we are "humble" or not, not the content of our
argument. When I say I believe God exists there is no implied
"and therefor all you non-believers are wrong" there is simply a statement
of belief. No viewpoint can be more true than another: the world is:
we have our beliefs; one day (perhaps) we will see whether there is a
God or not, until then (unless we are completely intellectually
immature) we should accept the differences between us.

>This is related to the idea of "humility" as that quality of being
>unassuming in that you are not sure you are always right.  Christian
>"humility" however, does not include that characteristic, there is no
>possibility they could be wrong about Jesus.  When they apply that certainty

Aren't you being a bit sweeping here? Do all christians (proselytizers
or not) assume they are always right? I do not recall saying
this.

Yr. ever so 'umble Svnt.

julian

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: alanf@tekig6.PEN.TEK.COM (Alan M Feuerbacher)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: JW discourage education (was Re: dawkins/_the selfish gene_)
Date: 18 Aug 92 18:53:48 GMT
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.


In reply to a comment by Steve Link, this should clarify Jehovah's
Witnesses believe about attending college, gleaned from personal
experience.

JW's believe there is nothing inherently wrong with attending
college, but feel it is unwise for the following reasons:

1.  Exposure to bad moral influences.
2.  Exposure to ideas that contradict the Bible.
3.  Exposure to ideas that contradict the Watchtower Society.
4.  Waste of time, given world will soon end.
5.  Likelihood person will learn to think for self.

The Watchtower Society's experience is that it loses a large portion
of young people who go to college.

Alan Feuerbacher
Tektronix, Inc.
Beaverton, OR
From: lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Christian message (in defense of Jim Loucks)
Date: 13 Aug 92 01:36:00 GMT
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.

In article <1992Aug12.121213.7377@city.cs> lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
>Again, it is _God_ who has `decided that we 'need' to be saved'.
>Jim is merely passing on God's message of Good News to all who
>have ears to hear. If he had no compassion for the lost he would
>not even bother.

The old blame it on God trick :-)

Well I'll accept this explanation but first show me that God exists
and that Jim is indeed quoting him (her?) rather than ancient mythology?

-- 
>>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.--          \/
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: gmartin@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (George Martin)
Subject: Re: Are we privileged observers?
Keywords: universe,earth, paradox
Organization: NRAO
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 00:52:33 GMT

In article <1992Aug17.003924.2074@zia.aoc.nrao.edu> gmartin@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (George Martin) writes:
>consequences which can be tested.  I would note that even Geoff Burbadge
                                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>belives that observations of galaxies show that the universe is expanding
>even though he doubts Big Bang cosmology.  I will give you a reference to
>that if you want.

As this comes around back in the spool to me, I am sure that I have
misspelled his name.  Burbidge is a much closer aproximation to the
spelling.  However the reference exists in the library at work, a
very recent one by the way.  One e-mail message asking for it and I
will post it.
-- 
George Martin
Systems Analyst                     NRAO/VLA                  Socorro NM
Internet: gmartin@something.aoc.nrao.edu
"Skating away on the thin ice of the new day."  (Ian Anderson)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: julian@tantalus.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock)
Subject: Re: behavior and evolution
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 19:39:32 GMT

kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) writes:

>In article <julian.714081311@sfu.ca>, julian@tantalus.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock) writes:
>>Agreed, QM will obviously affect the prediction. But I seem to remember that
>>even in Newtonian mechanics  a dynamical system cannot be predicted to arbitrary
>>accuracy for an arbitrary time no matter how small the initial error.
[for all practical calculations anyway].

This assumes of course that the system we are discussing has a Hamiltonian
in the first place. Does anyone know of dynamical systems (about which we can say
interesting things) that has no Hamiltonian? I know of the hard billiard
ball system which has some nasty discontinuities, but what about some
system that allows phase space trajectories to cross for instance?
Perhaps "real" systems only approximate the ones we study in classical mechanics
(or QM). 
In which case the inability to compute trajectories comes from the inapplicabilty
of the model not the accuracy with which we calculate.

julian

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Subject: Re: Are we privileged observers?
Keywords: universe,earth, paradox
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 13:43:47 GMT

I want to withdraw this "Oops":

I wrote:
>In article <julian.714000550@sfu.ca>, julian@fraser.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock) writes:
>>kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) writes:
>>>>Now, dp the laws of physics as we know them here hold beyond this horizon?
>>>>[consequences deleted]
>>
>>>This looks like a meaningless question if this horizon is the singulary it
>>>should be.  Analogous question:  do the laws of physics as we know them here
>>>hold north of the North Pole?
>>
>>>There is no place "north of the North Pole", and there is no place "beyond
>>>this horizon".
>>
>>JCS rsponds:
>>No, there is no singularity at this horizon, it only has reference to 
>>where we are in the universe. A being living closer to the horizon would not see
>>any difference, it is just that region in the universe that WE (on Earth)
>>cannot see. SO the question is not meaningless as there is plenty of
>>universe beyond this horizon, its light has not reached us yet.
>
>Oops.  I should think more and post less.

On second thought, there *is* a singularity at this horizon.  It's the big bang.
Look at this:
Space-Time is divided into three parts: Absolute Past, Absolute Future and
Absolute Elsewhere.
The past is all those events we can get information from, the future is those
we can give information to, and the rest is elsewhere in each frame of
reference, that is, we can't exchange information with it.  What we see is the
events on the light cone separating Past from Elsewhere, and those events
which are most distant in space are also most distant in time.  Behind them
there is only the Big Bang, that's this horizon.  Now what you are probably
talking about is the "elsewhere" section we can't know anything about.


 X       |Space
 X       |
 X       |       /Light Cone
 X   Elsewhere  /                
 X \     |     /                 
 X  \    |    /                  
 X   \   |   /                   
 X    \  |  /                    
 X Past\ | /    Future                 
 X      \|/                      
 X-------+--------------Time
 X      /|\                      
 X Past/ | \    Future                
 X    /  |  \                    
 X   /   |   \                   
 X  /    |    \                  
 X /     |     \                 
 X       |      \                 
 X    Elsewhere  \                 
 X       |        \Light Cone                 


The X's mark the Big Bang.
                                     
-- 
--------------thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany---------------
Definition:  Idiot-proof  -  you are idiot-proof when you NEVER flame anybody.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ed_eck@milkwy.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: 360 day year
Summary: HTE may be right about the Mayan 360 day calendar
Date: 12 Aug 92 13:34:20 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation



Ted may be right about the 360-day Mayan year. 

In article <1992Aug11.162633.14516@linus.mitre.org>, 
m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes...

> [...]
>Not to mention that this would come as a complete shock to the Mayans, 
>whose astronomical observations go back to the time when you claim the year 
>was only 360 days.  Not only did their calendar have 365 days, it matches our 
>current year with greater accuracy than our Julian calendar does! 

My sources are _Kingdoms of
Gold, Kingdoms of Jade_ by Fagan (great book--much art from precolombian
America) and  _Aztecs_ by Clennidinen (which I usually describe as "Human
sacrifice as performance art.")

Firstly, the Maya used a number of different calendars, many of which
were not 360 or 365 day based, and some of which clashed with the others:

Fagan, p. 120 (immediately following a carving of Lady Xoc pulling 
a thorn-lined rope through her tongue...) states that as early as Olmec
times the priests were using a a 260 day cycle, which the Maya refined
into 13 months of 20 days each (20 being the basic unit of Mesoamerican 
counting). The Maya also used a 365 day cycle, which was 18 months of 20 days
each, AND AN ADDITIONAL PERIOD OF 5 EXTRA DAYS. Fagan calls these extra 
5 days a "month;" Clenniden calls them just an intercalendrial period,
belonging to neither year. Clennon amplifies on these days as sacred days,
requiring special precautions and ceremonies; they are regarded as highly
unlucky days.

Secondly, the accuracy of the years:

The 365 day year _was_ 365 days, not 365.25xxx days, and was not adjusted to
the true solar year; Fagan notes that it drifted out of alignment with the
solar year (Fagan then makes an incredible blunder and says that the error
was "a quarter day every four years." Somebody please shoot his proofreader...)
Additionally, both Fagan and Clenniden say that the 260 day year and the
365 day year synchronized every 52 years, once again indicating a 365.000x-
day year.

Now, the 360 day historical year:

Fagan says that when the Maya established the "Long Count" of years that they
used to date historical events, THEY USED A 360 DAY YEAR. I say that given 
the Maya's extreme disquiet about these 5 days, it is understandable that
they would arrange to have them vanish from history. BTW, the 360 day historical
year was called a "Tun;" is there a conspiracy here? : )


Summary:

The Mayans used a number of calendars. The calendar used to date historical
events was a 360 day calendar, as Holden and Dr. V. claimed.

Comments?

Ed Eck
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Seismo/ultrasaur weights, was Holden and the galloping elephant
Date: 12 Aug 92 23:29:10 GMT
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks

In article <2859@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
> In article <1992Aug11.094413@IASTATE.EDU>, kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren
Vonroeschlaub) writes:
>>   TED!!!  Do you realise that you just accepted that form does matter with
>> strength!!!!  I am saving this!  Now, if Elephants can adapt to better
weight
>> load capacity, why not the seismosaur?
> 
> I can adapt to heat and cold, within reason.  I try to stay out of blast
> furnaces...  that's not within reason.

  Look at it this way: you say that the form of the Elephant changed to help it
bear more weight.  Now, if a structural change can allow greater weight bearing
then the Holden number, which ignores form entirely, is not accurate.  If the
Holden number is accurate, then the Elephant should be able to stand regardless
of form, and so the elephant didn't need to adapt.

  Which way does it go?

> > Also, is McGowan's estimate an accepted one?  Is  it an upper estimate?
> 
> I've seen the 300000 - 400000 figure for ultrasaurs in several places;  it
> seems to be the accepted figure amongst most scientists involved in dinosaur
> studies, and is derived from Archimedean methods...  basically you build
> a model of your dinosaur and of a big elephant, both to scale, see how much
> water each displaces, and multiply the weight of the elephant by the ratio 
> you get.  I can't see how you'd go wrong that way myself.

  Could have the amount of meat on the dinosaur wrong.  If there are no complete
skeletons could be extrapolating the remaining shape incorrectly.  The dinosaur
could have a larger percentage of fat than an elephant (fat weighs less than
muscle).

  Can you relate McGowan's calculations in a little more detail?  I went to get
the book out of the library, but a professor beat me to it.  They have the
ability to take out books for a full year too.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | O |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: corey@sdf.lonestar.org (Corey Carroll)
Subject: Re: JW discourage education (was Re: dawkins/_the selfish gene_)
Organization: sdf Public Access UNIX, Dallas--unrestricted free shell access
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 02:43:16 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.124351.3567@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>In article <36947@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, slinke@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Steven Linke) writes:
>> In article <omv7ocs@fido.asd.sgi.com> cj@sgi.com writes:
>>>
>
>I've had very little respect for the JW position on many things after
>talking to an acquaintance who is JW, she had five kids, had had three
>miscarriages and nearly died with bleeding during her last child's birth.
>She wasn't supposed to use birth control pills (some medical reason), 
>other forms of birth control have a certain percent of failure, yet 
>the elders of the church were telling her that getting either herself
>or her husband sterilized was 'altering their body for convenience' sake'.
>
>Sheesh!
>
>Sue
>

Well,  I know what you are talking about.  There was a "questions
from readers" article in the Watchtower showing how you could
be showing disrespect for your God-Given procreative capabilities
if you knowingly 'altered your body for convenience' sake' so to
speak.  They use scriptural support , the laws given to Israel
where they couldn't make a guy priest who was a eunuch and so on
ad naseum

>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Steve Linke
>> Salk Institute (Gene Expression Lab)
>> La Jolla, CA


-- 
"All religions make me wanna throw up!"
"All religions make me sick!" - Dead Kennedys, Religious Vomit

corey@sdf.lonestar.org                       ..!uunet!convex!egsner!sdf!corey
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Subject: Re: 360 day year
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 04:01:08 GMT

m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:

>}Yes, Arabic calendar is Lunar calendar which has 355 days per year.

>Interesting.  Then The Arabic portion of earth currently orbits the sun in
>355 days while the rest orbits in just over 365 days.

Not only that, but some years the earth orbits the sun in 384 or 385 days,
when a 13th month is inserted.

Those years are called "embolismic". With good reason I should say:
the sudden decrease in speed can't be all that good for your health.

The Easter Island natives also used such 12 and 13 lunar months years.
It was a 13-month year when Thomson visited Easter Island last century.
An expedition there would probably find traces of some felt and levity
left from those days...


Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Christian message (in defense of Jim Loucks)
Date: 12 Aug 92 12:12:13 GMT
Organization: City University, London

btd@iastate.edu (Benjamin T Dehner) writes:
>jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker) writes:
>
>>	Humility is another thing entirely -- it means considering all
>>others as better than yourself, 
>
>	If this is true, then why is giving them YOUR religion necessary?

Its not really _his_ religion, more like _God_'s.

>
>>                                  putting the needs of others before
>>one's own, serving others, 
>
>	Sounds good in theory, but what do people need?  I have decided that
>Louck's 'needs' a dose of humility, so I am trying to force-feed it to him
>via these posts.  Louck's has decided that we 'need' to be saved.  So I 
>suppose we are both being humble.

Again, it is _God_ who has `decided that we 'need' to be saved'.
Jim is merely passing on God's message of Good News to all who
have ears to hear. If he had no compassion for the lost he would
not even bother.

>Benjamin T. Dehner          Department of Physics and Astronomy 


--
Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Are we privileged observers?
From: skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger)
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 20:08:43 GMT
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Keywords: universe,earth, paradox

julian@fraser.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock) writes:
>kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) writes:
>No you can't, becuse you do not know how to interpret the observations.
>An example: Suppose you measure the spectral shift of starlight, and find
>it has a red-shift. Is this because the light is from a receeding source
>or it is having to escape a strong gravitational field, or perhaps 
>some unknown mechanism? We have to make a "uniformity" assumption
>in order to interpret our observations. Another example: suppose
>Newton's constant (G = 6.67 .10**-11 N.m**2/Kg**2 actually depends
>on position so that it has a different value a few million light years
>away? How can we discover this? Well, you can measure the period of
>a double star and see if the accepted value of G works. But then you
>need the masses to do this and how so you calculate them? You have to
>assume a value for G, so you end up with a circular calculation.

You could estimate the stars' masses from thier spectral types.

Another example could be whether the speed of light changes from area to
area.  As I understand it, there are several spectal effects that depend on
differing powers of c.  If the speed of light did change, the change in thes

>We usually make the minimalist aasumption that the laws of physics
>are the same everywhere for all observers, but this is an untestable
>assumption within physics: rather it is the basis on which we do physics.
>It is a matter of faith where the laws of physics apply ( hence my

Well, to the best of our observations the laws of physics are the same in a
pretty damn big volume.

>statement about needing a meta-physics, ie, a more abstract theory 
>that says where the current theories are valid).

The problem is, how would this theory be anything less than the kind of
conjecture you want it to get rid of.

>julian


|======================================================================|
| Seth Kroger                       "If God made us in His image we    |
| skroger@pan.calpoly.edu               have certianly returned the    |
| Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo             compliment."  -Voltaire        |
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 17:07:01 GMT

In article <2864@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>>Holden claims that Kazmaier's 1000 lb deadlift is the
>>largest lift that any creature can perform, 
>
>
>Whoa!  Not quite. I've claimed that the squat is the closest thing in any
>sort of weight lifting event to the ordinary act of standing up, number one,
>and that the 27 Holden number for Kaz doing the 1000 lb squat is an upper limit,
>more or less, for the world for creatures AS LARGE OR LARGER THAN Kaz.  

So the Size-vs-Holden-Number space looks like this.  (X means animal,
K Kazmeier, E Elephant, G Grandmother)

HN
^
|
|   X      X           
|                    
|  X  X  X              
|           X         
|       X             
|            K-----------E   <- 27 limit
|  X   X    X   X       X  
|                  X  X
|          X       X   X
|                  X  X
|        G       X   X
+--------------------------->Size (whatever that is)

I can't see any reason why one has to draw this line.  Just because there
are no living animals above it?  Because elephants break down when they
try to carry weights? (ha ha)  Then why not draw a line above the
Grandmother?


[Rest of Holden's article omitted due to lack of content]

-- 
--------------thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany---------------
Definition:  Idiot-proof  -  you are idiot-proof when you NEVER flame anybody.
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: cichlid genetic diversity
Date: 21 Aug 92 22:58:19 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

The cover article on this weeks issue of Nature is about African
cichlid fish. A few years ago, biologists examined the mtDNA
sequences of the cichlids in Lake Victoria and determined that
they were all very closely related despite being very morpholog-
ically distinct. In this paper, they do the same thing to the
morphologically similar fish in Lake Tanganyika and find out that,
although they all look the same (there are color differences,
but they are morphologically homogeneous), they are more than
six times genetically diverse than the Lake Victoria fish.

What this goes to show is: large amounts of morphological
change can be due to small changes in genetics and also large
amounts of genetic change can result in no appreciable physical
change. In the first case, the small amount of change probably
is in developmental regulatory genes. In the second case, the
large amount of change is simply neutral variation accumulated
over time.

It would be interesting to compare a cladogram built using
molecular data and one using morphological data for all these
cichlid fish. What we should see (a prediction!) is that
the branching order of the trees would be the same, but the
inferred branch lengths would differ.

There's also an article of interest to people interested in
"RNA world" (Has that discussion died already? Please continue
it! Go Cairns-Smith 8-)

REFERENCES:

Sturmbauer and Meyer, 1992, Genetic divergence, speciation and
morphological stasis in a lineage of African cichlid fishes,
Nature 358: 578-581

Pan and Uhlenbeck, 1992, A small metalloribozyme with a two-
step mechanism, Nature 358: 560-563

Chris Colby
Newsgroups: talk.origins