HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: The Flat Earth Error
Reply-To: hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: DESY ZEUS Central Data Acquisition
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 01:12:50 GMT

In article <0!mm!h-@lynx.unm.edu>, rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger
Squires) writes:

|>Another recent thread involved the idea of a flat earth, to which I myself
|>contributed a reference to Boorstin (see below).

|>	According to what Russell calls the modern Flat Earth Error, it was the
|>	courage of the rationalist Christopher Columbus that began the 
|>	liberation of modern people from the superstitions of the Catholic
|>	church.  His voyage in 1492 supposedly destroyed the irrational
|>	mythology of the Dark Ages by empiricall demonstrating that world
|>	was round, not flat.

It was indeed known at the Spanish court that the earth was round.
Columbus however was peddling a fib. He was claiming that the Indies
were much closer to us than they really are. He fixed up the maps to
support his fraudulent case and used them to get funding. When he bumped
into the Americas he was to coin a phrase a real lucky bastard. He
should by rights have killed himself (and the half of his crew that
survived).

This is simply cultural imperialism. It makes us feel good to think that
another culture we  think more primitive than us was stupid. The Greek
measurements were known about, it was the scholarly tradition which
preseved and recopied the manuscripts detailing it can hardly have
failed to realise the truth of their arguments. If they thought the
arguments heretical they would not have been copied.

However, the Vatican did screw up el major big timo over Galileo and the
heliocentric theory. And the effects of the Borgias etc can hardly be
described as advancing the human lot.

The real argument against the church in the "dark ages" is not that they
took mankind backward, but that they prevented any forward movement.
Political power was misappropriated by the papacy through the bogus gift
of Constantine and so the Church developed a theology in which it
claimed the absolute right to proclaim what is truth and what is not
with any dissenters going to everlasting torment in hell, a first
installment of which to be demonstrated on exit from the present life.
The church proclaimed that all that needed to be known was known and
that it knew it. 


Phill
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley)
Subject: Re: Why bible nonsense in t.o.????
Organization: Auburn University Engineering
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 17:21:54 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.011933.24937@anasaz> scott@qip.UUCP (Scott Gibson) writes:
>
>Care to test Lewis?  Examine two individuals from differing
>cultural, social, ethnic, and religious backgrounds.  Do they
>share the same concept of morals?  Well, you can certainly
>find two such examples who don't.  So, the notion that it is
>one's social environment which teaches morality holds up 
>better than the notion that it is God (at least, in this
>example).
>
>Try another such experiment.  Compare yourself with an
>individual with effectively _no_ social indoctrination.
>Same values?  Not.
>

There is too much random fluctuation in individual behavior to prove
anything by comparing two individuals.  You need to have a large enough
sample to smooth out the randomness.  So the question is, compare a large
population with social indoctrination with another large sample with
no social indoctrination.  Or likewise with a different indoctrination.

>
>
>-- 
>But you knew your figure cut a cipher/ Through every crafted plan/ And 
>playing our game for real/ Saw through our plumbing jobs/ And wayward glands/
>To a meaning of your own, in bones."  - Iain M. Banks, "Use of Weapons"
>Scott Gibson                   {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!qip!scott
>Disclaimer:  These opinions are my own, and may change without prior notice.
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Category 4 / Other large animal anomalies
Date: 26 Jul 92 18:46:53 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Jul23.183919.3071@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
|
|So, what?  Falls can be fatal for horses, falls can be fatal for giraffes,
|falls *can* be fatal for humans.  

Oh yes, talking about giraffes, does ted know that giraffes' feet support
more weight per square inch cross section than do those of elephants?
[What, you mean *giraffes* exceed Holden's weightlifters limit? - yep].
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Biogenesis in the warm pool -- the next step
Date: 27 Jul 92 19:14:40 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Jul27.080654.26604@smds.com> rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
|In article <746@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
|
|>How about the nucleic acids by themselves beginning to self-replicate.
|>This is the current main-line hypothesis, and has even got *some*
|>experimental support (the existance of a relatively short self-replicating
|>RNA chain, and the fact that RNA can have catalytic properties, thus
|>eliminating the need for proteins at first).
|
|It all sounds pretty dubious to me -- show me RNA catalyzing the production
|of nucleotides and you have a case for RNA.  Otherwise:  Where do all those
|nucleotides come from!!?  Not from Miller's Chicken Soup, I hope.
|
Why not? They *are* there, and catalytic polymerization could easily extract
them from the rest of the goop?


Actually, I am far from convinced myself, I was just pointing out that the
model the prior poster had used was too complicated, in that he required
the phospholipid membrane right from the start.  I pointed out that a
bare combined genetic/catalytic material could be suitable living even
without all of the 'modern' amenities like membranes and proteins.

My current favorite is the Cairns-Smith model (or a variant of it - I do
not see that he has to reject the "Miller Chicken Soup" as completely as he
does - the organics in it could *still* be used as *food* without changing
his basic premise, also I think he has photosynthesis evolving too early).
[Strangely the Cairns-Smith model involves silicon based life!!]
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: Elephants CAN'T gallop, damn it!!!
Reply-To: hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: DESY ZEUS Central Data Acquisition
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 20:11:01 GMT

Just thought I'd let you know that this is the first informative message
I have ever seen from @desire.wright.edu. Mind you this isn't your
fault, the only other prefix I have seen is demon... Perhaps there is
some law about conservation of intelect at such nodes and to compensate
for Brett all the rest of you have to be dead brainy.

Now, you'll tell me you are married to him in which case I'll have to
take it all back!

Phill
From: lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: The Woman Deceived (was ? for SW)
Date: 23 Jul 92 16:01:19 GMT
Organization: City University, London

In article <1992Jul21.013947.284@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>Sexism

Sexism is rather a fraught term. Sex identity would be better.

>(1 Peter
>3:1-7) Women should submit to their husbands and should look plain;
>they should call their husbands their masters, as Sarah had called
>Abraham.

Submitting to husbands yes, but where do you get that wives should
look plain? I think the passage does not tell wives to look plain,
nor to call their husbands their masters.

Throughout your analysis you have left out the balancing bits eg.
(1 Peter 3:7) "Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to
knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel,
and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your
prayers be not hindered."

Ie. husbands should honour their wives. Would you disagree with this
command?

>/Loren


--
Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889
From: jgacker@NEPTUNE.GSFC.NASA.GOV (James G. Acker)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Biogenesis - quick thoughts
Date: 24 Jul 92 17:46:04 GMT


	Re:  the biogenesis issue recently raised.  I find biogenesis a
fascinating topic, and I for one won't be convinced that it hasn't been
demonstrated experimentally until we let the experiment run for half
a billion years or so (try and get THAT funded by NSF).

	But, I would sincerely enjoy a discussion of the possible 
mechanisms for biogenesis.  I have references lying around (literally),
and would take up some discussion after study.  Don't expect speed,
though.

	Point one:  I may be the first, hopefully not the last, to point
out that evolutionary theory has NOTHING to say about biogenesis.  Evolution
talks about the changes in existing life-forms;  chemistry, physics,
biochemistry, even cosmology may be involved in the determination of how
life began.

	Point two:  Start the argument on first principles.  You have
already demonstrated that you believe fervently that intelligence
was required to create life.  Thus, to prove your point, attempt to 
prove the counter-hypothesis that intelligence was NOT required to create
life.  When you reach the point that the hypothesis breaks down, i.e. a 
process which can *only proceed* with interaction with an intelligent
force, you will disprove your hypothesis and strengthen the case that
intelligence was required.  Don't be surprised if someone then attempts
to refute the requirement of intelligent interaction in said process.

	Starting point:  I support the idea that life began at undersea
"warm springs", which had 1) raw materials (trace elements, minerals, etc.);
2) an input energy source (heat) and the "Goldilocks" environment, not too
hot and not too cold;  3) protection from sterilizing UV radiation.  
A "warm spring" would be a good reaction vessel, allowing chemical reactions
to proceed at increased kinetic rates.

	First problem:  an abiotic source of carbon.  Where did it come
from?  Deep mantle source?
	What was the initial chemical form (diamond?  They're hard to
dissolve.)

	Take it, guys and gals.

	Jim Acker
	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov
From: David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Holden Number --->0
X-Sender: newtout 0.01 Jul 13 1992
Date: 25 Jul 92  10:14:20

Tag: Ten Holden
 
TH> I should mention that one particular member of the t.o crew,
TH> Throop, will always follow any such posting of mine with a
TH> claim that leverage in ligament attachments simply favor
TH> larger and heavier creatures so greatly as to give them
TH> lifting ratios beyond what we see today. This flies in the
TH> face of everything we observe, namely that smaller creatures
TH> always have greater power-to-weight ratios than larger due
TH> to the square cube problem as well as to the bindings and
TH> inefficiencies which begin to accrue in the muscles with
TH> really heavy and bulky creatures."
 
My horse snaps ropes in two as easily as I snap old shoe laces;
try as I might (jumping up and down, screaming, and internal
hemoraging with the effort), I cannot pull a rope in two with
my muscles. Size to weight ratio, I'm closely scaled to Reba.
In fact, scaling my thigh muscles to Reba's neck muscles, I
should have an easier time stomping on a suspended rope and
breaking it than Reba has with jerking her halter up sharply---
my scaled thigh would be larger than her neck.
 
Are you saying I should be stronger than a horse? Reba would
whinney in your face at such an absurd idea. The horse-laugh
in on you.
 
> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: seanna@bnr.ca (Seanna Watson)
Subject: Re: The Woman Deceived (was ? for SW)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 19:35:08 GMT

In article <BrtM15.n2E@news.cso.uiuc.edu> maier@romulus (Chuck Maier) writes:
>In <1992Jul20.104506.18345@hemlock.cray.com> robd@cray.com (Robert Derrick) writes:
>
>[a description, which cm deleted, of a 10 month old baby being spanked for
"refusal" to use the toilet]
>
>>...be "beaten out of her", and the list goes on, and on, but my hands are 
>>starting to shake.
>
>I've seen people lose a child because of such controlling influences, so
>I can empathize.

Let me get this straight.  You have seen people lose children to demonic 
influence and therefore condone the beating of a *10-MONTH-OLD BABY* for
not being toilet trained?????????????????????????????????????????????
And you are trying to tell me that belief in *evolution* leads people to
damaging conclusions and subsequent moral decay? (No, I am not interested 
in a list of verses defending corporal punishment.  We are talking here 
about punishing a child for doing something that s/he has no control 
over.)  If I had to choose between  a God who wanted me to spank 
10-month-olds for not using the potty, and being an atheist, I would 
choose to be an atheist.  Even if such a God did exist, I certainly would 
not want to spend eternity in his presence.


-- 
Seanna Watson   Bell-Northern Research, 
(seanna@bnr.ca) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada


Opinions, what opinions?  Oh *these* opinions. | Occam's razor split 
No, they're not BNR's, they're mine.           | hairs so well, I bought 
I knew I'd left them somewhere.                | the whole argument.
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Some answers for Chuck (on evolution and marriage)
Date: 23 Jul 92 02:10:50 GMT
Organization: LLNL

In article <BrsMCD.8rp@news.cso.uiuc.edu> maier@romulus (Chuck Maier) writes:
>In <1992Jul21.175302.12351@bcrka451.bnr.ca> seanna@bnr.ca (Seanna Watson) writes:
::I wrote:
::::I find your marriage argument somewhat strange, however.  Many men of God 
::::in the OT violated one man/one woman for life--Abraham, Jacob, Solomon to
::::name a few.  

::Chuck Maier wrote:
:::Yes, and their lives were a mess because they did so.  Look at the strife
:::and contention...

	Horseshit. The Bible nowhere condemns any of the polygamy
related in it.


:On the other hand , if A&E are just a figleaf of our illustration, and
:humans originated from herds of apemen, then it is the natural order of
:things to be polygamous and copulate with anything in heat.

	I'm not aware of God decreeing marriage in the A&E story.

	And the natural order is really wanting to have several
partners while insisting that one's partner not run after anyone else.
With lots of :-)'s.

:Here's the problem:  I have met at least four people in this city alone
:who claim to be Christians (and they may be), yet they are living in
:SIN (unmarried and cohabiting with the opposite sex).  One is even a
:minister!  I know at least as many more formerly married adults   who have lost any profession
:of faith and engage in such a lifestyle.  Not to mention all the couples
:who routinely "shack up" these days.  Even these have probably had some
:religious upbringing.

	Why does "living together" bother you?

	That's an essentially monogamous (if not _absolutely_
monogamous) lifestyle, so why are you complaining?

:I assume we're in agreement that these things should not be.  However, let's
:say a niece of yours or mine decides to live in SIN.  On what authority are
:we going to say it's wrong?  I doubt they are going to be interested in our
:personal opinion.  And if we are going to appeal to the authority of The Lord
:from the Scriptures, it is clear that he taught from the original created 
:order as  fact and foundation for the marital relationship. Ultimately we
:have the situations I've described above because few teach moral absolutes
:anymore.  And if we're going to teach moral absolutes, we have to get back
:having a foundation for doing so.  That means creation must be taught as
:fact, as I understand it.

	Actually, Paul taught that one should be single and celibate.
Marriage was for those who could not manage celibacy.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout)
Subject: Re: not understanding evolution
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 14:36:47 GMT

I wrote
>>Altruistic
>>behaviour on the group level (rather than on the universal level) would
>>benefit the individual as his group would remain coherent and better
>>able to win the conflict, and by ensuring that he/she would remain
>>part of "the group", i.e. not be rejected by others because of the
>>selfish traits. 

In <91957@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
>	You need to think a little more carefully here; part of your
>sentence reads "Altruistic behavior...would benefit the individual..."
>In others words, the individual is behaving selfishly. Just because
>a behavior benefits others doesn't make it altruistic. "Altruistic",
>in evolutionary biology, means behaving in order to maximize anothers 
>fitness. "Selfish" means behaving in order to maximize ones own fitness.
>Maximizing your own fitness usually the requires some mutually bene-
>ficial interactions with other organisms -- your mate(s) being one
>obvious example.

Behaviour cannot be clearly delineated as being in the "selfish" box
or the "altruistic" box.  Especially when those terms are defined as
you have stated.  Are you saying that altruistic behaviour is
by necessity exclusive of selfish behaviour?  What about symbiotic
relationships?  They certainly maximize the fitness of another while
maximizing ones own fitness. (i.e. contributions to the gene pool).

What I am saying, is that the altruistic behaviour is extra.  It is
not necessary for the individual (if we follow the greedy algorithm
-- immediate contribution to the gene pool).  However, by having an 
evolved behaviour that maximizes an individual's group's fitness 
can very well 
assure that genotype of survival in the long term.  So the gene 
pool survives because the group survives.
While the group survives however, there may also survive
individuals carrying many more selfish traits.  It is more a chaotic
behaviour of gene pools than the clearcut delineation that you have
given.

--
Eli Chiprout
Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
emc@doe.carleton.ca
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Elephants CAN'T gallop, damn it!!!
Date: 29 Jul 92 11:14:48 GMT
 <1992Jul24.153110.6618@tcom.stc.co.uk> <2836@fedfil.UUCP> <1992Jul28.155445.9336@rhrk.uni-kl.de>
Organization: Wright State University

In article <1992Jul28.155445.9336@rhrk.uni-kl.de>, kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) writes:
> In article <2836@fedfil.UUCP>, news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>>That Sue Bishop is incompetant is clearly seen in her 
>>continuing use of the insulting phrase "you have been repeatedly told..."
>>which one would normally use with a small child.
> 
> *Normally* it's not necessary to use that phrase, except with small children.
> 

And small children do eventually grow up.  
Most of them, anyway.

Sue

> -- 
> --------------thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany---------------
> Do you ask a Napoleon why it has to be Moscow, of all places?  Do you ask a
> Mondrian why one has to paint only in the rectangularly framed primary colours
> Red, Blue, and Yellow?  Ah, how all questions are ruined in view of a persuas-
> ively recited system of madness! And is there a mortar keeping those systems
> together firmer than real or supposed enemies?  -  Robert Gernhardt
> 
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: seanna@bnr.ca (Seanna Watson)
Subject: Re: A Question for Seanna
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 13:01:04 GMT

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Anniversary with Ted (& Holden "felt effect" followup)
Date: 21 Jul 92 21:18:04 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In article <685@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>Repetitive is an understatement!  The Tedster has been saying almost exactly
>the same thing (even using many of the same *sentences*) for as long as I
>have been on the net, and that has been for some time.
>

Right after Ted posted all of his recent categories of evidence, I noticed that
every one of these new postings contain material that I've seen before and
thoroughly debunked too.  Considering that I started reading this newsgroup
back around April, Ted has a pretty short turnover rate.

Anyway, shouldn't there be some sort of special acknowledgement for those who've
been at this long enough to see stuff repeated from the Tedster--some kind of
Holdenniversary?

I've just celebrated my first Holdenniversary.  Let's hear from others who've
been at this even longer.  Any people out there who've been through this five,
ten, or even twenty times?

>-- 
>sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
>  or
>Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com


--
*Ka Chun Yu                 * "Deputy dog dog a ding dang depa depa deputy     *
*kachun@as.arizona.edu      *  dog dog a ding dang depa depa . . ."            *
*                           *                         --"Don't Let's Start"    *
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Elaphants CAN'T gallop, ddamn it!!!  Nor mammoths!!!
Date: 27 Jul 92 11:28:18 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <712176600.10135@zooid.guild.org*, gecko@zooid.guild.org (GECKO) writes:
 
*  Famous Mr. Ted writes: 
  
* >(griping at Sue and dancing around issue deleted) 
* > 
* >That was the whole point.  I have at least one picture of a big mammoth, 
* >galloping. 
*  
*       A photograph?  Of a mammoth?  I don't believe it! 
*  
*       MAMMOTHS CANNOT SMEGGING GALLOP YOU PINHEAD! 
*       Baby elephants ought to be light enough to gallop, but they can't 
*       do it either because they aren't designed for that sort of 
*       activity.  DO YOU UN-DER-STAND?  I wonder...  ;-) 
  
* >Again, this cannot happen in our world at present. 
  
*       Yet again, it has NEVER happened.  Mammoths never galloped. 
*                                 - GECKO 

This is about the 20'th challenge I've seen on this one, and I figure a
response is entirely justified.

I intend to put this image out shortly on t.o as a uuencoded .gif image.

Sue Bishop should understand the following.  If you return this image to
me email, as an attempt at getting my sysadm pissed off, I will email you
a copy of the entire King James bible, all 4.7 MB worth.  We'll see whose
sysadm gets pissed off first.



-- 
Ted Holden
HTE
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: The evolution of sexes
Date: 28 Jul 92 22:26:38 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <768@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:

>It is certainly true that more than two sexes is almost unknown.
>It only occurs in a *few* species of ciliates (where only gene exchange
>takes place, then *both* parental individuals reproduce by fission).

	Hey! This sounds interesting and relevant - what's it doing
on t.o. 8-) Care to fill us in on some of the sordid details, Stan?

P.S. (to Andy) Did you see Roughgarden's recent theory on the evolution
(really the maintainance) of sex? It was in Am. Nat. -- nobody on
bionet wanted to discuss so maybe it really sucked, but I thought it
was kind of clever. 

>Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com

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