HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Vestigial organs
Date: 3 Sep 92 00:04:27 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Aug27.192847.27988@cs.ucla.edu> frazier@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Gregory Frazier) writes:
|Having seen the PBS documentary on the making of a baby, one is
|really quite struck by the jury-rigged nature of the human male
|scrotum.  It seems that our testicles just don't work too well
|when they are at body temperature - much more sperm is produced
|if they are kept a few degrees cooler.  So, instead of keeping
|our balls in a nice safe place, like inside our pelvis, we have
|to have them hanging down between our legs to keep them cool.
|Talk about jury-rigged!
|
And then what do we civilized folks go and do but stuff them *back* *inside*
a couple of layers off insulation!  Cheez!

Now, back to the subject.  I have been reading the article in this month's
Scientific American on intercellular signalling (you know hormones and all
that stuff) and how it is accomplished at the molecular level.  My immediate
response to the `design' of the signalling system was "Rube Goldberg device".

Really: First messenger => receptor => switch enzyme (GTPase)
	=> switch-effector complex => secondary messenger (e.g. cyclic AMP)
	=> activator (kinase) => activated system.

Gurrrghhh.  That's just plain *excessive* use of intermediate signals!
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: ford@hpmcaa (Dan Ford)
Subject: Re: macroevolution
Organization: HP Cardiology Business Unit - McMinnville, OR
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 1992 00:55:32 GMT

Antti Siivonen (asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi) wrote:
> lindsay+@cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay) writes:
> >Oddly, all standard biology texts disagree with you. Possibly you
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >haven't read any of them.
> 
> 	Yes, I have spent a lot of time with them, but it doesn't seem to get  
> 	anywhere. Besides, I don't call that biology. Also I have read the 
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  This really does clear up many things.  It appears you have your own
personal definition of biology.  Nice of you to not make that clear until
now ;-(

  By your own statement you don't consider "standard biology texts" to 
contain biology.  

  Personal definitions are cheap.  What takes time are the definitions
arrived at by concensus among many scientists over a long time.  There is
such a definition for biology, but appearantly you are not aware of it.
Too bad for you, you are missing out on a great many things.
 
> -- 
> 
> 		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint
> 
> 	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !

Dan Ford

Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: verbose+@cs.cmu.edu (Jeff Barbose)
Subject: Scientific Creation FAQ, Ted?
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 16:48:27 GMT


Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: 160' Diplodocus...  429,895 lbs
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 06:00:00 GMT

In article <2881@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>As utterly ridiculous as your "why not try" is, it's still impossible.
>Nothing 41 tones lives anymore.  If it could happen, it would happen, and
>we have no evidence of it, anywhere within recorded history.

And of course, as we all know, *nothing* *ever* happened before recorded
history, right?

Unless, of course, you use "recorded history" to mean "events of the past
for which any physical evidence exists", in which case your usage is
nonstandard.

>What you're really saying, is that for your goof refutation of my basic
>theory to work, you need dinosaurs which scale in surrealistic fashion.

Where "realistic" is determined by comparisons with artists conceptions?
Yeah, right.

>Ted Holden
>HTE


-- 
				Kevin Brown

			    kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
			    kevin@taronga.taronga.com
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Date: 2 Sep 92 16:53:36 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)

In article <1992Sep1.163619.568@cbnewsm.cb.att.com>, mls@cbnewsm (mike.siemon) writes:
>> Race is not incoherent.  It is not well-defined, it is frequently abused,

>We may be talking at cross-purposes here.

Probably.

>					    Your references mostly note
>correlations of ethnic groups (defined culturally) with language (not
>surprising!) and (the heart of the matter) with genetic "boundaries."

"Race" is, in some sense, just the highest taxon among ethnic divisions.
And indeed, "ethnic group" is on par with "race" and "language" so far
as ill-definition and coherence go.
 
>I expect to explore your references -- at the moment the only one I've
>read is Cavalli-Sforza et.al., and they have been *massively* criticized
>for poor methodology by linguistic reviewers.

On linguistic grounds.  No one took them to task for the various notions
of ethnic groupings.  In fact, the letter to SCIENCE I referenced was
one of those criticisms!  I included it because it used "race" without
any qualms.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
From: Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Logic and God
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Aug 21 1992
Date: 27 Aug 92  23:36:00

 > What I was trying to point out here is a logic trap.  The
 > "evolution"
 > side of this debate takes the approach of:
 >   - We will start with the assumption that there is no God, or that
 >     God is not relevant to the topic at hand.
 >   - We will not allow religious doctrines to guide our thoughts or
 >     provide possible interpretations.
 > After this, they reach a conclusion which they find logicly
 > consistant and branch out from that to the conclusion that their
 > first point (no God) is proven.  That is not logicly sound.

It's even worse than that.

We start out with the assumption that God, Zeus, Diana, Thor, Demons,
Leprechauns, Vampires, Atlantians, Ascended Masters, Lares and Penates, Oans, 
Illuminati, and the Resurrected Elvis, are irrelevant to science.

We do our work using the the scientific method only, not allowing religious
doctrines, flat earthism, Holdensity, solopsism, the Law of Karma, or the
words of channeled entities to limit our thoughts.

And we draw our conclusions from examination and interpretation of the facts
as presented to our own senses.

And finally, we look God in the eye and refuse to declare him nonexistent,
because unlike you we do not see his existence as or nonexistence as a
scientific question. Some of us believe, some don't.


+--------------------------+--------------------------------------+
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+--------------------------+ Snail Addr: Unit #1, 7872 Trask      |
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---
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: csfed@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Frank Doss)
Subject: Re: White skin-how did it develope?
Organization: Educational Computing Network
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 16:10:58 GMT

In article <2879@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>* 
>* With the black evolving from the white, you mean?
>
>I'm afraid so.  Louis Ginzberg's 7-volume "Legends of the Jews", volume 1
>contains as good an account as you'll find.  Again, these people described
>the world in their terms, their language and not ours.  They did not
>comprehend genetic mutation, catastrophic evolution etc.  They were 
>completely at home with the concept of a curse.

I betcha that the ancient Jews knew only their own race for a very long
time.  Once the encountered their first black people, the explained the
difference with a legend.

Counting on legends to explain evolution is kinda like counting on clay
figurines to explain animal locomotion.

>* David M. Jones                              "Trifles! Trifles light as air!"

>Ted Holden


-- 

Frank Doss 
The above stated words are my opinions and do not reflect the opinions,
attitudes, or policies of my employer or any affilliated organizations.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering followup
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 20:21:49 GMT

In article <714236846@sheol.UUCP>, throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
>>From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
>>Message-ID: <1992Aug18.134525.8381@rhrk.uni-kl.de>
>>I just had an idea.  Elephants are used as workers in India.  They lift logs
>>and other heavy things.  How much can an elephant lift?  You have to add this
>>to compute the "correct" HN for an elephant.
>
>Well, actually not.  Because they don't get to their feet under load,
>as Ted wants to require.  They stand, and then lift additional load.
>But just for yucks, we can say a 10000 lb "average" elephant, lifting
>a 2000 lb weight with its nose (let's see Kazmaier do THAT) might have
>a pseudo-HN of only 25.  So, no particular joy there.

OK, I should have computed before posting.  Sorry.  (I don't like these
strange weight units you have)

-- 
--------------thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany---------------
Definition:  Idiot-proof  -  you are idiot-proof when you NEVER flame anybody.
From: markwc@barney.esl.com (Mark Christiansen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: White skin-how did it develope?
Date: 26 Aug 92 06:51:16 GMT
Organization: ESL Inc., Sunnyvale, CA

In article <1992Aug25.230626.17809@cco.caltech.edu> keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
>
>Well, the determining factor in deciding which is plausible is the
>time duration it takes to mutate.  Now, the creationists believe that
>the present genetic diversity has developed within the last 10 000 years,
>right?  And most evolutionists would say that such diversity (if indeed
>all humans have evolved from a common ancestor) would take a much longer
>time.  Now, if there were some sort of mega radiation blast, I suppose
>that the mutation could have occurred as quickly as the creationists claim.
>

Why are you limiting the developement to the last 10 000 years (where
in the bible does it say that) and why do you assume that the billions
of years of existance of this universe is sufficient time for life to
evolve to its current state?  Although many "interpretations" of the
Bible or other creation stories suggest that the developement time was
much shorter, its quite clear that there has been life here much
longer (of course, it was also quite clear that the Earth is flat).
I'm also not convinced that this universe has been in existance
sufficient time to evolve to this state on it's own.  Perhaps there
was some help by someone from outside this universe to bring about
life during those billions of years.
-- 
Good-day!

Mark
From: vnelson@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gerald Vernon Nelson)
Subject: Re: Logic and God and Drew...
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 01:50:19 GMT

In <94541@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:

>Also, can you back up your repeated assertion that "evolutionists"
>take this one step further and say "... so therefore there is no
>god." I haven't seen anybody on t.o. say that. I haven't seen
>any evolutionary biologists say that. I (a grad student studying
>evolutionary biology) don't claim that. I've never seen a text
>in the field make this claim. Where are these phantom hoards of 
>people arguing in this manner?

I'm one, and proud of it.  I was raised without religious bias
and the idea of evolution co-existing with god is an atrocity.

All of the evidence you agree to is mutually exclusive to the 
concept of god.  How can someone cling to such an idea?
It is shown again and again, that things just didn't happen
as depicted in the Bible, yet people stubbornly believe the
general idea, there is a god, and he created all life.


It reminds me of the scene from "Spinal Tap"  where it is 
explained to a musician, that the "11" on the dial of his 
amp does not make it louder.  After a lengthy tutorial,
the musician points at his amp and says...

             "But this one goes to 11!"

Vern Nelson
From: cjhs@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: White skin-how did it develope?
Date: 25 Aug 92 19:16:33 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Lionel Tun (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk) wrote:
: >   For the Creationists out there, who still think slinging this particular
: >form of mud, when applied to evolution, is a valid argument, the above challenge
: >still stands.  (This includes all of the arguments I have seen in talk.origins
: >like, "the Final Solution was based on evolution," "Marxism is based on
: >evolution", "Abortion is based on evolution", "Decay of family values is based
: >on evolution", "This one guy based his desire to sleep around on evolution",
: >"Apartheid is based on evolution", and so on ad infinitum, ad nauseum).
: 
: I was not using these examples as a valid argument against evolution,
: the scientific theory, I wished to alert people to the possible
: evils that may come out of the philosophy.

Do you have any comment on the observation that it is far more
common for religion and specifically Christianity to be used to
support racism than it is for evolution to be so used?

Felicitations -- Chris Ho-Stuart
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Subject: Re: Linguistics and evolution
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 15:47:33 GMT

weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:

>In answer to the question of how biological evolution is important to
>linguistics of all subjects, I know of two.  One is the question of the
>origin of language itself.  The second is the origin of the variety of
>languages.

	You ignore the fact that languages have developed to simpler forms 
	not more complicated as the so-called evolution "theory" claims. 
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
From: jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: In reply to Joe Duffy - Re:  The alien android
Date: 2 Sep 92 19:54:20 GMT
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
Content-Type: text
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4dev PL73]
Content-Length: 1069



	Quick reply to the android question posed:  the android would
first examine how closely he resembled the other living flora and fauna
of the planet he was placed on (assuming he was constructed to believe
that he originated on the planet).  If he found that he was totally
unlike any other creature on the planet, he might then entertain the
idea that he originated from "another place".  There has to be a 
foundation for this theory, though.

	Since virtually all life is DNA-based, one can assume that life 
originated from a DNA precursor.  Thus, the action of the supernatural
intervention (if there was such action) had to be before the creation
of self-replicating DNA or RNA.

	 I assume that in any future search for life on other planets,
the explorers are first going to have to be very sure that they didn't
contaminate it themselves (i.e. they find bacteria, but it's only
because one of the explorers sneezed).

	Jim Acker
	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov

	P.S. Read _2001:  A Space Odyssey_.  Who says life was the miracle?
Maybe it was intelligence!
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: macroevolution
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 21:59:45 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.122515.17428@cs.joensuu.fi>, asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti
Siivonen) writes:
> skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger) writes:
> >Could you please explain what you read between the lines that made you come
> >to that conclusion?
> 
> 	I read that the proof is actually 0. 

  And I read that there is a star with a planet that is a giant ring completely
surrounding it.  The ring is made out of a material with a binding force equal
to the nuclear strong force.  And billions of people live on this ring.  Oh,
wait, that's just one of my favorite science fiction books.

  Do you have any references for your claims in _scientific_ journals
(prefereably peer reviewed)?  When a person asks for information a blank
statement like the above is usually taken that the person is speaking out the
other side of their mouth.

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Xref: sparky talk.origins:10836 alt.atheism:16508
From: kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: worthless comic strips
Keywords: creationist propaganda
Date: 4 Sep 92 05:55:50 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In article <1992Sep3.195425.2846@u.washington.edu> sieferme@milton.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman) writes:
>Don't know of any comic strips, but several years ago I got a copy
>of an "Archie"  comic book at Knotts Berry Farm (of all places!).
>It was an evangelical version, with Archie and Jughead witnessing
>to all of their friends.  
>
>I immediately started laughing in tongues.

I've seen one of these "evangelical" Archie comics reprinted in an anniversary
reprint trade paperback of Archie comics (not the recent one, but one from
about a decade ago).  Archie and Betty were preaching the word of God and
were played off two "sinful" teens.  Surprise, surprise, the two teens un-
touched by the word of Jesus drank heavily, went off driving, and got into
an auto wreck.  The dazed girl emerges from the totaled vehicle ready to 
accept Christianity.  The last panel shows Archie and Betty making a last
plug for Christ as the rays of the sun break through clouds in the background.

>
>-- 
>| Eric Sieferman            |    sieferme@u.washington.edu          |
>| U. of W., M.C.I.S.        |    (206) 685-3104                     |


--
*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: jjh00@outs.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Date: 29 Aug 92 00:04:41 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@OUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Distribution: na
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

>  carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink) writes...
>> 
>>  Drew, there are no Martian canals.  Never were.  They were a combination
>>of bad telescopy and wishful thinking.  There are no features on Mars
>>that resemble the "canali" of Mars.  Furthermore, even when some people
>>did accept their existence, no reputable scientist thought of them as
>>evidence of an advanced civilization on Mars.  Not that it was ruled out:
>>the overwhelming majority of scientists simply said: "There's not enough
>>evidence to prove *anything*."


 sichase@csa2.lbl.gov writes:
>
>The way I understand the story, it was just a translation problem.  "Canali"
>in Italian is something like "rivulets."  Bogus tranlation turned little
>rivers into canals.  There never was any original observation of canals.


<Boldly posting without being able to check references...>

Well, in my sometimes flawed remembrance, Schiaparelli first mapped
some dark features on Mars, and called them 'canali' (= "channels")
in his writings in Italian.  Percival Lowell, amateur American
enthusiast and founder of the Lowell observatory, did indeed
mistranslate as "canals", and further went on to vastly elaborate
on Schiaparelli's maps, adding many hundreds of definite
dark lines.  Lowell wrote popularizations about Mars, claiming
that the seasonal "wave of darkening" was caused by growing
vegetation as water spread from the melting polar icecap in summer,
and that the canals were the last-ditch works of a
high civilization on a cold, dying planet that had lost nearly
all its water.

Of course, we now know that no linear markings exist at all,
and that the "wave of darkening" is partly illusory, and
partly sandstorms.  Sad, IMHO - when I first started studying
astronomy, in the earliest sixties, there was still some
fading hope of finding *intelligent* life on Mars.
You can't believe what romance that lent to the blurry little
rufous dot in my eyepiece ...

Didn't Lowell discover Neptune?


---
Joel Hanes
From: dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Proof: God wrote the Bible
Date: 1 Sep 92 04:26:20 GMT
Organization: Electrical and Electronic Eng., University of Adelaide

>Jesus in Greek is:
>
>             I  =  10
>          +  E  =   8
>          +  S  = 200
>          +  O  =  70
>          +  U  = 400
>          +  S =  200
>            ---------
>                  888
>888 is also the number of Greek words in the Revelation of Jesus
>Christ.

My name is DEREK which has five letters. I'm also born in May which is the fifth
month.

Isn't that an astounding coincidence?

That proves God preordained me to be born in May.