HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sichase@csa1.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Humanoids On Mars (Again)
Date: 13 Apr 92 20:02:19 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   

In article <1992Apr11.023051.8938@cco.caltech.edu>, carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes...
> 
>Why do microchip fabricators continue to work to reduce the size of the chips?
>Speed and power considerations.  The longer the distance a signal has to
>travel, the longer it will take and the more power it will require.  Try the
>following experiment:  Have a friend hold a dollar bill by one end, letting it
>dangle so the other edge is between your thumb and forefinger.  Let him drop
>the bill without warning, and you try to catch it.  After you've picked the
>bill up off the floor, think about what it would be like if there were that
>sort of time delay between your brain and your eyes.  Or worse still, if your
>every though had that sort of delay built into it millions of times over.  Such
>an arrangement MIGHT work, until a predator happened to develop a centralized
>brain, at which point you'd find yourself a bit lower on the food chain.

You make the assumption that your hypothetical predator has a significant
probability to evolve in a world dominated by a very different neural
architecture.  I imagine that if life exists in abundance throughout the
universe that the "best engineering solution" to various problems are rare
indeed.  Evolution is a highly contingent process.  Organisms are committed by
their genetic inheritance to a very limitted range of variation.  For example, 
on our planet, the genetic code itself is highly stable over time, as are a
variety of things such as the method of signal transmission in nerve cells, the
organisation of  cellular organelles, the structure of some key proteins, etc. 
I could go on all day. 

-Scott

Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: rdnelson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger D Nelson)
Subject: Re: Sensible interpretation of the unknown (was: I don't know).
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 06:01:39 GMT

In article <1992Apr11.011318.6261@cco.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.092904@IASTATE.EDU>, danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:
>
>>The extensive negative results and weak positive results for psi
>>indicate the current sensible assumption about psi is that it doesn't exist.
>
>Here I agree with you.

What extensive negative results are you folks talking about?  The context
"weak positive results" suggests reference to experimental work, but I
wonder if you can point to research that justifies your statement.  In
particular, I know that many experiments addressing "psi" produce null or 
even negative results, but this is true in any research domain that is
not trivial, and in the case of psi research, quantitative reviews in
several sub-categories show consistent replication of positive findings
that outweigh the null/negatives even after consideration of the
influence of quality variations, the "filedrawer", and non-homogeneity.

Or were you merely agreeing genially on an opinion that has no
substantial foundation?

Roger N
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:8094 rec.music.classical:5847 alt.folklore.urban:12198
From: sasegb@toklas.unx.sas.com (Elizabeth Brownrigg)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,rec.music.classical,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Album by bizzare British spiritualist
Date: 14 Apr 92 17:19:39 GMT
    <1992Apr13.165725.22522@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasegb@toklas.unx.sas.com
X-Bytes: 1507

In article <1992Apr13.165725.22522@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>, spg@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Stephen P. Guthrie) writes:
|> In article <1992Apr13.161316.7018@psych.toronto.edu> stephan@psych.toronto.edu (Stephan Hamann) writes:
|> >
|> > I've been going crazy trying to find information on a bizzare British
|> >lady spiritualist who claims that she communicates with long-dead composers.
|> >Apparently she goes into a trance and writes down music by a form of
|> >automatic writing, producing "Mozart" and "Beethoven" sonatas, "Chopin"
|> >mazurkas, etc., quickly and effortlessly.
|> >
|> > I don't know her name, but I do know that a) she is a decent amateur
|> >pianist who at one time performed these dictations in public, and b) that
|> >she was in the news much more in the 1960s and '70s than now. I read about
|> >her once somewhere, and a friend tells me that she actually did an album.
|> >Any info on this colorful woman or her album would be appreciated!

Wanda Landowska (presumably Polish) played the harpsichord and
did some post-mortem communicating with Chopin, but she
wasn't no amateur.
-- 
                                               |-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Brownrigg                            |
Technical Writer                               |
SAS Institute Inc.                             |   RTFM! @-@
sasegb@unx.sas.com                             |
(919) 677-8000, ext. 6439                      |_______________________
From: afarrell@unix1.tcd.ie (Andrew Farrell)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Fermat's Last Theorum
Date: 10 Apr 92 10:25:25 GMT
Organization: Trinity College, Dublin

In <1992Apr8.033813.7061@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) 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."

>	The theorem states that there are no positive integers a, b,
>and c, such that

>	a^n + b^n = c^n

>	where n is some integer greater than 2.

>	The story goes that he had written a note in the margin of a
>book stating that he had found a truly elegant proof, but that there
>was not enough room to write it down in.

>>There are two possibilities:
>>
>>                  (a) he really found the proof, which is now lost
>>                  (b) he had a mental abberation and was mistaken

>	Another possibility is that he had had an idea which he
>thought was the proof, but one that would turn out fallacious,
>although this might turn out to be a subset of (b).

>>Out of curiosity, I was wondering whether the maths community today
>>generally regards (a) or (b) a being the most likely?

>	I would say (b). All attempts to prove Fermat's last theorem
>have had only partial success, applying only to certain special cases,
>like n = 3 or 4. Furthermore, no counterexamples have ever been found.

Or n>125,000, at the last count. This is why I'd say Fermat's Last Theory is 
likely to be true: counterexamples of theorems regarding integers tend not to 
have very large numbers in them, particularly not as large as 6 figures.

Andrew.
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wednesday, 15 Apr 1992 14:06:57 EDT
From: John A. Johnson <J5J@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Long: Twin Study Article

In article <k970iB2w164w@cellar.org>, revpk@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)
says:
>
>     [Since this article appeared, Bouchard _has_ published his
>data, although I don't have the specific references for where he
>published. This article addresses his public statements prior to
>publishing, and raises important questions as to Bouchard's
>impartiality over his thesis.

I think the question is not whether Bouchard is impartial
(don't scientists often suspect how things will turn out?);
the question is whether his theses are correct.

Apparently was correct enough to published:

Bouchard, T. J., Jr., Lykken, D. T., McGue, M., Segal, N.L., &
Tellegen, A.  (1990).  Sources of human psychological differences:
The Minnesota study of twins reared apart.  *Science*, *250*,
223-228).

Lykken and Tellegen, BTW, are as serious, scholarly, and critical
individuals as you will find in the psychological sciences.

These folks also published in the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology (the top refereed journal in personality psychology),
although I don't have the reference handy.


-----------------------------------
John A. Johnson (J5J@psuvm.psu.edu)
Department of Psychology Penn State DuBois Campus 15801
Another liberal who won't deny genetic facts.
Penn State is not responsible for my behavior.
"A ruthless, doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of
 another sort.  Getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies and writing
 metaphysics is a part of life."  - from _Lila_ by R. Pirsig
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Subject: Utts paper (part 1 of 3)
Keywords: PSI experiments, meta-analysis
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 19:45:47 GMT

Part 1: Motivation

(was: Sensible interpretation of the unknown)

In article <1992Apr10.114140.14037@Princeton.EDU>, rdnelson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger D Nelson) writes:
> In article <1992Apr9.092904@IASTATE.EDU> danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:
> >   In particular psi lacks:
[..]
> >   (iii) A large body of replicable observations.
> 
> Obviously you can define "large" to make this claim true, but it is a
> fact that academic and scientific researchers have generated several
> bodies of replicable observations re "psi".  These have been assayed in a 
> number of comprehensive reviews and meta-analyses during the past few years.  
> I have discussed one of these (the Radin/Nelson paper in "Foundations of
> Physics") in this forum.  All of them are summarized in an excellent
> treatment of meta-analysis, power assessment, and replication in an
> article by Utts in the journal "Statistical Science", Nov 91.

I read this paper (by Jessica Utts, statistician).
I'll post here some data about it (in Part 2) and my opinion
(in Part 3).


-- 
-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.
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.religion.misc
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: The Historical Jesus IV:   Was Luke an Eyewitness?
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 06:12:28 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Followup-To: sci.skeptic,talk.religion.misc
Keywords: historical jesus, creation/evolution debate, gospel of Luke

This is the fourth in a series of posts examining the historicity of
Jesus, specifically whether the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses.
It consists of quotes from references (in brackets) listed in the
concluding post.

[1](119)
	Luke is the only evangelist who directly addresses his reader(s)
as an author (Lk 1:1-4) ... Luke distinguishes himself from the 
eyewitnesses ... Lk is definitely a sub-apostolic work.
... c.90 would be a good date.

[2](151)
	The name of the author is nowhere named in the Lukan two volumes.
...The ancient church tradition begins with the statement of Irenaeus...
...Probably this tradition, which relates Luke to Paul and thereby brings
the third Gospel at least indirectly in relation to an apostle, is 
somewhat older than Irenaeus. ...The data from the ancient church tradition
thus receives no support from an investigation of the Gospel of Luke and Acts.
...we can say with confidence that the Gospel Luke originated after Mark.
...is to be dated about A.D. 90

[3](160)
	Once again we have to begin by noting that the work is anonymous.
...The earliest reference is found in Irenaeus ...The time of writing was
probably in the third Christian generation, round about the year A.D. 90

[4](174)
	...All that can be said is that the author of Acts may have utilized
as one of his sources a travel account concerning Paul... he stands with
the other two synoptics, since the basic outline he follows derives from
Mark, with supplemental material from Q, in addition to his own...

[5](101)
	...Largely because of the delay in the expected return of Christ
in the parousia, Luke abandoned the eschatological hope of the early
Christians and replaced it with a new theory of history in order to
accommodate the changing historical situation...

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Another "SLAPP" Suit
Date: Wed, 08 Apr 92 13:28:31 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Summary: It looks like "Werner Erhard" has been watching Geller! 


                 San Jose Mercury News    Tuesday, April 7, 1992


            Est Founder sues critics; suit names Mercury News writer

                            Mercury News Staff Report

             Werner Erhard, controversial founder of the self-improvement
        program known as est, has filed a wide-ranging defamation lawsuit
        against  20  defendants, including a Mercury News  staff  writer,
        news  media,  commercial  publications and  private  groups  that
        have criticized Erhard or his teachings.

             Mercury   News  attorney  Edward  P.  Davis  Jr.  said   the
        allegations  against  staff writer John Hubner are  false.  "It's
        frivolous,"  the attorney added, "Why they're dragging John  into
        it is hard to say."

             The Mercury News is not named as a defendant.

             The suit, filed last month in Chicago's Cook County  Circuit
        Court,   includes  charges  of  slander,  invasion  of   privacy,
        conspiracy  and  other allegations. The defendants  include  CBS,
        Hustler  magazine,  the National Enquirer and  the  Chicago-based
        Cult  Awareness Network, which distributes information on  groups
        that it classifies as cults.

                  Hubner wrote a series of critical articles about Erhard
        that appeared in West magazine in November 1990. But the  lawsuit
        focuses on a March 3, 1991, broadcast of the CBS news program "60
        Minutes,"  which  used  part of a  taped  interview  that  Hubner
        conducted with Erhard while researching his articles.

             During  the "60 Minutes" report, one of  Erhard's  daughters
        told  CBS that her father had molested her. While Erhard did  not
        appear  on  the  program, CBS aired portions  of  Hubner's  taped
        interview, in which Erhard denied the incest allegations.

             Erhard's  attorney, Walter Maksym of Illinois, could not  be
        reached for comment.

-- 
  
        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: pml3@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (Here we go now...)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: WILL OUR GVT IMPLANT OUR CHILDREN?
Date: 15 Apr 92 05:55:04 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

>at another frequency. The transmission contains a multi-digit ID code that
>allows each animal to be positively identified.
>[I CHANCED UPON AN ARTICLE IN THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE THAT DESCRIBED
>THE ABOVE DEVICE IN ACTIVE USE IN MARIN COUNTY ON ALL PETS WHOSE OWNERS
>ARE WILLING TO HAVE THEM IMPLANTED.  I URGE YOU ALL TO GO AND BUY THE BOOK
>"BEHOLD A PALE HORSE" BY WILLIAM COOPER!!...Samurai_Writer]
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

NOT Milton WILLIAM COOPER, the UFO kook?!?!?!   Spare me, or I may split my
sides laughing.  This is the same guy who wants you to believe that JFK was
killed by William Greer, THE DRIVER OF THE LIMOUSINE!

Please, I can't stop laughing!!!



         
-- 

+-| Paul M. Lewis, six damn credits short: SCREW L.U. |---+-| Looking for: |-+
|'I'd love to turn you on.'                 -The Beatles  | Cover Up         |
|'You should be with us, feeling like we do -Perry Farrell|   by Gary Shaw   |
| like you love to, but never will again.'                | JFK titles       |
|'You never had the answers!'               -Ministry     |   by R. Cutler   |
|'You can't be what you were.'              -Fugazi       | Muchmore 8mm     |
From: revpk@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: The Nazca "Airfields"?
Date: 9 Apr 92 15:36:06 GMT
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system

lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
> 	And why aren't there any tire prints from the supposed
> aircraft? There are certainly tire prints from various present-day
> vehicles there. The pavements of airports are designed for the great
> weights of some present-day airliners; can you imagine the ruts that a
> 747 would create in the Nazca valley soil?
> 
        Actually it'd make one HELL of a rut; the soil in the Nazca lines is 
pretty soft, from what I've read. One imagines the landing gear coming down, 
plunging into the loamy surface, half burying itself, and snapping from the 
sheer weight and inertia of the plane...


Brian "Rev. P-K" Siano                                  revpk@cellar.org
...Saure really turns out to be an adept at the difficult art of papryomancy,
the ability to prophesy through contemplating the way people roll reefers -
the shape, the licking pattern, the wrinkles and folds or absence thereof
in the paper.  "You will soon be in love," sez Saure, "see, this line here."
"It's long, isn't it?  Does that mean --" "Length is usually intensity.
Not time."                       -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,soc.men
From: wsadjw@rw7.urc.tue.nl (Jan Willem Nienhuys)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Endo- vs. exo-heresies (was Re: Consensus: Too Sluggish or Too Hasty?)
Date: 14 Apr 92 11:55:03 GMT
Reply-To: wsadjw@urc.tue.nl
Organization: Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

In article <=gxj25+.anson@netcom.com> anson@netcom.com (Anson Kennedy) writes:
>sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
>
>As an aside, I have just been informed, in all due seriousness, that recent
>polls indicate that some 80% of the American populace believe UFOs have
>other than "mundane" explanations (i.e. are extraterrestrial in origin).
>

I'm a bit skeptical of the percentage quoted. Was the "i.e. extraterrestrial
in origin" also in the question?  I would be surprised if 80% of all
American adults knew what was meant by "extraterrestrial".
Maybe the number 80% is a misinterpretation of "1 in 80" (this type of
mistake is not unheard of).

JWN
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: 881277m@ace.acadiau.ca (WALLACE MCLEAN)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Why Psychics don't win
Date: 16 Apr 92 19:15:21 GMT
Organization: Acadia University

In article <1992Apr15.173107.7981@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog) writes:
>From: amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
>Subject: Re: Why Psychics don't win
>Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 17:31:07 GMT

>In article <1992Apr14.215551.21876@donner.SanDiego.NCR.COM> 
>  kraus@cheers.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dave Kraus) writes:

  Every time before, when someone has
>popped up and said, here is convincing evidence for PSI, *every single time*,
>it has proven to be either a deliberate or unconscious fraud.  While I
							^^^^^

isn't a fraud by definition  deliberate?
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Guiness Book and ESP
Date: 10 Apr 92 05:09:00 GMT
Distribution: sci,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <schnitzi.702840916@eola.cs.ucf.edu>, schnitzi@cs.ucf.edu (Mark Schnitzius) writes...
>While I was growing up we had a copy of the Guinness
>Book of World Records that had a listing under "Best
>Psychic" or something that credited some guy with
>being able to guess cards at levels way above chance.
>Does anyone know who this was, and what was the story
>on his getting removed from Guinness?  (He's not in
>the newest edition).

Pavel Stepanek, I believe.  Martin Gardner has written a book which
is supposed to debunk the Stepanek tests, titled _How Not to Test
a Psychic_ (1989, Prometheus), which was reviewed in the Journal of
Parapsychology (vol. 54, no. 2, June 1990, pp. 151-167) under the title "How
a Skeptic Misrepresents the Research with Stepanek" by Jurgen Keil, one of
the people who tested Stepanek.

>Mark Schnitzius
>schnitzi@eola.cs.ucf.edu

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: books
Date: Sun, 05 Apr 92 17:47:24 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

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.
> 
 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)?

 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.

 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.
-- 
  
        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: kambic@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (Bonus, Iniquus, Celer - Delegitus Duo)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: studying psi in the US
Date: 9 Apr 92 17:46:49 EST
Distribution: usa

In article <1992Apr9.200530.4895@crd.ge.com>, davidsen@yeti.crd.GE.COM (william E Davidsen) writes:
[...]
>   God point here. 
[...]
Profound point there....

GXKambic
standard disclaimer