HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata FSO)
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Reply-To: ata@hfsi.UUCP (John Ata FSO)
Organization: HFSI, McLean VA.
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 04:30:01 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.185302.18297@Princeton.EDU> ydobyns@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (York H. Dobyns) writes:

>Your phrasing above suggests that you think that life is more than a
>chemical process and that humans will never be able to create life.
>This is a safe enough position *now*, but historically quite dangerous;
>people who have assumed limitations to scientific inquiry or technical
>capacity have a long track record of being wrong.

There is a big difference between making scientific progress, i.e.
finite advances, and having no limitiation on technical capacity
i.e. infinite.  I will grant you that former, but have never seen
any precedence for the latter.  There will always be limitations.
But you're right, I envision the true creation of life to be
outside the realm of human capability.

>
>York Dobyns		ydobyns@phoenix.princeton.edu


-- 
John G. Ata - Technical Consultant | Internet:     hfsi!ata@UUNET.UU.NET
HFS, Inc.		  VA20     |     UUCP:     uunet.uu.net!hfsi!ata
7900 Westpark Drive	 MS:601	   |    Voice:	(703) 827-6810
McLean, VA  22102	           |      FAX:	(703) 827-3729
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15375 talk.origins:10356
From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God and Drew...
Date: 28 Aug 92 17:55:14 GMT
Reply-To: lawson@aldia.UUCP (Drew Lawson)
Organization: ACUSON, Mountain View, CA

In article <BtoGoB.61L@well.sf.ca.us> keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle) writes:

>Drew therefore seems to be painting this picture that:
>
>	Lack of young-Earth, Lack of Flood, Lack of Adam & Eve
>
>equals:
>
>	No God.
>
>Drew, is that what you are trying to say?

Are you interested in what I am trying to say or what I believe?

What I was trying to say was that the argument, "We explained it
without God, so God had no part in the origin of the world" is a
logical falacy.  I have had it pointed out to me by several people that
this view (in quotes) is a rarity in the scientific community.  I am
glad to hear it, though unconvinced.

My personal view?
  No Adam & Eve ==> where did people come from?
  Evolution? ==> We are slime with a survival advantage.

  If we are the survivable subset of random genetic variations, how are
  we created in God's image?

None of it is scientific.  None of it needs to be explained or refuted.
It's just my view.

Those who disagree needn't worry.  If they are right, nothing done by
people in this life matters afterward.

-- 
Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,
lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.culture.usenet,talk.origins
From: huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: Evolution and abortion: a polite refutation.
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 21:23:30 GMT

In article <schinder.714838114@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov> schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov writes:
>Wasn't apartheid in South Africa actually justified by *religious*
>(nominally Christian) doctrine?  The same kind of "Biblically based"
>racism that can still be found among some Fundamentalists in the US?

Well, Daniel Malan (1874-1959), the architect of apartheid, held a doctorate
in divinity and was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church before entering
politics.

-- Herb Huston
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,sci.physics,alt.folklore.science
From: believer@world.std.com (Frank G Sesco)
Subject: Evolutionism must be defeated!
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 03:45:20 GMT

How can I become involved in the fight to remove this dangerous
Pagan teaching from our schools? The fight against evolutionism
must be an essential component of the fight for our families and
this country.

We must work to rid the world of Communism, Secular Humanism,
Homosexualism, Evolutionism, and Atheism. All pose a grave threat
to our faith and therefore our very existance.

-- 
  |                     In God We Trust                            |
--+--                                                            --+--
  |                                                                |
  |                                                                |
From: slinke@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Steven Linke)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: More DNA Stuff
Date: 1 Sep 92 08:39:18 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <1992Aug31.202809.18554@random.ccs.northeastern.edu> rogue@ccs.northeastern.edu (Free Radical) writes:
>
>You say someone mentioned 'small segments' of DNA that have 3 strands.
>Does this come from a reputable source, or is it just the original claim
>(Don's), mangled slightly?  If this is a real, documented phenomenon,
>it could be the source for all this silliness.

The source is reputable.  I did a literature search to verify it.
At the ends of our chromosomes are regions called telomers.  They
apparently contain small segments of DNA that contain four strands.
They are purely structural in nature, and serve to protect the
chromosomal DNA from being degraded by exonucleases (enzymes that
"chew up" DNA).  There are also apparently short segments (20-30 bp)
of three strand DNA that serve a regulatory role.  They do not,
however, code for proteins and they are only transient structures
that are not replicated.  You may be right, however, that these
phenomena may be the basis for all the silliness about outer space
DNA theories.  It is an interesting molecular biology subject.  But
it is not in the scope of this newsgroup.


-- 
Steve Linke
Salk Institute (Gene Expression Lab)
La Jolla, CA
From: jft@lonex.rl.af.mil (James F. Tims)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Jehovah's Witlesses (Re: Logic and God )
Date: 4 Sep 92 14:42:56 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: RL



In article <1992Sep2.231041.3803@cco.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <19920902.130129.507@almaden.ibm.com>, ameline@vnet.ibm.com (Ian Ameline) writes:
>>   The other method (which I've seen in action) is to tell them that
>>you're already a member of the largest growing religion on the face of
>>planet -- that's right, you're Catholic. And why, you might ask, is
>
[...]
>My usual technique is to say to the JW, "Get out of here and leave me alone or,
>by God, I'll see how far I can throw you."  The JW invariably responds with,
>"You shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain."  Having just been told by the JW
>that I should keep my oath, I do so.

And my vignette:

A middle-aged woman an a teenage girl rang the bell the other day, and
the tell-tale comicbooks were in clear view as I opened the door.  Inspired
by recent browsing in sci.skeptic, I went straight for the jugular, ignoring
the older woman's intro as if she were not even talking.  To the young girl
I said, "How old are you? 16?  You shouldn't be wasting a beautiful day
like this.  You should be out doin' stuff with your boyfriend.  
Tell these crazy people you want the rest of the day off.
Don't let these people scare you with all this bullshit,
they're just in it for the money.  They have no idea what they're
talking about..."  but by then I would have had to shout to be heard as
the older woman hustled the younger down the road to the next house.  The
girl kept looking back -- I gave her one Rodney Dangerfield "OK," 
one thumbs up, and, at the last glance, one of those balled-fist-to-sky 
sports victory things.  She must have laughed because the witch shook her
hard by the arm. 

I don't think the old prune liked me much -- might have been her mother.

-- 
jft
"And if you're a miner, when you're too tired and old and sick and stupid
to do your job properly, you have to go, whereas just the opposite applies
with the judges."  Beyond the Fringe


-- 
jft
"And if you're a miner, when you're too tired and old and sick and stupid
to do your job properly, you have to go, whereas just the opposite applies
with the judges."  Beyond the Fringe
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: my own stupidity (Re: Pt 1/3: Agnostics and Athiests)
Date: 2 Sep 92 04:06:41 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <52679@dime.cs.umass.edu> michael@dime.cs.umass.edu (Michael Kieras) writes:
|
|However, I still have problems with it being translated as "bird" in
|the English versions I've seen.  It is an inaccurate translation, and
|as I mentioned before, casts doubt upon the translators' abilities to
|get the rest of the text correct.

Well, to start with, it is likely (nay almost certain) that until fairly
recently the English word 'bird' also included what we now call bats.
[I suspect that the current split only dates to early last century, well
after the King James Version at least].

Secondly, How *would* you translate the word?  It is not easy.  You
really cannot use technical language in a book like the Bible, so a
jaw breaker like "flying vertebrate" (which is the only *precise* trans-
lation) is pretty much out of the question.  So, do you break the flow
of the prose with a clumsy circumlocution?  Or do you vary from the
original text and insert an extra item to cover the difference? Or do
you try to find some simple, single word that comes *close* to the
original meaning?   The translators you are talking about chose the
latter.  This is a perfectly legitimate choice.  For some purposes it
may not be the *best* choice, but it is not *wrong*.

The fact is that translators almost *never* have an *exact* match in
meaning, so they must always make *some* sort of aproximation.
For example, how do you translate the Koine Greek 'en arche' (the
first two words of the Gospel of John)?  The usual English translation,
"In the beginning" is reasonable, but it is *not* precise.  In fact there
*is* no single English phrase that exactly captures the meaning of the
Greek (or rather by the time you attach enough explanatory phrases
to get an exact match, the result is too complex to comprehend).

The question is - when is the aproximation sufficiently close?
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15168 talk.origins:10200
From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Symbolic Interpretation (Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Date: 27 Aug 92 16:38:35 GMT
Reply-To: lawson@aldia.UUCP (Drew Lawson)
Organization: ACUSON, Mountain View, CA

In article <1992Aug25.083650@IASTATE.EDU> danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:
>In article <1992Aug24.145025.5243@acuson.com>, lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)
>writes:

>   Being a programmer means you can make the machine do tricks.  It _doesn't_
>grant you special status to determine what is and is not real.

I simply meant that I am more accustomed to considering "symbolic reality" without
considering it to be part of the "real" universe.


>> I haven't
>> kept up on recent architecture developments, but I didn't know of any
>> machines which make use of data structures.
>
>   Hmmm.  So you maintain that machines do not use software (which itself fails
>to exist without data structures)?  Perhaphs you should spend a week making a
>careful clarification of youe phrase "make use of".  Yours does not seem to be
>the standard meaning.

Have you ever studied machine architecture even a little bit?

By the time a program gets to the machine instruction level, there is
no remnant of the data structures.  The same memory pattern can be
accomplished by a tedious organization of memory blocks by an assembly
language programmer.  The machine execution is not affected by the data
structures.  The compiler operation is.

BTW, software was around for a while without the common usage of data
structures.  So it hardly "fails to exist" in their absence.

Perhaps you don't know what a data structure is.  It is an
abstraction.  A way of labeling memory with a conceptual purpose.  They
are sometimes used without any memory allocation.

>   In any case your original assertion that evolution is a chimera of the mind
>renounces almost the entire scientific revolution, including its many tangible
>benifits and problems, indeed including your own livelihood.  The same type of
>resoning that led to your computer lead to the theory of evolution.

I did not state that evolution is a chimera.  I stated that the concept
of evolutionary origin could as easily be considered to be a convenient
abstraction.  That is the view I hold.  It is a nifty, consistant
concept.  So what?

I also doubt that all of science would fall apart if belief in
evolutionary origin fell by the wayside.

>   Finally, having re-read your original post more carefully, I have a bit of
>information for you.  No-one can currently see canals on mars.  The closest
>any observation comes is dry watercourses that look like natural features.

What about pulsars as clear evidence of extra-stellar intelligence?

-- 
Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,
lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15206 talk.origins:10230
From: riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: George Bush's Religion
Date: 27 Aug 92 23:06:10 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic
Distribution: world,local
Organization: LNK Corporation, Riverdale, MD


	The reference above is wrong on George Bush's religious affiliation.
He is an Episcopalian, not a Methodist or Presbyterian. When in Washington,
he attends the St. John's Episcopal Church across the park from the White
House. 

	Bill R.

-- 
Bill R.
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15435 talk.origins:10394
From: jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God and Drew...
Date: 29 Aug 92 21:25:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.BtrKun.Bsx
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson) writes:

>Are you interested in what I am trying to say or what I believe?

>My personal view?
>  No Adam & Eve ==> where did people come from?
>  Evolution? ==> We are slime with a survival advantage.

   Drew, this makes as much sense the opposite - calling slime a person with
   limited intelligence.  Just because humans weren't created with an 
   accompanying thunderclap doesn't make us any less interesting.

>  If we are the survivable subset of random genetic variations, how are
>  we created in God's image?

Drew, the Judeo-Christians I know go to great lengths to stress that "In His
Image" is figurative.  They tell me it means that we are sentient, thinking
beings like Him.  If you are upset by the possiblity that we might not look
like God, then perhaps you can tell us whether he has a belly button and why.
Does God have breasts?  If you try and worry about what God looks like you
open more problems than you solve.

>None of it is scientific.  None of it needs to be explained or refuted.
>It's just my view.

>Those who disagree needn't worry.  If they are right, nothing done by
>people in this life matters afterward.

>-- 
>Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,
>lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate
-- 
Josh Hopkins                    Friends don't let friends derive drunk
		     j-hopkins@uiuc.edu
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15458 talk.origins:10410
From: max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Date: 30 Aug 92 19:11:51 GMT
Organization: Cypress Semiconductor Northwest, Beaverton Oregon

In article <1992Aug28.145047.15034@acuson.com> lawson@aldia.UUCP (Drew Lawson) writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.125249.15328@access.digex.com> huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug24.151922.5348@acuson.com> lawson@aldia.UUCP (Drew Lawson) writes:
>>What is your interpretation of Job 12:7-8?  How have you applied it 
>>personally?
>
>My interpretation?  It seems to say fairly clearly (either literaly or
>figuratively) that all of the world, both living and non-living is a
>testimony to God's creation.
>
>How do I apply it to my life?  I am repeatedly overwhelmed by the
>wonders which God has put in the world to be appreciated and enjoyed.


You claim that the universe and all living and non-living things testify
to God's creation, and at the same time that God's creation of the world left
no discernable trace that we can see.

You can't see the contradiction? 

You *ARE* guilty of doublethink -- just as I accused you at the start
of this whole thread.

>-- 
>Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,
>lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate


	Max G. Webb
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15822 alt.alien.visitors:6361 talk.religion.newage:4186
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 08:50:02 +1000

Friday August 14 1992, Michael Kieras writes to All:

jds>> In any event, it seems a very
jds>> accurate description: they go on all fours, and they have jointed
jds>> "legs" above their "feet"; that is, they have a pair of limbs above
jds>> the ones on which they stand.

MK> Grasshoppers move on their own in three ways:
MK>   1.  They walk on all six legs.
MK>   2.  They jump using the hind legs.
MK>   3.  They fly, which involves (2), and then flapping their wings.

MK> Grasshoppers _can_ use their front legs to grasp things, but they do
MK> _not_ "goeth upon all four."

I am no entomologist, but are you sure that there are *no* species that use four
legs for locomotion? Remember, the four-leg rule is there to exclude almost all
insects. I think you will find that there are some which fit into the category
as defined.

I think you're falling into the same trap as those who say the Easter Island
statues were erected by supernatural means: you believe that our ancestors were
idiots. They ate these things, and undoubtedly had the opportunity to observe
their behaviour.

Now, I suppose you could say that they were wrong, and it was a fallacious
belief. It could have been some thing like the idea that veins carried air,
which was commonly accepted for centuries. None the less, I think you will find
that among the *enormous* range of insect life that fills our planet there are
some that match the description.

jds


 * Origin: Come up to the lab... and see what's on the slab! (3:632/351)
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15274 talk.origins:10280
From: kambic@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (Bonus, Iniquus, Celer - Delegitus Duo)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Evolution does not assume there is no God.
Date: 28 Aug 92 12:05:13 EST

In article <1992Aug27.172808.12707@acuson.com>, lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson) writes:
[...]
> 
> Note that all science tends to proceed from the assumption to ignore
> God in the process.  The reason that I feel this is inappropriate in
> this case (personally I feel it is wrong in all cases == opinion) is
> that this is a question of the origin of Man.  I do not feel that I am
> the result of random permutations of slime.  (Though my friends might
> disagree ;-)
How about hot gases?  Look you can feel anyway you please.  But you have no 
proof that you are not descended from either.  Only a religious belief.  Do not
attempt to force that assumption on anyone else as a prerequisite for their
work.  
[...]

GXKambic
standard slimy disclaimer

Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.culture.usenet
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Date: 27 Aug 92 19:42:04 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <2A9AB280.29210@ics.uci.edu> bvickers@ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers) writes:
|
|I don't think I've ever heard a reputable scientist argue for the
|nonexistence of God based on the fossil record or on any facet of
|evolutionary theory.  God and evolution are quite compatible, as
|I'm always fond of thinking.  A person who attempts to use science
|to disprove the existence of something which is not observable
|(eg. God) is not doing science.  Religion and science are apples
|and oranges.
|
True enough, as I also say, quite frequently.

However I *have* heard some people take the *philosophical* position that
that which is not observable does not exist.  From that philosophy, one
can indeed conclude God does not exist from the scientific evidence.

But that is a combination that applies to *all* of science by its very nature,
and in which evolutionary theory and abiogenesis have no special status.

Also, it is really the philosophical postion, not the scientific evidence,
that drives the conclusion.  So it is a little invidious to blame science
for the materialistic philosophy of some of its practitioners - materialistic
philosophy long predates the scientific method.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.culture.usenet,talk.origins
From: ford@hpmcaa (Dan Ford)
Subject: Re: Evolution and abortion: a polite refutation.
Organization: HP Cardiology Business Unit - McMinnville, OR
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 21:48:50 GMT

Michael Park (mpark@milton.u.washington.edu) wrote:
> 
> Picard/Riker in '92 -- "Make it so"     (bumper sticker)
> 
> -- 
> Ciao-abunga!           +-------------------------------------+
> Michael Park           | This space intentionally left blank |
> mpark@u.washington.edu +-------------------------------------+

No, no, NO!

Picard/Data in '92 -- "Make it so"

--

Dan Ford
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15681 talk.origins:10596
From: kambic@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (Bonus, Iniquus, Celer - Delegitus Duo)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Date: 1 Sep 92 16:56:44 EST
Followup-To: sci.skeptic,talk.origins

In article <1285@tecsun1.etl.army.mil>, riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs) writes:
[...]
To deal with only one thing.

> 	But is creationism bad science ? I am convinced that one can
> take the exact same set of data that exists now, and by changing the
> fundamental assumptions on which the theory is based, come up with a
> different conclusion. My assertion of this has really sent the people
> who care about this stuff into orbit. But coming from a "soft sciences"
> background as I do, I'm really saying nothing that psychologists,
> sociologists, and political scientists do not have to deal with when
> encountering incomplete and often complex data. Can evolutionary
> biology really be so simple that we can teach it to high school
> students without losing something in the process ?

Please define the set of testable assumptions that would do what you say.  It's
a simple test.  Go to it.  
[...]

GXKambic
standard disclaimer

Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
From: schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher)
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Organization: CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx., USA
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 23:57:34 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.


>I did not mean to forward the issue of whether our senses _alone_ are
>adaquate.  You will notice that I used the term "senses/experiences" in
>the posting.  This includes observations and logical implications.

What would your next claim be? That if we can read it in the Christian
bible, it must be true? Anticipating your following example, a book which
claims to be about dinosaurs is not a dinosaur fossil: the latter
is evidence, the former merely a reference whose accuracy is always open
to question. And a book about god is not evidence for god.

>I find rocks which look like bones.  When they are put together, they
>don't resemble anything known to be alive.  Is it valid to conclude
>that this creature realy once existed as a living being?

Yes. Is this a problem? Do you have a simpler and more convincing 
alternate interpretation?