HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Science and God
Keywords: Science, God
Date: 19 Aug 92 05:27:37 GMT
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link



From Benjamin T Dehner:
>       This has nothing to do with origins, but a recent post
>commented that Jim Loucks was not being a "humble Christian".

>       Humility is another thing entirely -- it means considering all
>others as better than yourself, putting the needs of others before
>one's own, serving others, having compassion on the less fortunate in
>society, etc.

It does depend on how you define "Humility".  I define it as not being so
sure you are always right.  One dictionary I checked defined it as
"the state or quality of being humble" and "humble" is defined as being
"unassuming" among other things.

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

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

This is related to the idea of "humility" as that quality of being
unassuming in that you are not sure you are always right.  Christian
"humility" however, does not include that characteristic, there is no
possibility they could be wrong about Jesus.  When they apply that certainty
to proselytization, humility just went out the window.  They are not at all
humble about their certainty of special truths.  It is that lack of humility
that represents a clear disrespect for an individuals own personal heartfelt
beliefs.  A disrespect that in my opinion, itself earns little respect.

Keith

P.S. Christians that refrain from proselytizing, obviously don't fit in
this category, and there most certainly are some.
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout)
Subject: Re: Evolution is false
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Distribution: world,local
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 12:59:15 GMT

I wrote:
>> You can never disprove an axiom.
(James J. Lippard) writes:

>Sure you can, if your axioms are inconsistent or contradictory.

I would answer this in two ways:
Logically and practically.

Logically:
You can disprove an axiom only if you add an additional
axiom to your system:  A -> ~(~A), that is if A is in the
system then definitely ~A cannot be.  Is this the axiom
of all philosophers Jim? I seem to remember some vehemently arguing
against this point.  Were you not one of them?  :-)
In any case, axioms are by definition non-examinable.


Practically:
There is no contradiction or inconsistency in the axiom
of the Bible being accurate on all accounts because show me
any contraditiction and I will interpret the language, the intent
of the writer (whether he was being literal or not) and the
superimposed meaning to show that there is no contradiction.
For instance, the numerological interpretation cares nothing of
context but shows hidden meaning in the number of the words as
written in the original languages.  This is the problem of meaning.

All I am saying is that the fundamental assumption of the Bible
being "true" (don't ask me what that means) is what is on the
top of the list.  All else must be made to point to that.  
This is usually never stated explicitely but is always there.
Until you get a fundamentalist to acknowledge that this assumption
can be part of the debate, you are wasting your time.  I have
seen the discussions boil down to this point so often that it
gets to be old hat after a while.



--
Eli Chiprout
Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
emc@doe.carleton.ca
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: behavior and evolution
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 21:21:29 GMT

In article <94145@bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
>And I could imagine a giant purple bunny sitting on my head reciting
>Shakespeare, but only I could see or hear him. We all have little
>grey blobs inside our skulls. Recently it has been determined that
>these are not for cooling down our blood as was once thought.

Indeed, the reverse seems to be the case according to the Radiator Model
of Brain Evolution.  See _Braindance_ by Dean Falk for details (sorry not
to have publication information at hand).

-- Herb Huston


Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: some books (was Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 21:16:20 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.144435.8921@bsu-ucs.uucp> 00prneubauer@bsu-ucs.uucp (Paul Neubauer) writes:
>In article <1992Aug17.212949.4147@access.digex.com>, 
> huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston) writes:
>> Have you read _The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human
>> Animal_ by Jared Diamond yet (I'm on page 122)?  If not, it's ISBN 0-06-
>> 018307-1.
>
>I'll second Herb's recommendation!  I'm strictly amateur, without
>Herb's credentials or knowledge, but I also found Diamond's book
>fascinating reading.  I read it recently and can only say that Herb
>is likely to enjoy the rest of the book too.

I'm also an amateur in this area although I once accidentally misled a
comparative psychologist into thinking that I was an ethologist.

>Another book that I heartily recommend was also cited by Max Webb
>(mongo) in one of his posts a couple of months ago.  I am citing from
>memory here so I may be garbling the title a bit, but I recall it as
>_The Ascent of Mind:  Ice age climates and the evolution of
>intelligence_  by William H.(?) Calvin.  (I do hope this book has
>gotten some distribution beyond the Pacific Northwest.  Calvin is at
>the U. of Washington, as I recall.  I found the book at Powell's in
>Portland.)  This book (as fascinating as Diamond's) is another attempt
>to explain why and how humans developed relatively large brains and
>relatively high intelligence.

I endorse your recommendation.  _The Ascent of Mind_ was distributed beyond
the Pacific Northwest, as I found a copy at the public library.  I was
intrigued with Calvin's hypothesis concerning the way the Acheulian hand-
axe (perhaps misnamed) was used.

-- Herb Huston


Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kai@kai.nada.kth.se (Kai-Mikael J-Aro)
Subject: Re: Challenge to harmonize two creation accounts in Genesis.
Originator: kai@kai.nada.kth.se
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 13:46:07 GMT

In article <1992Aug9.043917.2243@sdf.lonestar.org> corey@sdf.lonestar.org (Corey Carroll) writes:

   Also, the second creation account shows God forming all of the
   separate "kinds" of land animals and birds during Adam's existence.
   Why would this be?  Because Adam had to name all of those "kinds".
   He couldn't have named any animals when he was dead.  (Indeed, I
   wonder how long it took Adam to name all of the animals.  Did God
   show him every single created species?  Or just representatives
   from each family, for instance?  How long would this take?!?)

I seem to remember that just the insects number in the tens of
millions of species.  With an ordinary 40-hour week, one name a
minute, Adam could have spent a century just looking at beetles...

What a way to start your life!

-- 
Kai-Mikael J-Aro	email:  kai@nada.kth.se	    "Don't win, don't lose."
IPLab	 		voice:  +46 8 790 91 05		-- Yoshigasaki-sensei
NADA, KTH		fax:    +46 8 790 09 30
S-100 44  Stockholm	telex:  812 6154 7052 SICS
SWEDEN			teletex:2401-812 6154 7052=SICS
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode)
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 06:33:16 GMT

In article <BtCpK7.J37@world.std.com> twalters@world.std.com (Tim Walters) writes:
>
>I mean, if you saw a peach in a milk botle, as some farmers used to make them, and you knew that it was impossible "in today's world" for the peach to go through the neck of the bottle, would you conclude that
>
>1) the peach was teleported into the bottle, or
>2) the peach branch was put in the bottle and the peach grew inside the
>   bottle.

Be serious--neither of these options can even have the slightest hope of
explaining the peach-in-the-bottle situation that has brought conventional
science to its knees.  The fact is that the earth used to be in orbit
around Saturn which caused angular momentum no longer to be conserved
and pi to be equal to 4, resulting in a reduced felt effect of glass,
permitting peaches to gallop easilly in and out of milk bottles.  When
you consider this and the fact that modern peaches do not gallop, it
should be obvious that this is the only possible explanation for the
data.

Incidentally, it is worth noting in this context that there is ample
evidence in art that the felt effect of gravity has increased greatly
in the last century--one need look no further than the evolution of
of Mickey Mouse whose legs became substantially thicker and shorter
in the time period between "Steamboat Willie" and "Fantasia," 
something that would make no sense unless the felt effect of gravity
had changed greatly during that period.
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: behavior and evolution
Date: 20 Aug 92 13:34:02 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <julian.714081750@sfu.ca> julian@tantalus.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock) writes:
>kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) writes:

>I could
>imagine God affecting in some supernatural way the evolution of life
>(or any other property of the physical world) in a unique way so that
>it showed up in a historical manner but beyond the reach of scientifc
>verification (because of its uniqueness).

And I could imagine a giant purple bunny sitting on my head reciting
Shakespeare, but only I could see or hear him. We all have little
grey blobs inside our skulls. Recently it has been determined that
these are not for cooling down our blood as was once thought. Humans
can generate a fantastic variety of thoughts in these grey things
(see anything Holden writes). But only a small percentage of these
thoughts are capable of being tested scientifically and fewer still
have been tested and tentatively held as fact (or at least a theory
with reasonable support). If I see some reason to start adding
supernatural entities to my scientific views, I'll do it -- but
science seems to be doing just fine without having to resort to
this.

>julian

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
From: amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 18:28:20 GMT

In article <1992Aug17.162241.26511@city.cs> 
  lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
>
>Suppose you had a garden. One day you look out of the window and see
>a tree in the middle of if where previously there had been none. Now
>a friend comes to visit you for the first time and looks at the tree.
>He counts the rings and says its been there for 100 years. You say 
>its been there for 1 day. Which of you is correct?

Why do you think this is significant?  Tell ya what Lionel, if you
can find me someone who can personally verify that the universe
wasn't there 6000 years ago, I'll agree you are right.  It has to
be first hand though - no writings of dubious authority, no revelation,
no nth hand tales of unknown origin.

You can generate in indefinite number of "what if" stories, they
don't prove shit.

>Hint: It depends on your assumptions.
>Advice: Don't make too many assumptions about the origin of the
>        universe and of species.

I make the assumption that the universe isn't lying to me.  Unless
you can come up with a really convincing reason why I shouldn't
believe that I will continue to believe that. 

>Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)

C Frog
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: JW's claim of a "Water Canopy"
Date: 20 Aug 92 13:42:47 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <19AUG199201102221@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu> lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes:

>Yes to the latter.  I have an article which is an example of a genuine
>contribution to science published in a creationist publication.  It
>is by Glenn R. Morton, titled "Can the Canopy Hold Water?",

[lots of problems with "water canopy" hypothesis deleted]

>   It appears that
>   some new thinking about the antediluvian climate, and the cause of the
>   Flood, is due.

From "Giant invisible purple bunny on my head", by Chris Colby

"In order to document the giant purple, Shakespeare quoting bunny 
(which is invisible and silent to most observers), I used extremely
sensitive microphones to pick up the bunny's speech. I also
shined a really bright light through the bunny and looked for
it to absorb wavelenghts that, when reflected, look purple.
All the tests came up negative. Obviously, more sensitive
equipment is needed."

>Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU

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
From: stassen@alc.com (Chris Stassen)
Subject: Re: Coelacanth and change (was: "Re: Cro-Magnon: evidence for DEvolution?")
Organization: The Lion's Den, San Jose
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 18:10:25 GMT

I wrote:
> A PBS program (NOVA?) that went fishing for a C. was using lines 1,000
> to 1,500 meters (from memory) long, [...]

Matthew P Wiener writes:
> This can't be right.  They live 200-300 meters down.

It is quite likely that the show said "1000 feet" (which is approx.
300 meters) and that I misremembered it.  It has been some time (over
a year) since I have seen the program.  I was not confident about
the value (which is why I added the "from memory" qualifier).
I generally don't like to reference TV programs anyway.

I defer to Matthew's correction.
--
Chris Stassen 			 408-943-0630 			stassen@alc.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode)
Subject: Re: Try the Bible (Re: Calling Young-earth Creationists)
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 02:50:08 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.210457.168004@zeus.calpoly.edu> skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger) writes:
>julian@fraser.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock) writes:
>>
>>Hmmm, I am not sure what "no such" means but it is not obvious to me
>>that there can be no absolutes in our unverse. Pi is a transcendental
>>number seems a pretty absolute statement: or is it false for some
>>other (arbitrarily different) life form somewhere.
>
>Ahh, but do we know it exactly?

Pi in a Euclidean space can be defined in closed form and can be calculated
to any specified precision in a finite period of time; I think that's
sufficient to say that we know it exactly. 

>>The disucssion should be on whether calimed absolutes are such within 
>>some realm of discussion. Certainly science does not claim to discover
>>absolutes but the results of science might point to absolute quantities 
>>in nature even if we only interact with them in some "relativistic" way.
>>Within general relativity the interval between two events is an "absolute"
>>quantity that is agreed upon by all observers. So here a scientific theory
>>postulates the existence of an absolute.
>
>Relativity states that the interval between two events is
>NOT absolute.  It states that unless two observers are in the same frame of
>reference, they will NEVER AGREE on exactly when two events happen.

This is correct only if we consider only the length of the interval in
question along the time axes of the reference frames in question; when
we consider the interval to be in space-time, however, its metric is
invariant.  Relativity very much does define absolutes--they're just
not the same set of absolutes as are defined under Newtonian mechanics.

Trygve
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: "Whites First?" Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Date: 19 Aug 92 06:45:26 EST
 <2857@fedfil.UUCP> <1992Aug12.195915.13794@rhrk.uni-kl.de> <pockling.714177743@sfu.ca>
Organization: Wright State University 

In article <pockling.714177743@sfu.ca>, pockling@fraser.sfu.ca (richard pocklington) writes:
> I'm afraid you have all done a poor job at concealing your ignorance.

Huh?  

> I stumbled upon your post hoping to find some interesting info, NOT.

Perhaps if you had followed the entire thread, as others of us have done,
you might have understood the discussion at hand.

> Someone has previously mentioned that skin colour is slightly more 
> complicated than the Black/White dichotomy you seem to believe in.
> Skin colour, like many other traits is produced by a combination of
> a number of genes (14 or not who cares) and environmental influence.

Yes, *some* of us know this.  The post you are referring to was a
very simplistic statement in reply to a really wierd one.

> This is painfully obvious if you've ever been out in the sun.  Of course
> only the genetic part is heritable.  The distribution of skin colour
> at time T+x is dependant upon the distribution of skin colour at time
> T and the selection coefficient acting on the skin colour genes for time
> x.  If, fore example, pale faced albino white folks died when left out
> in the sun too long, while those that had more skin pigmentation 
> survived, you could find the distribution of skin colour changing over
> the years.  
> 	I also wish to comment on someones remark that the children of 
> mixed marriages end up being lighter.  This is not well proven to my
> knowledge, but what I do know is that due to the severley demented
> nastily screwed up view points of most evil racist North American 
> citizens, a child of two "White" parents is always "White".  The
> children of two "Black" parents are "Black".  But the wierd part is
> that the children of a "Black" and a "White " parent is always a 
> "Black".  This has nothing to do with skin colour, but has a lot to
> due with strange notions racists are brought up with.  Please
> think about this.
> 

The issue of race was not one that was being discussed.  Obviously you
managed to get into the middle of the discussion and missed Ted Holden's
statement about all Black people being discended from one Black individual
who had survived the 'flood'.  That was the only reason why this topic was
in this group.

Sigh..... 

Sue

> 
> 			THERE ARE NO RULES IN UTOPIA
> 
> 			Richard pocklington  pockling@sfu.ca
>
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Date: 18 Aug 92 19:53:12 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In an article jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks) writes:
>Dan Ashlock wrote:
>I don't believe the God of the Bible to be a liar. Neither do I believe
>deception was his intent if he created everything we see with age. 
>Should we even question God?

I do not believe that the God of the Bible was a liar. Neither do I believe
that the Earth is young, or that the Bible necessarily says it is.

>I don't see those two options as the only alternatives.

But we do.  It is your job to convince us that there is some other
reasonable (i.e. rational) alternative.  God gave is brains, I think
we need to use them.  Merely saying 'ignore your brains and believe the
Bible' is *not* a rational alternative.

>Maybe we shouldn't be messin' around where we're messin' around. I 
>believe the Bible to be a revelation of God, not just "religion." 
>The Bible states that God will frustrate the intelligence of the
>intelligent, and just maybe this origins debate is one of the 
>frustrations. I think we can all admit that man can be extremely
>proud, and wouldn't intellectual pride be an extremely easy trap
>to fall into? Maybe God never intended for us to try to figure out
>how old the earth is, or how he created life. But man with all his 
>pride must know, and for this pride, God frustrates those minds. 

Ah, so *now* you *are* saying that he *did* intend the appearence of age
to decieve!  (Since that is what it implies to say he set it up that
way to 'frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent').

If he gave me my mind I intend to use it.   And that means making rational
conclusions based on evidence.  If he did not want that he could just as
well have created me without the intelligence to question.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger)
Subject: Re: Try the Bible (Re: Calling Young-earth Creationists)
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 22:19:07 GMT

julian@fraser.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock) writes:
>skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger) writes:
>>>Within general relativity the interval between two events is an "absolute"
>>>quantity that is agreed upon by all observers. So here a scientific theory
>>>postulates the existence of an absolute.
>
>>Relativity states that the interval between two events is
>>NOT absolute.  It states that unless two observers are in the same frame of
>>reference, they will NEVER AGREE on exactly when two events happen.
>
>I should have been more clear. The interval is not the time between teh
>two events but the quantity defined by the metric. In Euclidean 4-space
>this is:

Ooops.  I got interval mixed up with time.  Forgot that it may have a
different meaning in relativity.

>So physics certainly does postulate absolutes that can be agreed   
>upon by all observers.
>julian
>


|======================================================================|
| Seth Kroger                       "If God made us in His image we    |
| skroger@pan.calpoly.edu               have certianly returned the    |
| Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo             compliment."  -Voltaire        |
Newsgroups: talk.origins
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: The vonRoeschlaub Number
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 02:28:06 GMT

  Taking Ted to heart, I decided to develop the vonRoeschlaub number (pat
pend).

  I found a strongish looking ant on the sidewalk, and took it home with me. 
After feeding it with steroids for several weeks and forcing it to exercise in
every way, the ant was able to lift 50 times it's own weight.  For obvious
reasons it would be rediculous to expect that any ant could do better than
this.

  Now, the ant weighd in at a whopping 1 gram at the time.  This gives us a
vonRoeschlaub number of 50, since it lifted 50 grams.

  Even the simplest and most obvious mathematics would show us that with this
vonRoeschlaub number, and using the well accepted 2/3 power ratio, any creature
weighting 125,000 grams (275 lbs) would spend all it's energy just trying to
stand.

  Moreover, any creature weighing more than this (say my uncle Rodger) could not
exist in our world (which is probably why he moved to Carolina).

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | O |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Newsgroups: talk.origins