Subject: Re: Creationists prohibit GOD from using HIS method !?
From: markc@gibelet.nexen.com (Mark Christensen)
Date: 3 Sep 1996 09:08:22 -0400
Anyone ever hear of significant digits? If I asked you the value of pi,
what would you answer? 3.14? or maybe 3.1415? Possibly 3.141592654?
Which is the correct answer? None of them. And all of them. It depends on
the number of significant digits you decide to compute to. An answer
of 3 is correct if you are only calculating to 1 significant digit.
It is believed that Biblical cubits were related to to the measurement from the
tip of the index finger to the elbow...roughly 18-19 inches. Now, I'm sure the
author of 1 Kings would not have specified the circumference as 3 cubits plus
a knuckle! They would simply have rounded off to the nearest cubit...one
significant digit. And this would be a correct record of the measurement.
As an engineer, I round off all the time. So, hopefully this little note
puts this ridiculous pi issue with the Bible to rest.
In article <505fpu$g07@nntp.interaccess.com>, addesign@interaccess.com (Jeff) writes:
|> johnt@haagar.jpl.nasa.gov (John Thompson) wrote:
|>
|> >In article <4vv0uh$3b3@mo6.rc.tudelft.nl> maarten@cpt6.stm.tudelft.nl (Jong Maarten_de) writes:
|>
|> >>I dunno the exact reference, but I think it was the bath in Salomon's temple. I'm
|> >>quoting from memory here -- I did a maths problem on it eons ago. The bath was
|> >>described as 10 'x' in diameter, while it was 30 'x' in circumference. O = pi*d,
|> >>ergo, pi = 3.
|> >>
|>
|> >I Kings 7:23 (NIV translation)
|>
|> > He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits
|> > from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to
|> > measure around it.
|>
|> Obviously an early error in translation. I'm sure the original passage
|> must have read 31.415928 cubits. Either that or they inadvertently
|> measured a chord rather than the diameter. Or maybe the walls were
|> 707964 cubits thick, and they gave outside diameter and inside
|> circumference. See how easy it is to rationalize from mythology?
|>
|> Jeff/addesign
|>
--
Mark Christensen ascom-Nexion
email: markc@nexen.com 289 Great Road
ph: (508) 266-2315 Acton, MA 01720
Subject: Chemical Equilibrium Model (MINEQL+) Available for Download
From: ersoftwr@ersoftwr.sdi.agate.net (William Schecher)
Date: 3 Sep 1996 13:55:36 GMT
Reposting of software availability:
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Subject: Re: Utter Futility of Arguing With Creationists
From: Leonardo Dasso
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 15:20:00 +0100
On Tue, 3 Sep 1996, Matt Silberstein wrote:
> In talk.origins Terran@pwshift.com (Terran) wrote:
>
> >Matt Austern wrote:
>
> >>Terran@pwshift.com (Terran) writes:
>
> >>> I make no claim to great knowledge of science (I'm a poet) but I have
> >>> read 'Origins of Species.' Darwin himself stated that without the
> >>> discovery of an intermediate form much of his theory falls apart.
> >>> Granted, when pressed evolutionists will admit that Evolution is a
> >>> theory, yet it is taught by lesser minds in our schools as fact.
>
> >>What do you think is the difference between a theory and a fact?
>
> >>This isn't a rhetorical question: it's quite fundamental to
> >>epistemology, and reasonable people can and do disagree about
> >>the answer.
>
> >The term 'lesser minds' was unfortunate and unnecessarily provocative.
> >I understand your taking umbrage and I take your point. As to the
> >difference between theory and fact? My understanding was it was
> >proof.
>
> Essentially "facts" a statements about "reality". Theories are
> explanations of a set of facts. In modern science theories include
> predictions of other facts and a consequently include a way to
> disprove the theory. Theories are never proven correct.
>
> That said, evolution is both a theory and a fact. The fact of
> evolution is the change in allele frequency through time, IOW, the
> change in organisms. The theory of evolution is a set of exlanations
> for how this fact came about and what it means.
>
>
>
>
> Matt Silberstein
> ===========================================
>
> Because I am human, nothing human is beyond me.
>
> Saint Augustine.
>
>
>
Saint Augustine? I am sure that quote is from Terencius: "Homo sum, nihil
humanum a me alienum puto".
Leonardo
Subject: Re: New groups - discussion - response to Oilver Seeler
From: oseeler@mcn.org (Oliver Seeler)
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 14:23:16 GMT
Richard Adams wrote:
>Oliver Seeler wrote:
>>
>> There has never been nor will there be any "discussion" with me. I'm
>> not discussing anything with Adams, rather, since he's chosen to
>> present himself as a publicly meddlesome figure who has his thumb in
>> my soup , I'm commenting on him. The implication that I have had any
>> dialoge with Adams is misleading (and offensive).
>>
>> > A) Discussion about any relevant aspect of the
>> > existing proposal.
>>
>> > [Oliver offered nothing]
>>
>> <<<-magnitude 6.5 snip->>
>...each attempt to communicate with Oliver has
> been met with an incremental Richter magnitude
> attack against my personage. So why bother,
> except for the sake of humor?
>Richard
Then why the reply? Another lie and an attempt to deflect criticism by
degredation: Adams has never "attempted to communicate" with me - he
has merely posted his endlessly repeated double-talk in these groups.
His vaunted "personage" is the problem, thus the target. BTW he is
now, as those who haven't twit-filtered him out yet can see, using
these groups more and more for completely off-topic posts that should
be dealt with by private e-mail.l Also, the private mail I'm getting
on this sadsack is now running 100 percent in opposition to him - not
to his dingbat ideas, but to him. Hands off Usenet!
O.S.
Subject: Re: The Ultimate Unity of Science and Religion.
From: kenhall@ghgcorp.com (Ken Hall)
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 14:42:04 GMT
wpenrose@interaccess.com (William R. Penrose) wrote:
>I have immersed myself in chemistry and biochemistry all my professional life.
>But no matter how much we discover about Nature and life, in whatever detail,
>the goosebumps never go away. Knowing the details of how my cells
>reproduce, live, and die doesn't make me appreciate the fine architecture
>of the human body any less. When I am filled with love for my wife, my
>children, my grandchildren, I can understand that love probably evolved as a
>sociobiological mechanism for ensuring the survival of my genes. But knowing
>this doesn't make the emotion any less intense. Why can't God be the
>motivating force behind the miracle of the Universe? It's as valid as any
>other explanation, and has a comfortable commonsense appeal to it.
>Bill
Occam and I disagree that the existence of a creator god is "just as
valid" if, by that, you mean "just as likely". A god isn't just as
likely as other explainations.
The laws of probability make less complex things more likely to happen
than more complex things.
(Thing 1) is more likely to happen than (Thing 1 AND Thing 2).
No matter how complex this world is--a complex world is *less* complex
than that same complex world PLUS a super complex creature able to
create it.
We are here so *something* had to happen, or have always been.
(Complex thing 1)
is more likely to exist than
(Complex thing 1) + (Complex thing 2)
hence:
(the world)
is more likely to exist than
(the world) + (a god)
Complexity alone is not evidence of yet more complexity. Quite the
opposite the greater complexity is LESS likely than the simpler
assumption.
Ken
Subject: Re: When did "total" solar eclipses begin?
From: pausch@electra.saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)
Date: 3 Sep 1996 16:52:35 +0200
In article <509o74$e3n@myntti.helsinki.fi>,
Osmo Ronkanen wrote:
> In article <501k42$iv6@electra.saaf.se>,
> Paul Schlyter wrote:
>>In article <4vq6m4$sdi@kruuna.helsinki.fi>,
>>Osmo Ronkanen wrote:
>>
>>> In Helsinki there was a total eclipse in 1990, the next is in 2126.
>>> I do not know of the previous one, but it was certainly before 1945.
>>
>>In Stockholm the last total solar eclipse was in 1715, and there won't
>>be another one until some time around 2300.
>
> Is it hard to calculate those, i.e. does it require massive resources?
Not today -- any decent desktop PC equipped with the appropriate
software will be able to produce these data in an hour or less. If
you cannot find suitable commercial software, you can write it yourself
using the algorithms in e.g. Jean Meeus' "Astronomical Algorithms"
(which will provide solar and lunar positions to you) and his
"Total solar eclipses 1950-2200" (which will provide the solar eclipse
formulae, plus Besselian elements for all solar eclipses 1950-2200).
I didn't compute this myself though, instead I looked it up in
available literature: the 1715 eclipse can be found in Oppolzer's
"Canon of Eclipses" (published in German at the end of last century,
reprinted by Dover Books more recently), and from Jean Meeus' "Canon
of solar eclipses 1900-2500" I found the eclipses around 2300.
The 1715 eclipse in Stockholm has its own, quite interesting, story:
at that time anyone was allowed to publish almanacs. In Stockholm,
there were four popular almanacs at this time, and all of them failed
to predict that this eclipse would be total as seen from Stockholm!
Therefore this total eclipse was a surprise to the people in this
city! Shortly afterwards, to ensure accurate information in future
almanacs, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences got the exclusive
privilege to publish almanacs in Sweden; nobody else was allowed to
do it. This exclusive privilege lasted until 1973.
> Also are there any limits on how far one can calculate in the future
> with current data on the orbits?
Of course there is -- but there is one uncertainty that's bigger than
the orbital errors: our incomplete knowledge of the exact rotation
rate of the Earth and how it changes with time. Here ancient total
solar eclipses are our best information about the Earth's rotation
rate a few thousand years ago, since the totality is visible over such
a narrow area on the Earth.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
Grev Turegatan 40, S-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch@saaf.se psr@home.ausys.se
Subject: Re: Utter Futility of Arguing With Creationists
From: wpenrose@interaccess.com (William R. Penrose)
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 10:30:52
In article <50fd02$16n@bristlecone.together.net> Terran@pwshift.com (Terran) writes:
>Prove Darwin right and I'll write a poem
>in your honor. Deal?
Bad bargain, because a maxim of the scientific way is that nothing is ever
proven. So things go on being called "theories" long after all doubt of their
"truth" has been swept away, like the existence of atoms. "Theory" is a
technical term that means a list of assumptions and a logical structure that
explains a large body of observations. No serious biologist doubts the fact
of evolution. It is a tool in everyday investigation, like a scalpel or a
microscope. But in the background is always the possibility, however faint,
that some new observations might prove it wrong.
Prove creation right and I'll write a poem in *your* honor. (Granted, I'm
marginally literate.)
Bill
************************************************************
Bill Penrose, Sr. Scientist, Transducer Research, Inc.
600 North Commons Drive, Suite 117
Aurora, IL 60504
708-978-8802, fax -8854, email wpenrose@interaccess.com
************************************************************
Purveyors of fine gas sensors and
contract R&D; to this and nearby galaxies.
************************************************************
Subject: Re: Utter Futility of Arguing With Creationists
From: wpenrose@interaccess.com (William R. Penrose)
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 10:24:18
In article <50glh3$ofj@nntp.sierra.net> mccoy@sierra.net (John McCoy) writes:
>Viejo (tomitire@vegas.infi.net) wrote:
>It is utter futility for atheists to argue with creationists, because
>atheists are wrong.
The assumption here is that anyone who is not a creationite is an atheist?
Then you are WRONG. Unquestioning belief in a book filled with fuzzy
ancient myths and internal contradictions (as well as the accumulated
wisdom of several civilizations) is the modern equivalent of dancing around a
fire with masks and rattles to appease a volcano god. Worse, it is a copout,
deliberately turning off the mental processes to avoid confronting a scary
universe.
Bill
************************************************************
Bill Penrose, Sr. Scientist, Transducer Research, Inc.
600 North Commons Drive, Suite 117
Aurora, IL 60504
708-978-8802, fax -8854, email wpenrose@interaccess.com
************************************************************
Purveyors of fine gas sensors and
contract R&D; to this and nearby galaxies.
************************************************************
Subject: Re: New groups - discussion - response to Oilver Seeler
From: Richard Adams
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 10:44:36 -0700
Oliver Seeler wrote:
>
> Richard Adams wrote:
>
> >Oliver Seeler wrote:
> >>
> >> There has never been nor will there be any "discussion" with me. I'm
> >> not discussing anything with Adams, rather, since he's chosen to
> >> present himself as a publicly meddlesome figure who has his thumb in
> >> my soup , I'm commenting on him. The implication that I have had any
> >> dialoge with Adams is misleading (and offensive).
> >>
> >> > A) Discussion about any relevant aspect of the
> >> > existing proposal.
> >>
> >> > [Oliver offered nothing]
> >>
> >> <<<-magnitude 6.5 snip->>
>
> >...each attempt to communicate with Oliver has
> > been met with an incremental Richter magnitude
> > attack against my personage. So why bother,
> > except for the sake of humor?
>
> >Richard
> Then why the reply? Another lie and an attempt to deflect criticism by
> degredation: Adams has never "attempted to communicate" with me - he
> has merely posted his endlessly repeated double-talk in these groups.
> His vaunted "personage" is the problem, thus the target. BTW he is
> now, as those who haven't twit-filtered him out yet can see, using
> these groups more and more for completely off-topic posts that should
> be dealt with by private e-mail.l Also, the private mail I'm getting
> on this sadsack is now running 100 percent in opposition to him - not
> to his dingbat ideas, but to him. Hands off Usenet!
Interesting that in Oliver's previous post
at top above he says,
"There has never been nor will there
be any "discussion" with me."
...and now Oliver says,
"Adams has never attempted to communicate
with me."
You post something, I post something. You
read it, I read it. Who cares if its in
the first person or not? We communicated.
Digging through Oliver's long post a few
posts ago, I found one comment that perhaps
he thought of as a negative aspect of the
proposal where Oliver says,
"I have only one application for this
newsgroup - the rapid and free exchange
of ideas and information concerning
earthquakes, and Adam's proposals - all
of them - are detrimental to that end"
WRONG! The existing groups ca.earthquakes
and sci.geo.earthquakes are not changed by
what I'm proposing. Nothing I've proposed
will cease your ability to have the rapid
and free exchange of ideas and information
concerning earthquakes. The existing
groups will still be there as they are.
Where does my proposal say that the
existing groups are changed. Doesn't
it say quite the opposite?
So Oliver's comment isn't a negative aspect
of what I'm proposing, its just something
that he either missed in the proposal, or
made up to strenghten his attack against
my person which he admits is his target.
If you don't want me as the proponent or
"moderator", go a head and find another.
Each one of us has every right to join in
the discussion and vote, or to abstain
as they choose.
Sure there are various "personalities"
involved in the discussion. After the
discussion is finished and the vote is
taken, all relevance of the personalities
will vanish. The useless current attacks
against the personalities will be forgotten
while the documents recorded are the real
result which will live on.
Richard
Subject: Re: Religion of science and science of Relligion
From: schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher)
Date: 3 Sep 1996 12:23:51 -0500
>>> > : In all seriousness can anybody identify a current complex life form in a
>>> > : transitional state. I would think that we have many examples of this
>>> > : phenomenon in our midst out of the tens of million different species on our
>>> > : planet. Please do not cite single celled life forms since there is no
>>> > : question that these mutate to adapt to their surroundings. I am looking for
>>> > : something like monkeys with feathers, dogs with scales, birds that spin
>>> > : webs and have eight legs, ...etc.
Any species which is not in perfect equilibrium with its
environment is probably evolving. Since most environments are
not static, most species are feeling some degree of evolutionary
pressure. Even if the non-living components of an environment
are static, the ecosystem (the living components) is almost
always not static ("arms races" between predators and prey,
sexual selection, etc.). Therefore most species, as we see them
now, are transitional forms, since their descendants' norms will
not be identical to the existing norms. (If they have descendants,
that is: species which don't happen to keep up with the changes
in their environment, such as those due to global warming, will
become extinct.)
As examples of species which have apparently been nearly static,
I'd pick great white sharks and horseshoe crabs. Their gross
anatomies have not changed in 100 million years or more. But
they may be feeling pressures now, and their biochemistries
(evidence of which rarely fossilized) may have evolved
significantly.
Subject: Re: Chicxulub structure and dinosaur extinction
From: karish@gondwana.Stanford.EDU (Chuck Karish)
Date: 3 Sep 1996 18:13:05 GMT
In article <322B5E15.3F5@ix.netcom.com>,
Bill Oertell wrote:
>> What reconstruction is being used here? Yucatan and India were at least
>> 30 deg away from being antipodal according to Smith et al "Phanerozoic
>> paleocontinental world maps" Cambr Univ Press 1981.
That's about 2000 miles, by the way.
> Actually, I don't recall what sources were used to speculate that the
>Indian subcontinent was antipodal to the Yucatan 65 million years ago.
No one made this particular speculation. The idea was that
the Deccan Traps and the Seychelles might have been the
result of a meteor impact. The embellishment that suggested
an antipodeal rupture was made before the authors knew
that Yucatan was a likely location for the impact.
>Certainly, were I actually putting forth a valid scientific claim, I
>would have those references, but this is just enternaining conjecture.
>It seems worth considering, especially since an impact powerful enough
>to create the Chicxulub crater (180 Km--one of the largest impact
>craters in the solar system) should have caused an antipodal formation
>of some sort. The Deccan Trapps seem a likely canditate.
> Bill
--
Chuck Karish '81 Guzzi CX100
karish@well.com '83 Guzzi Le Mans III (Fang, RSN)
DoD #89
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Take back your news group from the nonsense off topic posts
From: karish@gondwana.Stanford.EDU (Chuck Karish)
Date: 3 Sep 1996 18:16:34 GMT
In article <322BB712.3BBE@oro.net>, Richard Adams wrote:
>Moderation of newsgroups has evolved.
>
>It is no longer the whim of the moderator. Now using
>automated robots programmed by group voting, we can
>get rid of those who fill the group with all the off
>topic stuff.
And turn the newsgroup into a discussion forum on the topic
of who should be excluded from the forum.
Richard, please go to your local video rental shop, get
a copy of "Brazil" to watch, and stop pushing this nonsense.
--
Chuck Karish '81 Guzzi CX100
karish@well.com '83 Guzzi Le Mans III (Fang, RSN)
DoD #89
Subject: Sampling & Ore Grade Control of Gold Short Course
From: Jim Proud
Date: 3 Sep 1996 20:11:56 GMT
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