Bill Nye the Intolerant Science Guy: "Your Kids" Need to "Believe

[Kalkidas]

"As anyone who follows the Internet debate over evolution probably
already knows, Bill Nye the Science Guy recently posted a viral YouTube
video attacking those who he says "deny evolution." This is not the
first time Nye, a popular educator and entertainer, has done this. But
the media love Nye's flame war, posting headlines like "Bill Nye Slams
Creationism" (CNN) or "Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' Hits Evolution
Deniers" (ABC News). In a bizarre coincidence, the headlines competed
with other Internet buzz over rumors (thankfully false) that Nye had
passed away.

Nye's most recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the
intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics. He tries to
scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in society in order to
justify taking away people's freedom to teach kids about challenges to
evolution....."

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/bill_nye_the_in_1063641.html

[prawnster]

On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 6:43:43 PM UTC-7, Kalkidas wrote:
>>Nye's most recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics. He tries to scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in society in order to justify taking away people's freedom to teach kids about challenges to evolution....."<<

Poor Bill Nye the Scientism Guy -- he just doesn't know when to shut his room-temp IQ mouth. I pwned him not long ago in this thread:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!searchin/talk.origins/bill$20nye/talk.origins/0S8Bxgc3hLc/BWtdm5LNCUEJ

To wit:

"Wow. It took Mr. Nye just two paragraphs to contradict himself. I'm
guessing, as he was speaking, this happened in less than 60 seconds.

"He starts off by noting the peculiar fact that the majority of
Americans don't buy evolution. Then he asserts that America, or
perhaps Japan, is the most technologically advanced civilization on
Earth. He also asserts that most technological innovation happens in
America. Keep in mind: the most technologically advanced and
innovative society on Earth, per Nye, is America, which he also just
got done noting doesn't, for the most part, buy into evolution.

"In paragraph two he asserts that this lack of faith in evolution will
somehow, via some magical process never elucidated nor described,
cause America to lose its edge in science. Remember Nye's first two
assertions: this same knuckle-dragging evolution-denying troglodyte
nation is the most technologically sophisticated and innovative on
Earth, while at the same time not believing in evolution.

"Isn't the cognitive dissonance on display here magnificent?

"More proof, as if any were needed, that belief in evolution causes
people to say the dumbestest things. Chez Watt material all the way."


More evidence, as if any were needed, that Bill Nye Scientism Guy is a lightweight in the cranial region and is not fit to teach anyone's children anything.

[Tom]

On Aug 29, 6:43 pm, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
>
> Nye's most recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the
> intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics.

Religious fanatics are not "skeptics".

> He tries to
> scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in society in order to
> justify taking away people's freedom to teach kids about challenges to
> evolution....."

There is absolutely nothing in Nye's video that says anything like
that. You are demonstrating just how hard it is for people like you
to listen accurately when the voices in your head are screaming so
loudly.

> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/bill_nye_the_in_1063641.html

Watch it again. Watch it several times.

[Boikat]

On Aug 29, 8:43�pm, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
> "As anyone who follows the Internet debate over evolution probably
> already knows, Bill Nye the Science Guy recently posted a viral YouTube
> video attacking those who he says "deny evolution." This is not the
> first time Nye, a popular educator and entertainer, has done this. But
> the media love Nye's flame war, posting headlines like "Bill Nye Slams
> Creationism" (CNN) or "Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' Hits Evolution
> Deniers" (ABC News). In a bizarre coincidence, the headlines competed
> with other Internet buzz over rumors (thankfully false) that Nye had
> passed away.
>
> Nye's most recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the
> intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics.

There is a difference between a "skeptic" and an "ignorant, god
smacked bafoon".

> He tries to
> scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in society in order to
> justify taking away people's freedom to teach kids about challenges to
> evolution....."

The only real challenge to evolution is not it's validity, it the
social rejection caused by ignorant god-smacked bafoons.

>
> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/bill_nye_the_in_1063641.html

Boikat

[*Hemidactylus*]

Do you likewise deny tectonic plates? People like you and prawnster hold
everyone back with your fundamentally inconsistent and untenable
worldview that you wish to impose upon the next generation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbYJfwFgOU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svHQ4BQY__o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QECq6M3nPew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TagkWyuXJ2g

[UC]

gimme dat dere bibah ya dumb mutha fuckah

i make ya swallaw dauh damned thing and shit out duh papah

[*Hemidactylus*]

Not sure Kalkidas actually watched the video. He copied and pasted the
above from evolution "news" dot org.

[prawnster]

On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 7:58:43 PM UTC-7, UC wrote:
>>gimme dat dere bibah ya dumb mutha fuckah i make ya swallaw dauh damned thing and shit out duh papah<<

So when did you first become racist against Southerners and/or blacks?

[Boikat]

What makes you think he wasn't to begin with?

Boikat

[Glenn]

"Boikat" <boi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:657c7aa9-04a8-4c61...@b8g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...

In the Beginning?

[Mike Painter]

That would be nice if there were any legitimate scientific challenges to
evolution.
There are none and the major Creation "Science" sites do not, with rare
exception, by definition practice science. They insist that any evidence
that does not support their idea of what a literal bible says must be
denied.

The rare exceptions (e.g. The canopy theory) are always prefaced with
the information that what they used to preach as gospel is not really in
the bible so they can change their mind at will.

[Boikat]

Even for you, that doesn't even make any sense.

Boikat

[deadrat]

Big surprise, the clip of Nye bears no relationship at all to the claims
made about it. Here's the short version: teach science to kids because
we need scientifically-literate citizens.

[deadrat]

On 8/29/12 8:57 PM, prawnster wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 6:43:43 PM UTC-7, Kalkidas wrote:
>>> Nye's most recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics. He tries to scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in society in order to justify taking away people's freedom to teach kids about challenges to evolution....."<<
>
> Poor Bill Nye the Scientism Guy -- he just doesn't know when to shut his room-temp IQ mouth. I pwned him not long ago in this thread:
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!searchin/talk.origins/bill$20nye/talk.origins/0S8Bxgc3hLc/BWtdm5LNCUEJ
>
> To wit:

You're half right.
<snip/>

> "Isn't the cognitive dissonance on display here magnificent?

Your own certainly.

<snip/>

[deadrat]

On 8/29/12 9:03 PM, Tom wrote:
> On Aug 29, 6:43 pm, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
>>
>> Nye's most recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the
>> intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics.
>
> Religious fanatics are not "skeptics".

But they tend to burn skeptics at the stake. Does that count?

>
>> He tries to
>> scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in society in order to
>> justify taking away people's freedom to teach kids about challenges to
>> evolution....."
>
> There is absolutely nothing in Nye's video that says anything like
> that. You are demonstrating just how hard it is for people like you
> to listen accurately when the voices in your head are screaming so
> loudly.
>
>> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/bill_nye_the_in_1063641.html
>
> Watch it again. Watch it several times.

It will be hard to hear what with those voices, dontchathink?

[Friar Broccoli]

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 00:02:00 -0500, deadrat <a...@b.com> wrote:

>On 8/29/12 8:40 PM, Kalkidas wrote:
>> "As anyone who follows the Internet debate over evolution probably
>> already knows, Bill Nye the Science Guy recently posted a viral YouTube
>> video attacking those who he says "deny evolution." This is not the
>> first time Nye, a popular educator and entertainer, has done this. But
>> the media love Nye's flame war, posting headlines like "Bill Nye Slams
>> Creationism" (CNN) or "Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' Hits Evolution
>> Deniers" (ABC News). In a bizarre coincidence, the headlines competed
>> with other Internet buzz over rumors (thankfully false) that Nye had
>> passed away.
>>
>> Nye's most recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the
>> intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics. He tries to
>> scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in society in order to
>> justify taking away people's freedom to teach kids about challenges to
>> evolution....."
>>
>> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/bill_nye_the_in_1063641.html
>

.

>Big surprise, the clip of Nye bears no relationship at all to the claims
>made about it. Here's the short version: teach science to kids because
>we need scientifically-literate citizens.

Delivered with the flair of a man who knows his cause is hopeless.
The Soviet Union couldn't bury the West, so Christian fundamentalists
have taken up the challenge.

--
Friar Broccoli (Robert Keith Elias), Quebec Canada
I consider ALL arguments in support of my views

[Tom]

On Aug 29, 10:08�pm, deadrat <a...@b.com> wrote:
> On 8/29/12 9:03 PM, Tom wrote:
>
> > On Aug 29, 6:43 pm, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
>
> >> Nye's most recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the
> >> intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics.
>
> > Religious fanatics are not "skeptics".
>
> But they tend to burn skeptics at the stake. �Does that count?

Not if they're only skeptical of what the religious fanatic doesn't
believe. In the immortal words of Vroomfondel, "We demand rigidly
defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."

> >>http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/bill_nye_the_in_1063641.html
>
> > Watch it again. �Watch it several times.
>
> It will be hard to hear what with those voices, dontchathink?

Of course. One cannot expect success right from the start, That's
what practice is for.

[Mike Painter]

I've just started Howard Zinn's "Peoples History of The United States".
He argues that racism was deliberate and done by slave owners because
of their fear of an uprising. They were afraid, and he presents evidence
that supports his view that the slaves would join with poor white
southerners and get rid of the upper class.

[Kermit]

I wasn't worried about the Eastern Bloc threat - the worst they could
do is kill us.

Fundamentalists, if they win their crusade against language, history,
and science, can enslave the next generations, and honesty,
compassion, and courage will be forgotten.

Kermit

[Desertphile]

On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 18:40:07 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:

> Bill Nye the Intolerant Science Guy: "Your Kids" Need to "Believe

Did he ever rape children, murder one of their parents, kidnap the
other, and rob dozens of people? Your cult's leaders did that, and
they were sent to prison for it. Remember?


--
"[Denialists] will immediately reject the facts when they glance at them." -- Desertphile
"We will always reject your facts." -- Tunderbar

[Ray Martinez]

On Aug 29, 6:43�pm, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:

Kalkidas: "Darwinism is not science."

Ray: "Why then do you accept evolution?"

Please address. My issue is squarely on topic and reasonable. Since
you claim to be forthright and knowledgeable, and since truth is
supposedly on your side, what's the problem?

Ray (anti-evolutionist)

[Mike Painter]

On Sat, 8 Sep 2012 16:08:02 -0700 (PDT), Ray Martinez
<pyram...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>Please address. My issue is squarely on topic and reasonable. Since
>you claim to be forthright and knowledgeable, and since truth is
>supposedly on your side, what's the problem?
>
>Ray (anti-evolutionist)

There is no reasonable way to address you.
All Christian sects say that their version is correct and all other
wrong.

Science does not work on opinion and the science of evolution is as
valid as the science of astronomy.
If you understood science you would have to exclude astronomy for the
same reasons you deny evolution.

[Ernest Major]

In message <furn48d9p2m6iirmi...@4ax.com>, Mike Painter
<mddotp...@sbcglobal.net> writes

I thought he did. Ray claims that there are no natural processes.
--
alias Ernest Major

[Ron O]

I watched the video and I doubt that Kalk did. If he did why would he
put up the bogus Discovery Institute article? Why would he keep going
back to the guys that lied to him about the ID science? Why couldn't
he determine for himself that he couldn't trust the Discovery
Institute article that he cited? It is one of the things that is most
depressing about the IDiots that fell for the ID scam. They want or
need to be lied to, and the scam artists at the Discovery Institute
are willing to do that for them.

Ron Okimoto

[Ray Martinez]

General Audience:

It think it is important to point out that all of the fellows at the
Discovery Institute (and their supporters) accept one or more of the
main claims of Darwinism (natural selection/evolution/common descent).

Ray (Old Earth, Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)

[pnyikos]

On Sep 8, 7:08�pm, Ray Martinez <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Aug 29, 6:43�pm, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > "As anyone who follows the Internet debate over evolution probably
> > already knows, Bill Nye the Science Guy recently posted a viral YouTube
> > video attacking those who he says "deny evolution." This is not the
> > first time Nye, a popular educator and entertainer, has done this. But
> > the media love Nye's flame war, posting headlines like "Bill Nye Slams
> > Creationism" (CNN) or "Bill Nye 'The Science Guy'

The Science Guy, Indeed! More like:

Bill Nye the Political Animal, Anti-Creationist (and Anti-Theism?)
Variety

Ray doesn't give a fig about that here. He reminds me of Gary Cooper
in "High Noon," getting into a fistfight with someone who was
basically on his side while several dangerous criminals were on their
way to a shoot-out with him.

Almost any creationist but Ray would side with Kalkidas, but Ray has
his own ax to grind, and his ax-grinding takes priority over
everything else.

I address him directly below.

> > Hits Evolution
> > Deniers" (ABC News). In a bizarre coincidence, the headlines competed
> > with other Internet buzz over rumors (thankfully false) that Nye had
> > passed away.
>
> > Nye's most recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the
> > intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics. He tries to
> > scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in society in order to
> > justify taking away people's freedom to teach kids about challenges to
> > evolution....."
>
> >http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/bill_nye_the_in_1063641.html
>
> Kalkidas: "Darwinism is not science."
>
> Ray: "Why then do you accept evolution?"
>
> Please address. My issue is squarely on topic

Not for this thread.

Besides, several people have answered your question. There is much
more to Darwinism than belief in microevolution, otherwise one of the
"founding fathers" of modern YEC, Henry Morris, would be a Darwinist:

It is significant that the phrase "after its kind" occurs
ten times in the first chapter of Genesis. Whatever precisely
is meant by the term "kind" (Hebrew *min*), it does indicate
the limitations of variation. Each organism was to reproduce
after its own kind, not after some other kind. Exactly what
this corresponds to in terms of the modern Linnaean
classification system is a matter to be decided by
future research. It will probably be found eventually
that the *min* often is identical with the species,
sometimes with the genus, and possibly once in
a while with the "family". Practically never is variation
possible outside the biologic family.
Henry M. Morris, _The Genesis Record, Baker Book
House,
Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976, pp. 63-64

> and reasonable. Since
> you claim to be forthright and knowledgeable, and since truth is
> supposedly on your side, what's the problem?

The problem is that you run away from answers to your question,
including those by me, while you continue your relentless pursuit of
Kalkidas, which some (especially jillery and Gans, two evolutionists
who do not raise your hackles as much as Kalkidas does) would label
"stalking".

Keywords: microevolution, macroevolution

> Ray (anti-evolutionist)

Anti-speciation OEC variety. Probably a minority among OECs.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Sep 8, 9:33�pm, Mike Painter <mddotpain...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 8 Sep 2012 16:08:02 -0700 (PDT), Ray Martinez
>

> <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >Please address. My issue is squarely on topic and reasonable. Since
> >you claim to be forthright and knowledgeable, and since truth is
> >supposedly on your side, what's the problem?
>
> >Ray (anti-evolutionist)
>
> There is no reasonable way to address you.

There is, but he thumbs his nose at all my reasonable and direct ways.

Your way is not direct. You are ignoring his challenge to Kalkidas
and riding off on some hobby-horse of yours.

> All �Christian sects say that their version is correct and all other
> wrong.

Not all. The mainline Protestant denominations ("sects") stopped
playing that game about half a century ago.

> Science does not work on opinion and the science of evolution is as
> valid as the science of astronomy.

Too bad Bill Nye doesn't expound on science in the video, eh? He even
confuses it with technology, implying:

disbelief in evolution = anti-biology = anti-science = anti-
technology, specifically anti-engineering

I bet most engineering students, even atheistic ones, steer away from
biology towards physics. Many of them required to learn about
evolution are apt to resent having to learn such useless (to their
future career) stuff. Some might even look upon the evidence for
evolution as "stamp collecting," as in:

"Everything in science is either physics or stamp collecting."

[sorry, I can't recall offhand whom this famous quotation is due to]

> If you understood science you would have to exclude astronomy for the
> same reasons you deny evolution.

Not if he is an OEC, and he says he is one.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

[pnyikos]

On Aug 29, 9:58�pm, prawnster <zweibro...@ymail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 6:43:43 PM UTC-7, Kalkidas wrote:

> >>Nye's most recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics. He tries to scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in society in order to justify taking away people's freedom to teach kids about challenges to evolution....."<<
>

> Poor Bill Nye the Scientism Guy -- he just doesn't know when to shut his room-temp IQ mouth. �I pwned him not long ago in this thread:
>

> https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!searchin/talk.orig...
>
> To wit:
>
> "Wow. �It took Mr. Nye just two paragraphs to contradict himself. �I'm
> guessing, as he was speaking, this happened in less than 60 seconds.
>
> "He starts off by noting the peculiar fact that the majority of
> Americans don't buy evolution. �Then he asserts that America, or
> perhaps Japan, is the most technologically advanced civilization on
> Earth. �He also asserts that most technological innovation happens in
> America. �Keep in mind: the most technologically advanced and
> innovative society on Earth, per Nye, is America, which he also just
> got done noting doesn't, for the most part, buy into evolution.

Where are the statistics to back that up?

> "In paragraph two he asserts that this lack of faith in evolution will
> somehow, via some magical process never elucidated nor described,
> cause America to lose its edge in science.

See my remarks in reply to Mike Painter, done a few minutes ago, to
see an "equation" which Bill Nye's video seems to endorse, and my
critique of it. Perhaps the "equation" describes the "magical process"
in Nye's mind.

What kinds of defenses of Bill Nye have you encountered on
talk.origins so far? Have any of them had anything critical to say
about the following claim of Nye's?


"Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of
biology. It's like, it's very much analogous to trying to do geology
without believing in tectonic plates. You're just not going to get the
right answer. Your whole world is just going to be a mystery instead
of an exciting place."

Most geology gets along just fine without studying the tectonic
plates. A hefty chunk of biology would be hopeless without
biochemistry, but very little would be hopeless without evolution.

We live in an age of specialization. The old-fashioned naturalist,
whom Nye is clumsily trying to emulate, is a dying breed.

> �Remember Nye's first two
> assertions: this same knuckle-dragging evolution-denying troglodyte
> nation is the most technologically sophisticated and innovative on
> Earth, while at the same time not believing in evolution.

>
> "Isn't the cognitive dissonance on display here magnificent?
>

> "More proof, as if any were needed, that belief in evolution causes
> people to say the dumbestest things.

Nonsense. Bill Nye is a straw man. Unfortunately, almost every anti-
creationist thinks he is cool, or, at worst, a scarecrow.

>�Chez Watt material all the way."

His video is all that, I agree.

> More evidence, as if any were needed, that Bill Nye Scientism Guy is a lightweight in the cranial region and is not fit to teach anyone's children anything.

I won't argue with that.

[Craig Franck]

It's the grand unifying process that explains why the earth looks
the way it does. Where do major mountain ranges come from? Why are
the continents shaped the way they are? What's with the identical
fresh water species on opposite sides of the Atlantic?

There are no answers to these question without plate tectonics.

> A hefty chunk of biology would be hopeless without
> biochemistry, but very little would be hopeless without evolution.

Where did all the biodiversity come from?

Obviously you can write astronomy textbooks with no reference to
the BB -- that's what they did prior to the theory being advanced
-- but they leave many basic questions a mystery.

> We live in an age of specialization. The old-fashioned naturalist,
> whom Nye is clumsily trying to emulate, is a dying breed.

Somebody still has to look at the big picture.

Craig

[Rolf]

"Ray Martinez" <pyram...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2abdb290-b656-4249...@oq8g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...

General audience and everyone else:

The DI and its followers are of course free to design their own version of
ID by allowing for whatever scientif facts they find bothersome, without
deviating from their faith in Genesis and God as the Designer. Very
convenient.

Since ID explains nothing it can be used to explain anything. You should
know a lot about that.

[pnyikos]

There were incorrect ones in the past, but that's not the point. The
point is that these things, magnificent though they are, are a very
small part of geology.

> > A hefty chunk of biology would be hopeless without
> > biochemistry, but very little would be hopeless without evolution.
>
> Where did all the biodiversity come from?

A very little part of biology, this. Take a look at almost any
standard biology course. The first university semester for biology
majors says ZILCH about these things. It is all organic/biochemistry
and cell biology. The second semester says damn little. It isn't
until you take an advanced course in comparative vertebrate anatomy
that evolution plays a hefty role.

> Obviously you can write astronomy textbooks with no reference to
> the BB -- that's what they did prior to the theory being advanced
> -- but they leave many basic questions a mystery.

Take a look at a basic astronomy text. Cosmology is only a small part
of it.

> > We live in an age of specialization. �The old-fashioned naturalist,
> > whom Nye is clumsily trying to emulate, is a dying breed.
>
> Somebody still has to look at the big picture.

No argument there, but that's not the message Nye was huckstering.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

> Craig- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[pnyikos]

On Sep 10, 11:18�am, "Rolf" <rolf.aalb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Ray Martinez" <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

Not the variety of ID I endorse. By my hypothesis, it was done by
beings not necessarily any more advanced scientifically than
ourselves. [Technologically, they were probably a couple of centuries
development beyond us.]

Go ahead, ask the question from whose answer you keep running away--
you know, where these panspermists came from.

Then run away from the answer like you always do.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

Peter Nyikos

[Harry K]

> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>
> Peter Nyikos

OK, I'll ask. Just where do they come from? And and additional.
Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?

Harry K

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:35:10 -0400, Harry K wrote
(in article
<5eafdb6d-18cc-4fc4...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>):

> On Sep 10, 7:58ï¿œpm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics ￜ ￜ ￜ -- standard disclaimer--

>> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>>
>> Peter Nyikos
>
> OK, I'll ask. Just where do they come from? And and additional.
> Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?
>
> Harry K
>

This should be good.

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

[Harry K]

On Sep 11, 3:08�am, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:35:10 -0400, Harry K wrote
> (in article

> <5eafdb6d-18cc-4fc4-aa59-1436a4cca...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>):
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sep 10, 7:58�pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> >> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics � � � -- standard disclaimer--

> >> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
> >> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>
> >> Peter Nyikos
>
> > OK, I'll ask. �Just where do they come from? �And and additional.
> > Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?
>
> > Harry K
>
> This should be good.
>
> --
> email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

I really don't think he will answer.

Harry K

[Desertphile]

On Sat, 08 Sep 2012 15:32:03 -0600, Desertphile
<Deser...@spammegmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 18:40:07 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
>
> > Bill Nye the Intolerant Science Guy: "Your Kids" Need to "Believe
>
> Did he ever rape children, murder one of their parents, kidnap the
> other, and rob dozens of people? Your cult's leaders did that, and
> they were sent to prison for it. Remember?

So, does your silence mean "Yes, I remember?"

[Harry K]

Looks like I was right, 24hrs, no answer.

Harry K

[*Hemidactylus*]

What about these:

Pt1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svHQ4BQY__o

Pt2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QECq6M3nPew

[eridanus]

El mi�rcoles, 12 de septiembre de 2012 11:38:00 UTC+1, *Hemidactylus* escribi�:

they are for children? Too simplify?

eridanus

[Roger Shrubber]

pnyikos wrote:
> On Sep 10, 10:58 am, Craig Franck <craiglfra...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 9/10/2012 9:39 AM, pnyikos wrote:


>>> A hefty chunk of biology would be hopeless without
>>> biochemistry, but very little would be hopeless without evolution.

I heartily disagree.

>> Where did all the biodiversity come from?
>
> A very little part of biology, this. Take a look at almost any
> standard biology course. The first university semester for biology
> majors says ZILCH about these things. It is all organic/biochemistry
> and cell biology. The second semester says damn little. It isn't
> until you take an advanced course in comparative vertebrate anatomy
> that evolution plays a hefty role.

It's been a long time but I must disagree. The biology courses I
took had a heavy emphasis on evolution to tie everything together.
Otherwise, there is a disconnected jumble of facts. However,
given recent experiences with young biologists, it is possible
it is being taught without heavy reference to evolution.

The recent results of the ENCODE project are a case in point.
A disturbing number of PhDs have co-authored a set of papers
that have made superficially stupid claims about most of DNA
being functional rather than junk. This flies in the face of
what is legitimately known about how genomes evolve and the
mechanisms by which DNA is added to genomes. If anyone stops
and thinks about the data obtained in the ENCODE project, the
truth is obvious. That thinking has to include evolution. It
doesn't have to reach back a billion years, a few hundred
million will do, just within the radiation of vertebrates.
Apparently, some proportion of the ID advocates have no major
disagreement with fully naturalistic evolution in that time-scale.

So what is the problem? If you understand evolution, mechanisms
of mutation, molecular biochemistry and the experimental methods
used in the ENCODE project, it is obvious that the things they
measured and have erroneously labeled as "functional" in point
of fact have no significant biological function. Yet they did
declare junk to be functional. So why? I've been reading some
of the back and forth in the blogs the short answer is, they
don't bother to put in all together. Some ignore evolution.
Some ignore mechanisms of mutation. Some ignore know biochemistry.
NONE of the authors publishing in the ENCODE project even
try to address the whole ensemble in the light of evolution and
what we already know about the mechanistic behavior of genomes.

The pointed questions raised by the likes of Sean Eddy and
Larry Moran about the molecular fossils of broken transposable
elements that have since mutated (in a predictable manner)
are left unanswered in a manner that effectively shouts that
the questions have not been considered (despite the fact that
these criticisms have been around for a decade or more).

Why is this happening? Because we have been training students
to learn scattered incoherent facts and not required that they
think. We are not requiring that they collect things into a
cohesive whole. Evolution does that. Plate tectonics does
that. Cosmology does that.

And the failure is not primarily the students. It is the
departments have abandoned the big picture in favor of training
engineers who can play a bit part but are not required to
make it fit into a cohesive story that they are also encouraged
to challenge.

>> Obviously you can write astronomy textbooks with no reference to
>> the BB -- that's what they did prior to the theory being advanced
>> -- but they leave many basic questions a mystery.

> Take a look at a basic astronomy text. Cosmology is only a small part
> of it.

Then it fails to teach students to think and instead teaches them
to collect facts. That is not good.

>>> We live in an age of specialization. The old-fashioned naturalist,
>>> whom Nye is clumsily trying to emulate, is a dying breed.
>>
>> Somebody still has to look at the big picture.
>
> No argument there, but that's not the message Nye was huckstering.

Yes it was. Yes it is. And rather obviously so.

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:31:50 -0400, Harry K wrote
(in article
<61183258-515e-4422...@j2g2000pbg.googlegroups.com>):

> On Sep 11, 7:13ï¿œam, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>> On Sep 11, 3:08ï¿œam, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:35:10 -0400, Harry K wrote
>>> (in article
>>> <5eafdb6d-18cc-4fc4-aa59-1436a4cca...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>):
>>

>>>> On Sep 10, 7:58ï¿œpm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics ￜ ￜ ￜ -- standard disclaimer--

>>>>> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>>>>> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>>
>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>

>>>> OK, I'll ask. ï¿œJust where do they come from? ï¿œAnd and additional.

>>>> Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?
>>
>>>> Harry K
>>
>>> This should be good.
>>
>>> --
>>> email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
>>
>> I really don't think he will answer.
>>
>> Harry K
>
> Looks like I was right, 24hrs, no answer.
>
> Harry K
>

I have noticed that about Peter. He expects everyone else to reply to his
every post, but he has no obligation to reply to anyone else's posts.
Especially those posts which ask difficult questions.

The man's scum. I expect nothing better.

[Harry K]

On Sep 14, 5:42�am, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:31:50 -0400, Harry K wrote
> (in article

> <61183258-515e-4422-bec0-b2b355723...@j2g2000pbg.googlegroups.com>):
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sep 11, 7:13�am, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> >> On Sep 11, 3:08�am, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>
> >>> On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:35:10 -0400, Harry K wrote
> >>> (in article
> >>> <5eafdb6d-18cc-4fc4-aa59-1436a4cca...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>):
>

> >>>> On Sep 10, 7:58�pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> >>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics � � � -- standard disclaimer--

> >>>>> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
> >>>>> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>
> >>>>> Peter Nyikos
>

> >>>> OK, I'll ask. �Just where do they come from? �And and additional.

> >>>> Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?
>
> >>>> Harry K
>
> >>> This should be good.
>
> >>> --
> >>> email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
>
> >> I really don't think he will answer.
>
> >> Harry K
>
> > Looks like I was right, 24hrs, no answer.
>
> > Harry K
>
> I have noticed that about Peter. He expects everyone else to reply to his
> every post, but he has no obligation to reply to anyone else's posts.
> Especially those posts which ask difficult questions.
>
> The man's scum. I expect nothing better.
>
> --
> email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

For a guy that is so cockssure about his "theory" he is certainly
hesitant to defend it. I've asked the qeustion before and once got an
answer so wrapped in verbiage it is unintelligible.

Harry K

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 10:29:01 -0400, Harry K wrote
(in article
<05f20103-06c9-4d20...@t9g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>):

> On Sep 14, 5:42ï¿œam, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>> On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:31:50 -0400, Harry K wrote
>> (in article
>> <61183258-515e-4422-bec0-b2b355723...@j2g2000pbg.googlegroups.com>):
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

>>> On Sep 11, 7:13ï¿œam, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>>>> On Sep 11, 3:08ï¿œam, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>>
>>>>> On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:35:10 -0400, Harry K wrote
>>>>> (in article
>>>>> <5eafdb6d-18cc-4fc4-aa59-1436a4cca...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>):
>>

>>>>>> On Sep 10, 7:58ï¿œpm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>>>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics ￜ ￜ ￜ -- standard disclaimer--

>>>>>>> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>>>>>>> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>>
>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>

>>>>>> OK, I'll ask. ï¿œJust where do they come from? ï¿œAnd and additional.

>>>>>> Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?
>>
>>>>>> Harry K
>>
>>>>> This should be good.
>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
>>
>>>> I really don't think he will answer.
>>
>>>> Harry K
>>
>>> Looks like I was right, 24hrs, no answer.
>>
>>> Harry K
>>
>> I have noticed that about Peter. He expects everyone else to reply to his
>> every post, but he has no obligation to reply to anyone else's posts.
>> Especially those posts which ask difficult questions.
>>
>> The man's scum. I expect nothing better.
>>
>> --
>> email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
>
> For a guy that is so cockssure about his "theory" he is certainly
> hesitant to defend it. I've asked the qeustion before and once got an
> answer so wrapped in verbiage it is unintelligible.

That is also a Peter trait. He yaps on and on and on about total
irrelevancies and never gets within a lightyear of the point and then says
that he's answered the question and acts all butt-hurt when it's pointed out
that he didn't do any such thing. He's been doing that kind of crap for
_years_. Watching him in action was how and why I formed my opinion of his
character, or rather lack thereof.

[pnyikos]

My hypothesis says that they arose on their home planet through long
evolution beginning with abiogenesis.

You see, I do believe that all life in our universe, wherever it
appears, comes ultimately from abiogenesis, but also that we are more
likely to have arisen due to seeding of our planet with microorganisms
by an intelligent species ca. 4 billion years ago.

A few hints as to why I think that way are given below.

>�And and additional.

> Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?

We are the first species here capable of seeding other planets using
space probes. A million years from now, if we ARE the first species
in our galaxy to arise by abiogenesis, I believe many of our
descendants scattered through the solar system (and just possibly in a
few nearby planetary systems) will point towards earth proudly and
say,

"That is where the panspermists came from, and they've seeded
thousands of planets within a thousand light years of here."

And if intelligent species arise via billions of years of evolution
from one or more of these seedings, their members may well be asking
the same questions you are.

And, like almost everyone else in this newsgroup but me, the majority
may well conclude that there is no evidence that they arose as a
result of panspermia, and that their equivalent of Ockham's Razor
therefore favors abiogenesis having taken place on their planet.

> Harry K.

What I've given you just now, Harry, is a little exercise leading up
to what Crick and Orgel called

"the theorem of detailed cosmic reversibility:
if we are capable of infecting
an *as yet* lifeless extrasolar planet, then,
given that the time was available, another
technological society might well have
infected our planet when it was still lifeless."
--"Directed Panspermia", by Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel,
Icarus 19 (1973) 341-346
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/SCBCCP.pdf

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

[pnyikos]

That's because I am very busy on other threads, especially one I began
on the benchmarks of evolution from prebiotic soup to *Homo
sapiens." [Also, because I have a family and a teaching job and have
been racing to meet a deadline all week having nothing to do with
Usenet.]

My "benchmarks" thread has been so active that one of the
participants, Nashton, who is ordinarily quite nice to me, reacted the
same way you did when I hadn't answered a post of his in five days.
The other participants on that thread (and on a few other threads as
well) kept me too busy.

What I did not mention on that thread, lest it get completely
sidetracked onto directed panspermia, is that I think the evolution
from prebiotic soup to the first prokaryotes took place on another
planetary system. It's only after benchmark 1 (prokaryotes, which I
hypothesize to have been sent here from that other system) that I
think earth evolution took over.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Sep 13, 9:17锟絘m, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrubb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> pnyikos wrote:
> > On Sep 10, 10:58 am, Craig Franck <craiglfra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 9/10/2012 9:39 AM, pnyikos wrote:
> >>> A hefty chunk of biology would be hopeless without
> >>> biochemistry, but very little would be hopeless without evolution.
>
> I heartily disagree.
>
> >> Where did all the biodiversity come from?
>

> > A very little part of biology, this. 锟絋ake a look at almost any
> > standard biology course. 锟絋he first university semester for biology
> > majors says ZILCH about these things. 锟絀t is all organic/biochemistry
> > and cell biology. 锟絋he second semester says damn little. 锟絀t isn't

> > until you take an advanced course in comparative vertebrate anatomy
> > that evolution plays a hefty role.
>
> It's been a long time but I must disagree. The biology courses I
> took had a heavy emphasis on evolution to tie everything together.
> Otherwise, there is a disconnected jumble of facts. However,
> given recent experiences with young biologists, it is possible
> it is being taught without heavy reference to evolution.

In my case, in 1967-8 the biology department was so heavily pre-med
oriented, we got only tiny driblets of evolution, and huge doses of
rote memorization. And this wasn't even in the usual freshman biology
sequence--it was in general zoology, the next level.

At the University of South Carolina the situation is even worse. My
third daughter, who has inherited my love of paleontology, was almost
turned off to biology in her first course. They were tested on such
minutiae as to which position on which carbon atom was part of the
link when a molecule of glucose and a molecule of fructose joined to
form a molecule of sucrose. *Entzezlich!*

> The recent results of the ENCODE project are a case in point.
> A disturbing number of PhDs have co-authored a set of papers
> that have made superficially stupid claims about most of DNA
> being functional rather than junk. This flies in the face of
> what is legitimately known about how genomes evolve and the
> mechanisms by which DNA is added to genomes.

Why? Don't most birds have very little junk DNA?

>If anyone stops
> and thinks about the data obtained in the ENCODE project, the
> truth is obvious. That thinking has to include evolution. It
> doesn't have to reach back a billion years, a few hundred
> million will do, just within the radiation of vertebrates.
> Apparently, some proportion of the ID advocates have no major
> disagreement with fully naturalistic evolution in that time-scale.
>
> So what is the problem? If you understand evolution, mechanisms
> of mutation, molecular biochemistry and the experimental methods
> used in the ENCODE project, it is obvious that the things they
> measured and have erroneously labeled as "functional" in point
> of fact have no significant biological function.

I understand all of the above except that I don't know about their
experimental methods. Can you point me to some good websites?

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Sep 14, 8:42�am, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:31:50 -0400, Harry K wrote
> (in article

> <61183258-515e-4422-bec0-b2b355723...@j2g2000pbg.googlegroups.com>):
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sep 11, 7:13�am, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> >> On Sep 11, 3:08�am, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>
> >>> On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:35:10 -0400, Harry K wrote
> >>> (in article
> >>> <5eafdb6d-18cc-4fc4-aa59-1436a4cca...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>):
>

> >>>> On Sep 10, 7:58�pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> >>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics � � � -- standard disclaimer--

> >>>>> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
> >>>>> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>
> >>>>> Peter Nyikos
>

> >>>> OK, I'll ask. �Just where do they come from? �And and additional.

> >>>> Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?
>
> >>>> Harry K
>
> >>> This should be good.
>
> >>> --
> >>> email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
>
> >> I really don't think he will answer.
>
> >> Harry K
>
> > Looks like I was right, 24hrs, no answer.
>
> > Harry K
>
> I have noticed that about Peter. He expects everyone else to reply to his
> every post,

Liar.

> but he has no obligation to reply to anyone else's posts.
> Especially those posts which ask difficult questions.

The questions were no-brainers, and I think you know that, since you
have dogged my steps all through the Drake equation expansion thread.

That thread and a parallel thread in "garbage time" [a basketball
expression] all last week, and you and Gans and jillery are mostly
responsible for that. As a result, I haven't looked at either one all
this week. I've had more than enough to keep me busy elsewhere.

Gans is nowhere near as relentlessly garbage-spewing as you are, but
even he has done his share. He alleged that he wanted to discuss
physics with me, and instead I got:


1. A snow job about how panspermists are unlikely to hit their
targets because planetary orbits are "chaotic".


2. A snow job about how the solar wind would blow a spaceship bigger
than the Saturn V off course.


3. A comment that I suspect was an attempt at a snow job about
Project Daedalus, but could have been due to ignorance about both it
and Project Orion, even though I had specifically told him to google
Project Daedalus earlier and he seemed to have gone ahead and done so:


"Uncontrolled fusion is a bomb, a very very deadly bomb.
I doubt such a reaction could power a rocket."


4. Trolling about how he couldn't understand how microbes could build
a spaceship.


5. A dumb question about where the methane on the early earth could
have come from.


6. A dumb question about how cyanobacteria could have developed the
Krebs Citric Cycle, as though he didn't believe it could have evolved.

> The man's scum. I expect nothing better.

I believe you've seen enough to expect something along the lines of
what I wrote to Harry K tonight, but you are a pathological liar and
nobody should expect you to behave any differently than you do here.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

Cocksure? No. I just favor it over "Mother Earth did it".

O'Shea, on the other hand, seems cocksure that his massive campaign of
defamation against me will turn many against me, and I wonder how
strongly he has swayed you.

> he is certainly
> hesitant to defend it. �I've asked the qeustion before and once got an
> answer so wrapped in verbiage it is unintelligible.
>

> Harry K-

Is the answer I gave tonight you easier to understand?

[pnyikos]

I see O'Shea's massive campaign of deceit against me keeps bearing
fruit in the most unlikely places. It even seems to have caused you
to ignore what I wrote to Rolf, about me having repeatedly answered
his question and him never having acknowledged the answer.

And people like Hemidactylus wonder why I repeatedly respond to
O'Shea "yanking my chain" by unleashing a never-ending torrent of
libel accusing me of being "the most dishonest creationist in
talk.origins" when I am neither dishonest nor a creationist.

Above you see a different side of his nefarious self: his mastery of
innuendo.

And he seems to have fooled you with it.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

*Groan* a pair of videos which, unlike the video Kalkidas linked for
us, have no transcript available underneath.

I'll listen to them some time in the next four days, but that's all I
can promise at this point. It's time to hit the sack, and I don't
post to Usenet on weekends except in extraordinary situations, like
the death of "el cid".

When that was announced, I actually posted on a *Sunday*, which is
almost unheard of since I returned to Usenet in 2008 after a seven
year absence.

Peter Nyikos

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 22:44:25 -0400, pnyikos wrote
(in article
<abae141d-2d0a-4a4a...@u19g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>):

> On Sep 14, 8:42ï¿œam, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>> On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:31:50 -0400, Harry K wrote
>> (in article
>> <61183258-515e-4422-bec0-b2b355723...@j2g2000pbg.googlegroups.com>):
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

>>> On Sep 11, 7:13ï¿œam, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>>>> On Sep 11, 3:08ï¿œam, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>>
>>>>> On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:35:10 -0400, Harry K wrote
>>>>> (in article
>>>>> <5eafdb6d-18cc-4fc4-aa59-1436a4cca...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>):
>>

>>>>>> On Sep 10, 7:58ï¿œpm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>>>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics ￜ ￜ ￜ -- standard disclaimer--

>>>>>>> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>>>>>>> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>>
>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>

>>>>>> OK, I'll ask. ï¿œJust where do they come from? ï¿œAnd and additional.

>>>>>> Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?
>>
>>>>>> Harry K
>>
>>>>> This should be good.
>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
>>
>>>> I really don't think he will answer.
>>
>>>> Harry K
>>
>>> Looks like I was right, 24hrs, no answer.
>>
>>> Harry K
>>
>> I have noticed that about Peter. He expects everyone else to reply to his
>> every post,
>
> Liar.

Nope. You just took me to task for not replying to you. You've _repeatly_
taken _many_ people to task for not replying to you, over and over and over
again over a period of _years_. Others have noticed this and have commented
on it.

>
>> but he has no obligation to reply to anyone else's posts.
>> Especially those posts which ask difficult questions.
>
> The questions were no-brainers, and I think you know that, since you
> have dogged my steps all through the Drake equation expansion thread.

So why didn't you reply?

>
> That thread and a parallel thread in "garbage time" [a basketball
> expression] all last week, and you and Gans and jillery are mostly
> responsible for that. As a result, I haven't looked at either one all
> this week. I've had more than enough to keep me busy elsewhere.
>
> Gans is nowhere near as relentlessly garbage-spewing as you are, but
> even he has done his share. He alleged that he wanted to discuss
> physics with me, and instead I got:
>
>
> 1. A snow job about how panspermists are unlikely to hit their
> targets because planetary orbits are "chaotic".

That's not quite the point. The orbits of the planets themselves are not
chaotic, but when the motion of the stars about which those planets orbit is
taken into consideration, the targeting problem is non-trivial. And you know
it.

>
>
> 2. A snow job about how the solar wind would blow a spaceship bigger
> than the Saturn V off course.

I'm pretty sure I didn't see that one.

>
>
> 3. A comment that I suspect was an attempt at a snow job about
> Project Daedalus, but could have been due to ignorance about both it
> and Project Orion, even though I had specifically told him to google
> Project Daedalus earlier and he seemed to have gone ahead and done so:
>
>
> "Uncontrolled fusion is a bomb, a very very deadly bomb.
> I doubt such a reaction could power a rocket."

Uncontrolled fusion _would_ be a problem. The magic tech required by Daedalus
would avoid _uncontrolled_ fusion. The problem is that it doesn't avoid magic
tech. The last time I pointed this out you ran away.

>
>
> 4. Trolling about how he couldn't understand how microbes could build
> a spaceship.

And again you demonstrate your utter and complete lack of a sense of humor.

>
>
> 5. A dumb question about where the methane on the early earth could
> have come from.

If it was such a dumb question, why couldn't you answer it?

>
>
> 6. A dumb question about how cyanobacteria could have developed the
> Krebs Citric Cycle, as though he didn't believe it could have evolved.

That's not how it was phrased.

>
>> The man's scum. I expect nothing better.
>
> I believe you've seen enough to expect something along the lines of
> what I wrote to Harry K tonight,

Oh, I expect you to dump massive amounts of words all over the place. Why, I
believe that I said as much. Quote: "That is also a Peter trait. He yaps on

and on and on about total irrelevancies and never gets within a lightyear of
the point and then says that he's answered the question and acts all
butt-hurt when it's pointed out that he didn't do any such thing. He's been
doing that kind of crap for _years_. Watching him in action was how and why I

formed my opinion of his character, or rather lack thereof." As usual, you
didn't reply to that post. Gee. I wonder why.

> but you are a pathological liar

Nope.

> and
> nobody should expect you to behave any differently than you do here.
>
> Peter Nyikos

who is the single most dishonest creationist currently posting on t.o.

[Harry K]

> � Icarus 19 (1973) 341-346http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/SCBCCP.pdf

>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics � � � -- standard disclaimer--

> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
> nyikos @ math.sc.edu

Thank you. Clearly explained. Really doesn't answer the "why not
from here" question though.

As you _do_ believe in abiogenesis without supernatural assistance,
life arising here is just as likely as
elsewhere and there is no need for panspermia. It appears to be just
a hobby horse you are riding.

Harry K





Harry K

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 22:48:51 -0400, pnyikos wrote
(in article
<42786606-1be3-4693...@i14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>):

> On Sep 11, 10:13ï¿œam, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>> On Sep 11, 3:08ï¿œam, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:35:10 -0400, Harry K wrote
>>> (in article
>>> <5eafdb6d-18cc-4fc4-aa59-1436a4cca...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>):
>>

>>>> On Sep 10, 7:58ï¿œpm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics ￜ ￜ ￜ -- standard disclaimer--

>>>>> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>>>>> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>>
>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>

>>>> OK, I'll ask. ï¿œJust where do they come from? ï¿œAnd and additional.

>>>> Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?
>>
>>>> Harry K
>>
>>> This should be good.
>>
>>> --
>>> email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
>>
>> I really don't think he will answer.
>>
>> Harry K
>
> I see O'Shea's massive campaign of deceit

I tell the truth. It hurts you. I find this amusing.

> against me keeps bearing
> fruit in the most unlikely places. It even seems to have caused you
> to ignore what I wrote to Rolf, about me having repeatedly answered
> his question and him never having acknowledged the answer.
>
> And people like Hemidactylus wonder why I repeatedly respond to
> O'Shea "yanking my chain" by unleashing a never-ending torrent of
> libel accusing me of being "the most dishonest creationist in
> talk.origins" when I am neither dishonest nor a creationist.

You're both.

>
> Above you see a different side of his nefarious self: his mastery of
> innuendo.

Son, I said straight out what my opinion was.

>
> And he seems to have fooled you with it.

Gee. I wasn't trying to fool anyone, and I don't think that I succeeded.

>
> Peter Nyikos
who is the single most dishonest creationist currently posting on t.o... and
the post I'm replying to is yet more evidence. Hint: 'innuendo'? Really? From
the single line "This should be good."? You're losing it, Peter.

[Roger Shrubber]

pnyikos wrote:

> On Sep 13, 9:17 am, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrubb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> pnyikos wrote:
>>> On Sep 10, 10:58 am, Craig Franck <craiglfra...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 9/10/2012 9:39 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>>>>> A hefty chunk of biology would be hopeless without
>>>>> biochemistry, but very little would be hopeless without evolution.
>>
>> I heartily disagree.
>>
>>>> Where did all the biodiversity come from?
>>

>>> A very little part of biology, this. Take a look at almost any
>>> standard biology course. The first university semester for biology
>>> majors says ZILCH about these things. It is all organic/biochemistry
>>> and cell biology. The second semester says damn little. It isn't

>>> until you take an advanced course in comparative vertebrate anatomy
>>> that evolution plays a hefty role.
>>
>> It's been a long time but I must disagree. The biology courses I
>> took had a heavy emphasis on evolution to tie everything together.
>> Otherwise, there is a disconnected jumble of facts. However,
>> given recent experiences with young biologists, it is possible
>> it is being taught without heavy reference to evolution.
>
> In my case, in 1967-8 the biology department was so heavily pre-med
> oriented, we got only tiny driblets of evolution, and huge doses of
> rote memorization. And this wasn't even in the usual freshman biology
> sequence--it was in general zoology, the next level.
>
> At the University of South Carolina the situation is even worse. My
> third daughter, who has inherited my love of paleontology, was almost
> turned off to biology in her first course. They were tested on such
> minutiae as to which position on which carbon atom was part of the
> link when a molecule of glucose and a molecule of fructose joined to
> form a molecule of sucrose. *Entzezlich!*

That's elementary and important. One ought to know something
of the nature of glucose as part of the very basis of nearly
universal metabolism and knowing that from an understanding
of chemistry makes the answer easy. Metabolism and catabolism
are really simple chemistry if you have a basic understanding
chemistry. If you skip the prerequisites or didn't really get
it, it might seem like minutiae.

>> The recent results of the ENCODE project are a case in point.
>> A disturbing number of PhDs have co-authored a set of papers
>> that have made superficially stupid claims about most of DNA
>> being functional rather than junk. This flies in the face of
>> what is legitimately known about how genomes evolve and the
>> mechanisms by which DNA is added to genomes.

> Why? Don't most birds have very little junk DNA?

The amount of junk DNA varies radically in different species
but the point is that we know mechanisms by which genomes
can acquire junk, not that all genomes need to. Those mechanisms
leave behind molecular fossils.

>> If anyone stops
>> and thinks about the data obtained in the ENCODE project, the
>> truth is obvious. That thinking has to include evolution. It
>> doesn't have to reach back a billion years, a few hundred
>> million will do, just within the radiation of vertebrates.
>> Apparently, some proportion of the ID advocates have no major
>> disagreement with fully naturalistic evolution in that time-scale.
>>
>> So what is the problem? If you understand evolution, mechanisms
>> of mutation, molecular biochemistry and the experimental methods
>> used in the ENCODE project, it is obvious that the things they
>> measured and have erroneously labeled as "functional" in point
>> of fact have no significant biological function.

> I understand all of the above except that I don't know about their
> experimental methods. Can you point me to some good websites?

All you need to know is that they measure what DNA is translated,
what DNA is bound by proteins, and what DNA is methylated. They
leap from said action on DNA to the label that said DNA is "functional"
and therefore important and not junk. It's not just bad inference,
it is inference that ignores prior answers that are better.

[jillery]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 23:32:11 -0400, "J.J. O'Shea"
<try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote:

>On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 22:44:25 -0400, pnyikos wrote
>(in article
><abae141d-2d0a-4a4a...@u19g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>):
>

>> On Sep 14, 8:42�am, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:31:50 -0400, Harry K wrote
>>> (in article
>>> <61183258-515e-4422-bec0-b2b355723...@j2g2000pbg.googlegroups.com>):
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>

>>>> On Sep 11, 7:13�am, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>>>>> On Sep 11, 3:08�am, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:35:10 -0400, Harry K wrote
>>>>>> (in article
>>>>>> <5eafdb6d-18cc-4fc4-aa59-1436a4cca...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>):
>>>

>>>>>>> On Sep 10, 7:58�pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>>>>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics � � � -- standard disclaimer--

>>>>>>>> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
>>>>>>>> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>>>
>>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>

>>>>>>> OK, I'll ask. �Just where do they come from? �And and additional.

>>>>>>> Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?
>>>
>>>>>>> Harry K
>>>
>>>>>> This should be good.
>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
>>>
>>>>> I really don't think he will answer.
>>>
>>>>> Harry K
>>>
>>>> Looks like I was right, 24hrs, no answer.
>>>
>>>> Harry K
>>>
>>> I have noticed that about Peter. He expects everyone else to reply to his
>>> every post,
>>
>> Liar.
>
>Nope. You just took me to task for not replying to you. You've _repeatly_
>taken _many_ people to task for not replying to you, over and over and over
>again over a period of _years_. Others have noticed this and have commented
>on it.

It's one of his lesser problems actually. Which isn't to say that it
isn't a real problem, but there are so many others to which it pales
in comparison.

>>> but he has no obligation to reply to anyone else's posts.
>>> Especially those posts which ask difficult questions.
>>
>> The questions were no-brainers, and I think you know that, since you
>> have dogged my steps all through the Drake equation expansion thread.
>
>So why didn't you reply?

"Self-evident" is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Except when it's
the first refuge.

>> That thread and a parallel thread in "garbage time" [a basketball
>> expression] all last week, and you and Gans and jillery are mostly
>> responsible for that. As a result, I haven't looked at either one all
>> this week. I've had more than enough to keep me busy elsewhere.
>>
>> Gans is nowhere near as relentlessly garbage-spewing as you are, but
>> even he has done his share. He alleged that he wanted to discuss
>> physics with me, and instead I got:
>>
>>
>> 1. A snow job about how panspermists are unlikely to hit their
>> targets because planetary orbits are "chaotic".
>
>That's not quite the point. The orbits of the planets themselves are not
>chaotic, but when the motion of the stars about which those planets orbit is
>taken into consideration, the targeting problem is non-trivial. And you know
>it.

The Apollo missions required several course corrections along the way
to the Moon, and those were just two-day trips. To expect a star
ship to travel decades (hundreds? thousands?) of years to another
solar system without equivalent adjustments is relying on the
magic-tech fairies overmuch.

>> 2. A snow job about how the solar wind would blow a spaceship bigger
>> than the Saturn V off course.
>
>I'm pretty sure I didn't see that one.

Make that two of us.

>> 3. A comment that I suspect was an attempt at a snow job about
>> Project Daedalus, but could have been due to ignorance about both it
>> and Project Orion, even though I had specifically told him to google
>> Project Daedalus earlier and he seemed to have gone ahead and done so:
>>
>>
>> "Uncontrolled fusion is a bomb, a very very deadly bomb.
>> I doubt such a reaction could power a rocket."
>
>Uncontrolled fusion _would_ be a problem. The magic tech required by Daedalus
>would avoid _uncontrolled_ fusion. The problem is that it doesn't avoid magic
>tech. The last time I pointed this out you ran away.
>
>>
>>
>> 4. Trolling about how he couldn't understand how microbes could build
>> a spaceship.
>
>And again you demonstrate your utter and complete lack of a sense of humor.
>
>>
>>
>> 5. A dumb question about where the methane on the early earth could
>> have come from.
>
>If it was such a dumb question, why couldn't you answer it?
>
>>
>>
>> 6. A dumb question about how cyanobacteria could have developed the
>> Krebs Citric Cycle, as though he didn't believe it could have evolved.
>
>That's not how it was phrased.

And he knows that also. The point of this "dumb question" is to
illustrate his expressed acceptance of a "Mother Earth" capable of the
necessary evolution but much less capable of abiogenesis.

>>> The man's scum. I expect nothing better.
>>
>> I believe you've seen enough to expect something along the lines of
>> what I wrote to Harry K tonight,
>
>Oh, I expect you to dump massive amounts of words all over the place. Why, I
>believe that I said as much. Quote: "That is also a Peter trait. He yaps on
>and on and on about total irrelevancies and never gets within a lightyear of
>the point and then says that he's answered the question and acts all
>butt-hurt when it's pointed out that he didn't do any such thing. He's been
>doing that kind of crap for _years_. Watching him in action was how and why I
>formed my opinion of his character, or rather lack thereof." As usual, you
>didn't reply to that post. Gee. I wonder why.

I'm guessing he was busy complaining about people not replying to his
posts.

>> but you are a pathological liar
>
>Nope.

Is he qualified to judge, except by his own example?

>> and
>> nobody should expect you to behave any differently than you do here.
>>
>> Peter Nyikos
>who is the single most dishonest creationist currently posting on t.o.

You're making a strong case.

[Paul J Gans]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

[major snip]

>Gans is nowhere near as relentlessly garbage-spewing as you are, but
>even he has done his share. He alleged that he wanted to discuss
>physics with me, and instead I got:

>1. A snow job about how panspermists are unlikely to hit their
>targets because planetary orbits are "chaotic".

You think this isn't a physics question? You don't believe
planetary orbits are chaotic? Or what? I did notice that
you offered nothing in return for my statement.

>2. A snow job about how the solar wind would blow a spaceship bigger
>than the Saturn V off course.

I don't believe I ever said that. I could be wrong, in which
case I shall apologize. But I don't think I ever referenced
a Saturn V.

>3. A comment that I suspect was an attempt at a snow job about
>Project Daedalus, but could have been due to ignorance about both it
>and Project Orion, even though I had specifically told him to google
>Project Daedalus earlier and he seemed to have gone ahead and done so:
> "Uncontrolled fusion is a bomb, a very very deadly bomb.
> I doubt such a reaction could power a rocket."

Others handled the response to you on this. The Project Daedalus
stuff was all *very* speculative. There are serious doubts that
it would work at all.

>4. Trolling about how he couldn't understand how microbes could build
>a spaceship.

You call it trolling, but you kept going on about microbes on some
other planet so I assumed that you had microbes as the builders.
As I've pointed out, over and over again, you'd rather insult
people than restate your original premiss

>5. A dumb question about where the methane on the early earth could
>have come from.

It is a good question. Do you have an answer? That there is
methane on Jovian and other satellites means nothing. Physical
conditions are rather different here.

>6. A dumb question about how cyanobacteria could have developed the
>Krebs Citric Cycle, as though he didn't believe it could have evolved.

Sorry, I never said that. I never raised any question about the
Krebs cycle.

So let's see, of the six "statements", two were not made by me,
and none of the other four elicited any meaningful response from
you.

I'd think that a rather poor record, wouldn't you?

I have never found it possible to have a real discussion with you.
You either insist that I am off-topic, asking silly questions,
or trying snow jobs.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[Paul J Gans]

J.J. O'Shea <try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote:

>> Gans is nowhere near as relentlessly garbage-spewing as you are, but
>> even he has done his share. He alleged that he wanted to discuss
>> physics with me, and instead I got:
>>
>>
>> 1. A snow job about how panspermists are unlikely to hit their
>> targets because planetary orbits are "chaotic".

>That's not quite the point. The orbits of the planets themselves are not
>chaotic, but when the motion of the stars about which those planets orbit is
>taken into consideration, the targeting problem is non-trivial. And you know
>it.

As I'm sure you know, two bodies orbiting each other are stable.
Any more that two and the result is chaotic. What matters is
the time scale for that chaos. It can be a matter of thousands
of years for some small planets in the presence of major perturbers,
or a matter of millions for more stable situations.

And I also know that you must be aware of some current theories
that have Jupiter (and possible Saturn) originating much further
in toward the sun and migrating outward during the first billion
or so years of solar system existance.

I don't know if that's right or not, backwards integration
of the equations of motion are problematic, especially since
other perturbing bodies might have come and gone in the interim.
But the first billion years is exactly the time period Peter wants
to have the panspermists seed the earth.

Of course my original point was that there were and are serious
problems with launching a ship toward a planet 80 light years
away with no internal guidance system. It is much easier if
you have one. Of course, as you've pointed out, that means
about a thousand years of error-free operation for such a system.

Unless you have built a colony ship with "people" to keep things
fixed, in which case why send microbes?

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 16:16:31 -0400, Paul J Gans wrote
(in article <k32nmv$e7l$2...@reader1.panix.com>):

> J.J. O'Shea <try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>
>>> Gans is nowhere near as relentlessly garbage-spewing as you are, but
>>> even he has done his share. He alleged that he wanted to discuss
>>> physics with me, and instead I got:
>>>
>>>
>>> 1. A snow job about how panspermists are unlikely to hit their
>>> targets because planetary orbits are "chaotic".
>
>> That's not quite the point. The orbits of the planets themselves are not
>> chaotic, but when the motion of the stars about which those planets orbit
>> is
>> taken into consideration, the targeting problem is non-trivial. And you
>> know
>> it.
>
> As I'm sure you know, two bodies orbiting each other are stable.
> Any more that two and the result is chaotic. What matters is
> the time scale for that chaos. It can be a matter of thousands
> of years for some small planets in the presence of major perturbers,
> or a matter of millions for more stable situations.

The Three Body Problem is notorious. (Peter, look up Lagrangian Points. And
Gerald K. O'Neill.) No-one has solved the equations for the Four Body Problem
or for any number of bodies beyond three. There are approximations for the
motion of n-body systems, were n is greater than three, but only
approximations.

Last I looked there were somewhat more than three bodies in this solar
system, and considerably more than three bodies in the galaxy.

>
> And I also know that you must be aware of some current theories
> that have Jupiter (and possible Saturn) originating much further
> in toward the sun and migrating outward during the first billion
> or so years of solar system existance.
>
> I don't know if that's right or not, backwards integration
> of the equations of motion are problematic, especially since
> other perturbing bodies might have come and gone in the interim.
> But the first billion years is exactly the time period Peter wants
> to have the panspermists seed the earth.

There are all kinds of problems with long-distance interstellar travel, not
least the basic navigation problem. You're moving in three dimensions. So are
the stars or whatever that you're using as navigation aids. Navigating during
the galaxy's youth would have been quite interesting, as many of the brighter
stars simply would not have been around then. Nor would equivalent bright
stars have been available, as the bright stars currently available depend on
'pre-digested' elements which would have been created by the early stars.
This presents a bit of a problem for our LGMs from Rigel. (Which wouldn't be
around at the time, either, so they'd have to be from some other star...)

>
> Of course my original point was that there were and are serious
> problems with launching a ship toward a planet 80 light years
> away with no internal guidance system. It is much easier if
> you have one. Of course, as you've pointed out, that means
> about a thousand years of error-free operation for such a system.

The whole idea of sending ships out on multiple century-long voyages is
simply fantasy island. Heinlein, Aldiss, and Niven are merely the most
prominent SF authors to have had considerable fun ripping the whole idea to
shreds... and they did it a _long_ time before Crick et al thought up
directed panspermia. (Which, as I've pointed out before, has been reduced to
a _Star Trek_ meme. And a badly-executed one at that.)

>
> Unless you have built a colony ship with "people" to keep things
> fixed, in which case why send microbes?

Heinlein and Aldiss, among others, thought of sending ships with people on
the long runs. There were Unexpected Results. It was precisely because of
those Unexpected Results that Niven, and others, tried unmanned ships. Things
got worse.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <k32nmv$e7l$2...@reader1.panix.com>,

Have you considered the problems with building an environment that
could support people for so long? I hear that the proposals for a
manned[1] Mars mission plan on sending the food along, we are not even
thinking for a closed ecology.

Even at 0.1 light speed that's 800 years plus acceleration and
deceleration time. At that length of time I'd rather trust machines.
At a less unrealistic 0.01 lights 8K years. The great early
civilizations with their monumental architecture were more recent.

[1] womanned? SMBC
<http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2036> has suggested
a gay polygamous crew, but a lesbian polygamous crew would seem like a
better idea. We could pay for it with the TV rights alone.

And all the world would be singing "I Wish Stacy's Mom Had Jessie's
Girl." (<http://www.xkcd.com/575/>)

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <k32n5h$e7l$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

> You call it trolling, but you kept going on about microbes on some
> other planet so I assumed that you had microbes as the builders.
> As I've pointed out, over and over again, you'd rather insult
> people than restate your original premiss

Aren't we still microbes?

[Paul J Gans]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <k32n5h$e7l$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

>> You call it trolling, but you kept going on about microbes on some
>> other planet so I assumed that you had microbes as the builders.
>> As I've pointed out, over and over again, you'd rather insult
>> people than restate your original premiss

>Aren't we still microbes?

Most of MY cells are!

[jillery]

On Sun, 16 Sep 2012 00:18:54 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

<gan...@panix.com> wrote:

>Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>>In article <k32n5h$e7l$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>> Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>> You call it trolling, but you kept going on about microbes on some
>>> other planet so I assumed that you had microbes as the builders.
>>> As I've pointed out, over and over again, you'd rather insult
>>> people than restate your original premiss
>
>>Aren't we still microbes?
>
>Most of MY cells are!

Which ones aren't?

[Paul J Gans]

I'm sorry, but that is classified information. And I don't
need to know. All I know is kill them all off and I'm toast.

[*Hemidactylus*]

It's been seven days...

[*Hemidactylus*]

I'm no mathematician, but 28 minus 14 equals 14 in my humble estimation.
I realize you must be busy formulating a reply to Ray on the
falsification controversy, so I'm willing to cut a little slack, but
still...

[Ron O]

> still...- Hide quoted text -
>

This was such a weird response to yourself that I went up to see what
it was about. It gave me a laugh. 14 days? It was around 3 months
ago that Nyikos told you that he was soon going to deliver his two
promised knock downs that he had intially claimed were coming around a
year ago. This is the guy that claims that he never lies on the
internet. What do you expect?

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

Perhaps he meant a variation of Biblical days, hopefully somewhat
shorter than the 1000-year expansion the Biblical Peter described.

[*Hemidactylus*]

I want Peter to acknowledge he was wrong to assent to others bashing
Nye, based upon actual teaching I found on YouTube. Peter is an
educator, though at a far more advanced level than Nye is trying to
approach. I would hope Peter could appreciate that Nye is an effective
teacher who tries to be entertaining in his approach, given his targeted
demographic. Maybe after reviewing the videos I searched for and
provided, Peter realizes Nye ain't that bad. Kinda silly yes, but he
could get his point across and inspire someone to learn more later in
life. Peter must stoop to similar feats right after Spring Break at his
campus, like bringing donuts to explain topology to the hopelessly
hungover.

I realize you two have issues, but maybe learn equanimity as an antidote
to enmity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equanimity#Buddhism

Or take an elixir for the mutual toxicity that poisons both of you and
by consequence the rest of us.

[Ron O]

Shouldn't you practice what you preach? I don't recall that I've
posted to Nyikos since that stupid post he made to you around 3 months
ago, or at least around that time. He is into his current running
away act after getting caught lying his butt off. How many posts have
you made to a dishonest jerk like Nyikos in the past 3 months. You
know that he is a dishonest jerk and yet you keep trying. Who has
been practicing equanimity for the last 3 months? Nyikos is a
dishonest jerk, but I don't go out of my way to point that out, and
ill will? Most of the time I feel sorry for the guy. If I didn't,
you know for a fact that I could be on his case any number of times
for just being a jerk.

I don't doubt that there have been plenty of times where I could have
responded to the usual Nyikosian lies, but I really don't read very
many of the guys posts that he posts to other people, and it just
isn't worth responding to most of the claptrap. You can go back and
check out who initiates most of our exchanges. I don't mind setting
the liar straight, and it would seem that neither do you. I just
don't bother to do it for every lame thing that he does, just when he
makes it personal, and probably not even most of the time that he does
that. Just from the few posts to other posters that I do read from
the jerk, he can't keep from whining and lying about his past bogus
behavior, and I am sure that I have missed plenty of such bogus
posts. You have been the benefactor of such bogus whining several
times that I know of.

Wait until he starts defending himself from your claims by claiming
that he never lies on the internet, that a professor of mathematics
such as himself would never stoop to such bogus behavior, and claims
that you are the one doing the bogus junk, or has he already done that
to you?

Ron Okimoto

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Fri, 28 Sep 2012 06:20:04 -0400, Hemidactylus* wrote
(in article <YI2dncvPq-9J5PjN...@giganews.com>):

>> It's been seven days...
>>
> I'm no mathematician, but 28 minus 14 equals 14 in my humble estimation. I
> realize you must be busy formulating a reply to Ray on the falsification
> controversy, so I'm willing to cut a little slack, but still...

It's Peter. The Great One will reply to small fry like you (and me) when he
gets around to doing that little thing, and not one millisecond before.

[jillery]

With the Great One a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand
years are like a day.

[Will in New Haven]

On Aug 30, 12:38 pm, Mike Painter <md.pain...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On 8/29/2012 8:31 PM, Glenn wrote:> "Boikat" <boi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> >news:657c7aa9-04a8-4c61...@b8g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
> >> On Aug 29, 10:08 pm, prawnster <zweibro...@ymail.com> wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 7:58:43 PM UTC-7, UC wrote:
> >>>>> gimme dat dere bibah ya dumb mutha fuckah i make ya swallaw dauh damned
> > thing and shit out duh papah<<
>
> >>> So when did you first become racist against Southerners and/or blacks?
>
> >> What makes you think he wasn't to begin with?
>
> > In the Beginning?
>
> I've just started Howard Zinn's "Peoples History of The United States".
> He argues that racism  was deliberate and done by slave owners because
> of their fear of an uprising. They were afraid, and he presents evidence
> that supports his view that the slaves would join with poor white
> southerners and get rid of the upper class.

Just as the fundamentalists start with the rigid idea that the Bible
is the only source of truth, Zinn begins with Marx's ideas about
class. Then each bends any evidence to fit the rigid idea being
defended. Zinn has the advantage that the rigid idea he supports
_might_ have something going for it.


--
Will in New Haven

[Paul J Gans]

Will in New Haven <bill....@taylorandfrancis.com> wrote:

>On Aug 30, 12:38?pm, Mike Painter <md.pain...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> On 8/29/2012 8:31 PM, Glenn wrote:> "Boikat" <boi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>> >news:657c7aa9-04a8-4c61...@b8g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
>> >> On Aug 29, 10:08 pm, prawnster <zweibro...@ymail.com> wrote:
>> >>> On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 7:58:43 PM UTC-7, UC wrote:
>> >>>>> gimme dat dere bibah ya dumb mutha fuckah i make ya swallaw dauh damned
>> > thing and shit out duh papah<<
>>
>> >>> So when did you first become racist against Southerners and/or blacks?
>>
>> >> What makes you think he wasn't to begin with?
>>
>> > In the Beginning?
>>
>> I've just started Howard Zinn's "Peoples History of The United States".

>> He argues that racism ?was deliberate and done by slave owners because

>> of their fear of an uprising. They were afraid, and he presents evidence
>> that supports his view that the slaves would join with poor white
>> southerners and get rid of the upper class.

>Just as the fundamentalists start with the rigid idea that the Bible
>is the only source of truth, Zinn begins with Marx's ideas about
>class. Then each bends any evidence to fit the rigid idea being
>defended. Zinn has the advantage that the rigid idea he supports
>_might_ have something going for it.

He wasn't *that* bad. But he was biased. His work did push
a number of historians into considering Marxist ideas, not all
of which were dumb.

[Michael Siemon]

In article <k4aoba$m$4...@reader1.panix.com>,

Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

There is a substantial, and actually rather respectable, "school" of
Marxist historians. One of the stellar examples is Moses Finley, with
regard to ancient history. Marx may have got a lot of stuff wrong,
but he also got some very important points right, and those points
need to be part of the ongoing repertoire of historiographical critique.

[*Hemidactylus*]

There's always this:

http://www.amazon.com/Patriots-History-United-States-Columbuss/dp/1595230017

[Paul J Gans]

Yup. In fact Marx started "economic history". Prior to him, folks
wrote history with little regard for economics. Today it is a very
respectable field.

[James Beck]

On Mon, 1 Oct 2012 16:08:48 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

Nonsense. This is Adam Smith again, though one might argue that Thomas
Malthus was the first cliometrician. What Marx proposed was an
undefined set of stages of economic history. His work has since been
discredited in detail. It has become an irrelevancy with very little
remaining impact on modern economics.

[pnyikos]

CC: Harry, because this post has been long delayed due to my having
lost track of this thread temporarily.

On Sep 14, 11:37 pm, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 14, 7:02 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> > On Sep 10, 11:38 pm, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Sep 10, 7:58 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > > On Sep 10, 11:18 am, "Rolf" <rolf.aalb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > "Ray Martinez" <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> > > > >news:2abdb290-b656-4249...@oq8g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...
>
> > > > > > On Sep 9, 6:08 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
> > > > > >> On Aug 30, 12:03 am, deadrat <a...@b.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > >> > On 8/29/12 8:40 PM, Kalkidas wrote:
>
> > > > > >> > > "As anyone who follows the Internet debate over evolution probably

> > > > > >> > > already knows, BillNyethe Science Guy recently posted a viral

> > > > > >> > > YouTube
> > > > > >> > > video attacking those who he says "deny evolution." This is not the

> > > > > >> > > first timeNye, a popular educator and entertainer, has done this.

> > > > > >> > > But
> > > > > >> > > the media loveNye'sflame war, posting headlines like "BillNye
> > > > > >> > > Slams

> > > > > >> > > Creationism" (CNN) or "BillNye'The Science Guy' Hits Evolution

> > > > > >> > > Deniers" (ABC News). In a bizarre coincidence, the headlines competed
> > > > > >> > > with other Internet buzz over rumors (thankfully false) thatNyehad
> > > > > >> > > passed away.
>

> > > > > >> > >Nye'smost recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates the

> > > > > >> > > intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics. He tries
> > > > > >> > > to
> > > > > >> > > scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in society in order to
> > > > > >> > > justify taking away people's freedom to teach kids about challenges
> > > > > >> > > to
> > > > > >> > > evolution....."
>

> > > > > >> > >http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/bill_nye_the_in_1063641.html
>
> > > > > >> > Big surprise, the clip ofNyebears no relationship at all to the

> > My hypothesis says that they arose on their home planet through long
> > evolution beginning with abiogenesis.
>
> > You see, I do believe that all life in our universe, wherever it
> > appears, comes ultimately from abiogenesis, but also that we are more
> > likely to have arisen due to seeding of our planet with microorganisms
> > by an intelligent species ca. 4 billion years ago.
>
> > A few hints as to why I think that way are given below.

>
> > > And and additional.
> > > Given panspermists just why could they not have come from here?
>

> > We are the first species here capable of seeding other planets using
> > space probes. A million years from now, if we ARE the first species
> > in our galaxy to arise by abiogenesis, I believe many of our
> > descendants scattered through the solar system (and just possibly in a
> > few nearby planetary systems) will point towards earth proudly and
> > say,
>
> > "That is where the panspermists came from, and they've seeded
> > thousands of planets within a thousand light years of here."
>
> > And if intelligent species arise via billions of years of evolution
> > from one or more of these seedings, their members may well be asking
> > the same questions you are.
>
> > And, like almost everyone else in this newsgroup but me, the majority
> > may well conclude that there is no evidence that they arose as a
> > result of panspermia, and that their equivalent of Ockham's Razor
> > therefore favors abiogenesis having taken place on their planet.
>
> > > Harry K.
>
> > What I've given you just now, Harry, is a little exercise leading up
> > to what Crick and Orgel called
>
> > "the theorem of detailed cosmic reversibility:
> > if we are capable of infecting
> > an *as yet* lifeless extrasolar planet, then,
> > given that the time was available, another
> > technological society might well have
> > infected our planet when it was still lifeless."
> > --"Directed Panspermia", by Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel,
> > Icarus 19 (1973) 341-346http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/SCBCCP.pdf

>
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
> > nyikos @ math.sc.edu
>

> Thank you.  Clearly explained.  Really doesn't answer the "why not
> from here" question though.
>
> As you _do_ believe in abiogenesis without supernatural assistance,
> life arising here is just as likely as
>  elsewhere

not *equally* likely. There may be some differences in initial
conditions. It is now believed, for instance, that early earth had a
neutral atmosphere rather than the reducing one that gave Urey and
Miller their most promising results.

But my main reason can be succinctly stated by saying that I believe
that

(1) abiogenesis is a great rarity, expected to produce life evolving
to an intelligent species less than once in a galaxy and

(2) a species like ours, on becoming convinced of this, can be
expected at least a good fraction of the time, to undertake a massive
project for spreading life to lifeless worlds and

(3) consequently, the odds of any one planet with intelligent life on
it being the result of panspermia are greater than those of it being
due ultimately to homegrown abiogenesis.

[pnyikos]

On Sep 28, 6:24 am, *Hemidactylus* <ecpho...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 09/21/2012 01:32 PM, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 09/14/2012 11:04 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> >> On Sep 12, 6:38 am, *Hemidactylus* <ecpho...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>> On 09/10/2012 09:39 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>>> On Aug 29, 9:58 pm, prawnster <zweibro...@ymail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 6:43:43 PM UTC-7, Kalkidas wrote:

> >>>>>>>Nye'smost recent comments are noteworthy because he articulates

> >>>>>>> the intolerant position of many evolutionists towards skeptics.
> >>>>>>> He tries to scapegoat Darwin-skeptics for many problems in
> >>>>>>> society in order to justify taking away people's freedom to teach
> >>>>>>> kids about challenges to evolution....."<<
>

> >>>>> Poor BillNyethe Scientism Guy -- he just doesn't know when to

> >>>>> shut his room-temp IQ mouth.  I pwned him not long ago in this thread:
>
> >>>>>https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!searchin/talk.orig...
>
> >>>>> To wit:
>

> >>>>> "Wow.  It took Mr.Nyejust two paragraphs to contradict himself.  I'm

> >>>>> guessing, as he was speaking, this happened in less than 60 seconds.
>
> >>>>> "He starts off by noting the peculiar fact that the majority of
> >>>>> Americans don't buy evolution.  Then he asserts that America, or
> >>>>> perhaps Japan, is the most technologically advanced civilization on
> >>>>> Earth.  He also asserts that most technological innovation happens in
> >>>>> America.  Keep in mind: the most technologically advanced and

> >>>>> innovative society on Earth, perNye, is America, which he also just

> >>>>> got done noting doesn't, for the most part, buy into evolution.
>
> >>>> Where are the statistics to back that up?
>
> >>>>> "In paragraph two he asserts that this lack of faith in evolution will
> >>>>> somehow, via some magical process never elucidated nor described,
> >>>>> cause America to lose its edge in science.
>
> >>>> See my remarks in reply to Mike Painter, done a few minutes ago, to
> >>>> see an "equation" which Bill Nye's video seems to endorse, and my
> >>>> critique of it. Perhaps the "equation" describes the "magical process"
> >>>> inNye'smind.
>
> >>>> What kinds of defenses of Bill Nye have you encountered on
> >>>> talk.origins so far?   Have any of them had anything critical to say

> >>>> about the following claim ofNye's?

>
> >>>> "Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of
> >>>> biology. It's like, it's very much analogous to trying to do geology
> >>>> without believing in tectonic plates. You're just not going to get the
> >>>> right answer. Your whole world is just going to be a mystery instead
> >>>> of an exciting place."
>
> >>>> Most geology gets along just fine without studying the tectonic
> >>>> plates.  A hefty chunk of biology would be hopeless without
> >>>> biochemistry, but very little would be hopeless without evolution.
>
> >>>> We live in an age of specialization.  The old-fashioned naturalist,

> >>>> whomNyeis clumsily trying to emulate, is a dying breed.
>
> >>>>>    RememberNye'sfirst two

It's grown to nearly a dozen replies by now, and some back and forth
with Hershey throwing the whole issue into a cocked hat. But it was
all very important to blunt some trumped-up charges against me,
claiming that I am "anti-science", from one of the old-time regulars
of talk.origins.

> so I'm willing to cut a little slack, but
> still...

Thank you for your patience and forbearance.

My plans for viewing them that weekend went awry, and I even lost
track of this thread for a while. If all you want to show is that
Bill Nye CAN be much better at conveying science than that wretched
piece of propaganda originally linked by Kalkidas suggests, then I'll
just concede the point until I have LOTS of time for viewing the
videos.

You see, it typically takes at least three times as long to view
videos like Nye's on my pc than the actual running time, because of
all the long stallings. And I can't even get sound on my Linux
workstation here at work.

Peter Nyikos

[Harry K]

As long as you "believe" that is the way things are, no problem as
"belief" cannot be argued against successfuly. At least if it were
possible, religion would have died out centuries ago.

Your "belief" reads like an outline sketchof a science fiction novel
and really has no place in science at all until you can come up with
some scintilla of evidence for it.

Harry K

Harry K

[jillery]

When it comes to DP, all that he has to offer is his beliefs. It's
kind of depressing to see someone in "pound on the table" mode.