Biological Evolution Has Reached Its Limit?

[D. Spencer Hines]

>Yet another thought occurs. Since biological evolution has
>probably reached its limit due to human interference...
fre...@gmail.com

Hmmmmmm...

Interesting Speculation.

D. Spencer Hines - Deus Vult -- 10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the
Lord, and in the power of his might. 11 Put on the whole armour of God, that
ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places. 13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of
God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all,
to stand. 14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and
having on the breastplate of righteousness; 15 And your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 Above all, taking the shield of
faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the
wicked. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God: 18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication
in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication
for all saints; 19 And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I
may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 For
which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I
ought to speak. 21 But that ye also may know my affairs, and how I do,
Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make
known to you all things: 22 Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose,
that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts. 23
Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity. Amen. -- Saint Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians (King James
Version 1611)

[pdblack...@hotmail.co.uk]

On Wednesday, 6 May 2015 19:29:22 UTC+1, D. Spencer Hines wrote:


Let me tell you about the frustration of an evolutionary algorithm.

At first it blasts through, then it plods along, then it blasts through, then it plods along.

Right now, I'm stuck in the hard place between procing power & bottleneck.

[pdblack...@hotmail.co.uk]

ess. Apparently I have outlived my keyboard.

[Mr. B1ack]

On Wed, 6 May 2015 14:05:44 -0700 (PDT), pdblack...@hotmail.co.uk

Heh, heh ... I know the feeling ! Still using the
keyboard that came with my IBM-AT computer
way back in the stone age. Nothing is made
today with as good a feel, as positive an action.
But my "N"s and "V"s drop out sometimes ...
gotta bang-bang-bang to get 'em working
again ...... :-)

It's also fun with the BigFatKeyboardPlug-to-PS2-
to-USB daisy-chain of adaptors ..... next "improvement"
I'll probably have to program an Arduino or something
to be a smart converter.

[Mike Painter]

On Thu, 07 May 2015 19:02:38 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>
wrote:

The IBM Model M is probably what you are talking about and it is still
available.

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 07 May 2015 19:02:38 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>:

> ...Still using the

> keyboard that came with my IBM-AT computer
> way back in the stone age. Nothing is made
> today with as good a feel, as positive an action.
> But my "N"s and "V"s drop out sometimes ...
> gotta bang-bang-bang to get 'em working
> again ...... :-)

I can relate to that; I searched for quite a while to find a
Focus2001 in good condition when my original one (1993
vintage for my original 486DX-33) started having keystick
problems last year.

> It's also fun with the BigFatKeyboardPlug-to-PS2-
> to-USB daisy-chain of adaptors ..... next "improvement"
> I'll probably have to program an Arduino or something
> to be a smart converter.

I'm still using a mini-tower system with a PS-2 port, so no
interface problems here.
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Mr. B1ack]

There's no model number on it ... just a metal sticker
that says "IBM Personal Computer AT".

I know some companies make "clicky keyboards", some
of the game people like 'em because of the positive action,
but they're not as good as the Big Blue originals. Those
would cost too much to make today.

[Mr. B1ack]

On Fri, 08 May 2015 13:05:52 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>
wrote:

>On Thu, 07 May 2015 19:02:38 -0400, the following appeared
>in talk.origins, posted by "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>:
>
>> ...Still using the
>> keyboard that came with my IBM-AT computer
>> way back in the stone age. Nothing is made
>> today with as good a feel, as positive an action.
>> But my "N"s and "V"s drop out sometimes ...
>> gotta bang-bang-bang to get 'em working
>> again ...... :-)
>
>I can relate to that; I searched for quite a while to find a
>Focus2001 in good condition when my original one (1993
>vintage for my original 486DX-33) started having keystick
>problems last year.

The old Northgate keyboards were the next best thing
to the IBM equipment ... albeit with a somewhat lighter
feel that I never liked. A few companies make 'clicky'
keyboards, mostly for gamers, but they too aren't as
nice as the old IBM units. As a lot of IBM-ATs were
sold, there's probably a few stockpiles somewhere
of old keyboards ... but I doubt they last long.

I wonder what it would cost to make a clone of the
IBM PC/PC-AT keyboards these days ? Probably
have to sell 'em for two or three hundred bucks ...
which kind of limits your potential customer base.

Oh well ... pry the keys off, blow out the dust, pound
on 'em a little ... sometimes a trimmed spring from
a ballpoint pen can be substituted if the original is
damaged ........ kinda like Cubans and cars, if you
try you can keep the antiques going for many decades.

Hmm ... this is a case where 'evolution' led to 'devolution',
a marked drop in quality. The selection pressure led to
cheap units with short lifespans.

>> It's also fun with the BigFatKeyboardPlug-to-PS2-
>> to-USB daisy-chain of adaptors ..... next "improvement"
>> I'll probably have to program an Arduino or something
>> to be a smart converter.
>
>I'm still using a mini-tower system with a PS-2 port, so no
>interface problems here.

Many of the new PCs don't even have a PS2 port
on them. USB only. Wireless keyboards are now
popular enough that manufacturers may just stop
making the wired kind at all and yer OS may not
even come with drivers for a USB keyboard.

Well, Linux would, for quite awhile anyway. That's
what you oughtta be using anyhow ... :-)

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 08 May 2015 21:40:08 -0400, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>:

>On Fri, 08 May 2015 13:05:52 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>
>wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 07 May 2015 19:02:38 -0400, the following appeared
>>in talk.origins, posted by "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>:
>>
>>> ...Still using the
>>> keyboard that came with my IBM-AT computer
>>> way back in the stone age. Nothing is made
>>> today with as good a feel, as positive an action.
>>> But my "N"s and "V"s drop out sometimes ...
>>> gotta bang-bang-bang to get 'em working
>>> again ...... :-)
>>
>>I can relate to that; I searched for quite a while to find a
>>Focus2001 in good condition when my original one (1993
>>vintage for my original 486DX-33) started having keystick
>>problems last year.
>
> The old Northgate keyboards were the next best thing
> to the IBM equipment ... albeit with a somewhat lighter
> feel that I never liked. A few companies make 'clicky'
> keyboards, mostly for gamers, but they too aren't as
> nice as the old IBM units. As a lot of IBM-ATs were
> sold, there's probably a few stockpiles somewhere
> of old keyboards ... but I doubt they last long.

I still like the Focus: High-quality clicky keys, reasonable
size and a built-in dust cover. Unfortunately AFAIK they're
no longer made.

> I wonder what it would cost to make a clone of the
> IBM PC/PC-AT keyboards these days ? Probably
> have to sell 'em for two or three hundred bucks ...
> which kind of limits your potential customer base.

Ya think? ;-)

> Oh well ... pry the keys off, blow out the dust, pound
> on 'em a little ... sometimes a trimmed spring from
> a ballpoint pen can be substituted if the original is
> damaged ........ kinda like Cubans and cars, if you
> try you can keep the antiques going for many decades.

I've learned that if I pry off the keycap and give the "bad"
key a shot of CRC contact cleaner it clears most problems;
it can even be done while the system's running.

> Hmm ... this is a case where 'evolution' led to 'devolution',
> a marked drop in quality. The selection pressure led to
> cheap units with short lifespans.
>
>>> It's also fun with the BigFatKeyboardPlug-to-PS2-
>>> to-USB daisy-chain of adaptors ..... next "improvement"
>>> I'll probably have to program an Arduino or something
>>> to be a smart converter.
>>
>>I'm still using a mini-tower system with a PS-2 port, so no
>>interface problems here.
>
> Many of the new PCs don't even have a PS2 port
> on them. USB only.

So I've noticed. No problem; adapters are available.

> Wireless keyboards are now
> popular enough that manufacturers may just stop
> making the wired kind at all and yer OS may not
> even come with drivers for a USB keyboard.

Maybe not, but if the demand is high enough for a keyboard
that doesn't need batteries the mfrs will supply the
drivers, just as they do for multifunction mice.

> Well, Linux would, for quite awhile anyway. That's
> what you oughtta be using anyhow ... :-)

I've twice set up Linux systems, and both times I decided
that life's too short to take on a sysadmin job for
essentially no benefit to me. ANd yes, I tried a couple of
the Linux GUIs; the latest was Ubuntu. With all its faults
I'll probably keep using Windows for simplicity and
compatibility (XP for now; I have a VMWare virtual Win7
system for the sites that reject XP, such as Garmin updates,
but for most uses I prefer the XP interface. And Win8 is
Right Out).

[Mr. B1ack]

On Sat, 09 May 2015 09:53:18 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>

Hmm ... I've been using Linux almost exclusively for
years now - and the distros have become *very* good.
While it *helps* if you learn to dig into the system ...
and it was helpful if you used Winders & DOS too ...
the average Joe really doesn't HAVE to these days.
He can surf, chat, play music/vids and such all from
the friendly GUIs.

And yes, Win8 is right out .... horrible on so many
levels ................

But wait for Win10 ... it'll be back to the server/terminal
universe again - with MS charging you for every inch
of their "cloud" they force you to occupy ................

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 09 May 2015 22:17:24 -0400, the following appeared

True, but I like to dig into things. ;-)
And every version of Windows has had multiple "tweaks"
available for customization, both from MS and from the
aftermarket.

> He can surf, chat, play music/vids and such all from
> the friendly GUIs.

The biggest problem I see with Linux is the non-support from
quite a few online entities. That may have improved in
recent years, but the default is still MS.

> And yes, Win8 is right out .... horrible on so many
> levels ................
>
> But wait for Win10 ... it'll be back to the server/terminal
> universe again - with MS charging you for every inch
> of their "cloud" they force you to occupy ................

I devoutly hope not; I avoid using the cloud.

[Peter Nyikos]

Getting back to biological evolution...

On Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 2:29:22 PM UTC-4, D. Spencer Hines wrote:
> >Yet another thought occurs. Since biological evolution has
> >probably reached its limit due to human interference...
> fre...@gmail.com

Spencer, I suggest you post a direct reply to fre...@gmail.com's
original post,just to let him know that his ball has been picked up
in this thread you've started.

> Hmmmmmm...
>
> Interesting Speculation.
>
> D. Spencer Hines - Deus Vult

I couldn't see the relevance of your long scriptural quote to this
issue, so I deleted it.

I think it quite likely that "freon96" is correct as far as medium-to-large
vertebrates are concerned, but smaller vertebrates like rats might
continue their adaptation to human ways. Ditto most invertebrates,
plants, and microbes. We don't seem to be able to survive without
some symbiotic bacteria, but some of them, like E. coli, sometimes
develop strains deleterious to us humans, and perhaps some day
we will run out of antibiotics that can cope with them.

The words "reached its limit" make me wonder whether freon96
might be clinging to outmoded ideas about *Homo sapiens sapiens*
being *biologically* the present-day pinnacle of terrestrial organisms.
This was a fixure of the olden days when some organisms were considered
to be more "advanced" than others, e.g. placentals being
more "advanced" than marsupials, and humans being more "advanced"
than chimps.

Such anthropocentric ideas are being kicked out of biology,
although vestiges of them seem to linger in the extreme reluctance
of two of the most prominent biologists in talk.origins to define
the term "adaptive evolution" on another thread.

Perhaps they fear that when all hints of anthropomorphism are
expunged from it, nothing useful will remain of the distinction
between "adaptive evolution" and "neutral evolution."

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

[Mr. B1ack]

On Sun, 10 May 2015 10:14:43 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>

Extremely wise !

Not only is there a fair chance the cloud-providers are
decrypting and selling your data (or giving it to the NSA)
but fer-sure there's going to be a massive cloud disaster
pretty soon ... Chinese or Russian hackers doing a little
cyberwarfare. Even the Pentagon can't keep them out ...

Of course you can steal and/or delete important data, but
the most evil thing is to move values around ... transpose
bank numbers or names or SS numbers .... because the
only thing worse than no data is *questionable* data :-)

ANYway ... Microsquish already has 'cloud' versions of
their Office suite - basically web-apps - and even the
regular versions REQUIRE you to get an MS cloud
account just to register the software. They see it as
being in their interests to remove all choices and
force everybody into their pay-per-byte cloud.

Win10 and beyond are supposed to be "versionless",
which is bound to mean that large portions of the OS
aren't on your PC but on MS cloud servers that get
updated by the minute. That way bad updates can
afflict EVERYBODY all at once ! :-)

Try Kubuntu or PCLinuxOS or Mint ... won't be long
before you discover you can get by just fine without
Bill Gates (unless you use some heavy-duty
proprietary programs like ArcGIS or something).

[jillery]

On Mon, 11 May 2015 10:51:11 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>
wrote:

Another issue about the Cloud is who owns the data. Owners assume
they own the data they put on it, but that's not necessarily true.
Different countries have different laws about these things, and it's
not clear which of the many relevant regulatory agencies have
precedence.

--
Intelligence is never insulting.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 11 May 2015 10:51:11 -0400, the following appeared

I probably couldn't keep a really talented and determined
hacker out of my system either, despite multiple layers of
protection, both hardware and software, but since I'm not a
high-value target I doubt they'd even try once they bounced
the first time. OTOH, being "collateral damage" by having my
data hacked because it's bundled with that of others who may
well be high-value targets doesn't appeal to me in the
least, regardless of the purported convenience.

> Of course you can steal and/or delete important data, but
> the most evil thing is to move values around ... transpose
> bank numbers or names or SS numbers .... because the
> only thing worse than no data is *questionable* data :-)
>
> ANYway ... Microsquish already has 'cloud' versions of
> their Office suite - basically web-apps - and even the
> regular versions REQUIRE you to get an MS cloud
> account just to register the software.

Since I'm still using the "2000" version of Office, and see
no need to upgrade, it's a moot point for me. And if for
some reason I do decide to upgrade I'll just use the latest
version with which that's not an issue; "obsolete" versions
are usually quite a bit cheaper than those with the latest
"gee-whiz" bells and whistles, a win-win.

> They see it as
> being in their interests to remove all choices and
> force everybody into their pay-per-byte cloud.
>
> Win10 and beyond are supposed to be "versionless",
> which is bound to mean that large portions of the OS
> aren't on your PC but on MS cloud servers that get
> updated by the minute. That way bad updates can
> afflict EVERYBODY all at once ! :-)

As I noted, I'm still using XP for most of my computer
activity, so I'll worry about that when it's time (maybe
after the support period for Win7 ends).

> Try Kubuntu or PCLinuxOS or Mint ... won't be long
> before you discover you can get by just fine without
> Bill Gates (unless you use some heavy-duty
> proprietary programs like ArcGIS or something).

Oh, I could get by with some version of Linux, I just see no
need at present to take on the hassle of changing over. Bad
as Windows is in some ways, XP works just fine for me, and
I've used my virtual Win7 machine to learn quite a few
"tweaks" to make the interface more comfortable for me; I
fail to see the attraction in a constantly-changing
interface just to be "new and better", like detergent.

And since I think this off-topic thread has about reached
its tolerability limit, I'll sign off from it. HAND (meant
literally, not the usual way it's used here). ;-)

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, May 11, 2015 at 1:54:07 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:

> And since I think this off-topic thread has about reached
> its tolerability limit, I'll sign off from it. HAND (meant
> literally, not the usual way it's used here). ;-)

You are 20 minutes late. I made it on-topic again, and
if you don't like the way I did it, why don't you stick
around and tell us why?

Peter Nyikos

[Mr. B1ack]

On Mon, 11 May 2015 10:52:37 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>

Well, the interface is just wallpaper for the underlying
engine ... of which Linux/BSD/Unix is better designed
(and free). MS products, from DOS 1.0 upwards, have
always been hacks, kludges and patch-jobs - and it
shows, particularly from the security end of things.
Security wasn't much of an issue in the mid 80s, but
now it outranks about everything else.

Hmm ... consider German -vs- Japanese luxury cars.
The Japanese philosophy is oriented around finding
the "essence" of a thing, its simplest purest expression.
Both countries can produce equally "luxurious" cars, but
the Germans will achieve that polished look&feel through
complexity - see what it costs to get things fixed - while
Japan will achieve the same polish with a third the number
of parts. Complexity can achieve 'polish' but at a cost ...
lots more things that CAN go wrong and greater overall
costs in manufacturing & maintenence.

Such issues bleed into discussions about 'evolution',
ecosystems and survival strategies.

>And since I think this off-topic thread has about reached
>its tolerability limit, I'll sign off from it. HAND (meant
>literally, not the usual way it's used here). ;-)

Agreed ... although I *did* try to weave "evolution" into
it at one point ... the logic of cheap/simple/disposable
-vs- complex/solid/enduring ... akin to the reproductive
strategies of mosquitoes -vs- elephants.

Oh, and you can beat an irritating co-worker senseless
with yer antique IBM keyboard whereas the modern
versions will shatter at the first blow :-)

[Mr. B1ack]

On Mon, 11 May 2015 13:29:24 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Heh, heh ... those mile-long finely-printed "agreements"
you have to check "I Agree" next to MEAN things - and
it'd take a few lawyers to discern what it *really* means
in terms of data ownership, uses, security and liability.

So, if you're gonna use off-site backup services make
sure to PRE-encrypt whatever's getting uploaded rather
than rely on the companys "secure storage".

Anyway, as someone else said, this off-topic discussion
is about played out. It's not *entirely* off topic though as
some of the issues about the costs of complexity are
also relevant to biological systems.

There's another current thread about whether evolution
naturally leads to "intelligence" - be it as a magical "goal"
or just for utilitarian purposes - and I think "costs of
complexity" issues wind up being a big player there and
why, after a gigayear+ of biological evolution, only one
tiny twig on the tree managed to become "intelligent".

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 11 May 2015 11:06:00 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net>:

>On Monday, May 11, 2015 at 1:54:07 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:

>> And since I think this off-topic thread has about reached
>> its tolerability limit, I'll sign off from it. HAND (meant
>> literally, not the usual way it's used here). ;-)

>You are 20 minutes late.

Says the individual who sees nothing wrong with letting
questions hang for weeks...

> I made it on-topic again, and
>if you don't like the way I did it, why don't you stick
>around and tell us why?

Apparently I was unclear.

For those who choose to misunderstand my comment: "And since
I think this off-topic SUBthread has about reached its

tolerability limit, I'll sign off from it."

Happy now?

[Peter Nyikos]

On Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 1:34:04 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:
> On Mon, 11 May 2015 11:06:00 -0700 (PDT), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net>:
>
> >On Monday, May 11, 2015 at 1:54:07 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:
>
> >> And since I think this off-topic thread has about reached
> >> its tolerability limit, I'll sign off from it. HAND (meant
> >> literally, not the usual way it's used here). ;-)
>
> >You are 20 minutes late.
>
> Says the individual who sees nothing wrong with letting
> questions hang for weeks...

Irrelevant. What I was referring to was that you missed my post
that I made 20 minutes before you did yours.

It's a good thing for you that the ideology of several
people, which forces them to claim that I have no sense
of humor, doesn't force them to do it to you, otherwise
your comment would reinforce their canard.

> > I made it on-topic again, and
> >if you don't like the way I did it, why don't you stick
> >around and tell us why?
>
> Apparently I was unclear.
>
> For those who choose to misunderstand my comment: "And since
> I think this off-topic SUBthread has about reached its
> tolerability limit, I'll sign off from it."
>
> Happy now?

Absolutely. And to show you how free I am of ideology,
I hereby acknowledge this latter statement by you
as evidence that you DO have a sense of humor.

[Of course, I'd be even happier if you discussed the on-topic
issue, but I'll settle for less.]

Peter Nyikos

[Mr. B1ack]

Hey ... yea ... the original thread ..... what happened
to it ?

"Biological Evolution Has Reached Its Limit ?"

For HUMANS ... probably yes, unless all our civilizations
horribly collapse, a 99% fatal plague perhaps. Aside from
such a catastrophe, we will be in charge of our own
'evolution' from now on ... we've put a toe on ye olde
exponential curve already. We'll never be the same.

Likely this latest generation - Gen-Z (kind of appropriate
timing eh ?) - will be the last where the word "human"
really encompasses all.

However aside from us (soon to be "us'es") the rest of
the ecosystem will keep on evolving as usual until the
great red dying sun finally makes the coolest spot on
earth about 250c.

But our probes will have spread bacteria, mold and
fungi all over the stellar neighborhood by then ...

[William Morse]

I agree. I started using Linux for my server at work back in the late
90's (Windows 95 and 98 were simply not stable enough) and at the time
it took a lot of tweaking and on-line reading to get the system
initially set up. But in the last few years my Linux system setups have
been as easy as Windows installs. I do still use Windows on my work
desktop, but only because I use Autocad, ArcMap, and a number of other
engineering applications that are made to run on Windows.

But as to keyboards, for me the all time best was the IBM Selectric
typewriter keyboard. Even the best of the early computer keyboards never
achieved that feel.

[William Morse]

In general I don't get the point about a limit to evolution based on
human interference. We are in the midst of a major extinction based on
human interference, but that doesn't appear to place a particular
"limit" to evolution, just as previous extinctions did not place a limit
on evolution.

Humans have placed some constraints on classic directions in evolution,
e.g. increased maximum size is no longer a viable method of creating a
new niche, but many other options for diversifying are still available.

[J. J. Lodder]

The Mac equivalent was code named the Nimitz,
for obvious reasons.
Still the best keyboard Apple ever made,

Jan

[Mr. B1ack]

Exactly. "Evolution" in a broad view is a reflection of
organisms optimizing themselves for the current local
environment - and it's a craps-shoot, so many will not
optimize, may even go extinct. Mutations don't "know"
which way to go, don't "intend" to help an organism or
its species, they're just a roll of the molecular dice. MAYbe
good, MAYbe bad, usually irrelevant.

So, human garbage dumps or not, this process will go on.
Humans may accelerate some extinctions, but open "holes"
in the ecosystem also mean potential opportunities which
can turn those "bad" or "irrelevant" mutations into "good" ones
and create new species that can exploit the new situation.

Biological evolution largely HAS no "limit" beyond global
conditions SO extreme that they tear apart all of those
handy molecules used by living things. So, it'll be the
last big bang for the sun or crashing into Venus or a
nearby gamma-burster before all life, and thus all
evolution, ceases.

[Peter Nyikos]

Agreed. But I'd go further with the "e.g." and say that, barring some
serious decline in human population and/or a "hands off" policy for
some really large wildlife areas, we will not see any significant evolution
(except that which we ourselves produce) of animals larger than foxes.
Larger wild animals (including even elephants) may still be around millions
of years from now but subject to human management to a degree that precludes
significant evolutionary advance independent of human interference.

Peter Nyikos
Professor of Mathematics

[Mr. B1ack]

Only a miniscule number of lifeforms are "larger than foxes".

Whether and how they evolve is, well, irrelevant.

By far, the dominant lifeform on this planet is unicellular,
followed by very simple plants. As much as we may think
of ourselves and 'large' animals, we're a drop in the
proverbial bucket.

[Mike Painter]

On Fri, 08 May 2015 21:27:12 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>
wrote:

>

>>The IBM Model M is probably what you are talking about and it is still
>>available.
>
> There's no model number on it ... just a metal sticker
> that says "IBM Personal Computer AT".
>
> I know some companies make "clicky keyboards", some
> of the game people like 'em because of the positive action,
> but they're not as good as the Big Blue originals. Those
> would cost too much to make today.

The model M is the one most rave about and it was the one that people
who first used the AT keyboard said the M was much better.
The AT was perhaps a bit better than the original PC keyboard (but had
the switch as I recall)
I have a friend who still uses yet another IBM keyboard with a raised
area for two rows of function keys.
He holds that is the best and he types in the 180 range.

[Mr. B1ack]

On Thu, 14 May 2015 23:50:39 -0700, Mike Painter
<md.pa...@outlook.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 08 May 2015 21:27:12 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>>The IBM Model M is probably what you are talking about and it is still
>>>available.
>>
>> There's no model number on it ... just a metal sticker
>> that says "IBM Personal Computer AT".
>>
>> I know some companies make "clicky keyboards", some
>> of the game people like 'em because of the positive action,
>> but they're not as good as the Big Blue originals. Those
>> would cost too much to make today.
>
>The model M is the one most rave about and it was the one that people
>who first used the AT keyboard said the M was much better.
>The AT was perhaps a bit better than the original PC keyboard (but had
>the switch as I recall)

I don't remember a switch on the original IBM-PC keyboard.
It was a lot like the 'AT' keyboard - minus "Sys Req". The
'AT' unit, "model F", had capacitive switches under the
keys and could handle more key combinations, and was
thus the superior unit. As I recall, the "feel" of both was
an attempt to replicate the Selectric keyboard, which
wasn't quite possible because the typewriter keys operated
some mechanical levers.

Both the original and 'AT' keyboards had 10 function keys
as two vertical rows on the left side (where they were
easy to get to). Later some idiots started putting them in
a long row above the "1!2@3#4$5%" keys where they
were NOT easy to use. In any case, "buckling spring"
keys ain't cheap to make ... so now we have mushy
no-'feel' keyboards for $19.95 instead. Can't even tell
when you've actually pushed the key far enough to
register .... awful ............

A key where you have to apply x-amount of pressure
before it suddenly "breaks" and hard-bottoms is the
best for positive typing. Some 'click' - the equivalent
of the typewriter anvil smacking the letter onto the
paper - provides even more feedback. Yea, a room
full of clicks CAN be a little annoying but it'd beat a
room full of people shouting words to their voice-rec
software dontchathink ? :-)

Seems like mushy non-positive keyboards would hurt
"productivity" considerably, especially in environments
where larger documents have to be written (legal stuff
for example). The time spent dealing with missed
keystrokes and accidental double-presses could add
up significantly in a mushy-key universe. Hey, would
you want your doctor to use a mushy keyboard ? You
could wind up minus some of your favorite parts if
he mis-typed ....

>I have a friend who still uses yet another IBM keyboard with a raised
>area for two rows of function keys.
>He holds that is the best and he types in the 180 range.

Raised area ? I don't remember those for their PC line. I've
seen pictures of one for an IBM terminal with about twenty-odd
function keys well up above the rest on a pooched-out looking
top.

[Mike Painter]

On Fri, 15 May 2015 22:35:28 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>

The original did not have a switch. Most AT keyboards had a switch
that allowed them to be used with PC or AT clones.

>
> Both the original and 'AT' keyboards had 10 function keys
> as two vertical rows on the left side (where they were
> easy to get to). Later some idiots started putting them in
> a long row above the "1!2@3#4$5%" keys where they
> were NOT easy to use. In any case, "buckling spring"
> keys ain't cheap to make ... so now we have mushy
> no-'feel' keyboards for $19.95 instead. Can't even tell
> when you've actually pushed the key far enough to
> register .... awful ............

Function keys on the left is where they should be but main frames had
far more than 10 and I've never seen one that had less than twenty
across the top.

><snip>

>
>>I have a friend who still uses yet another IBM keyboard with a raised
>>area for two rows of function keys.
>>He holds that is the best and he types in the 180 range.
>
> Raised area ? I don't remember those for their PC line. I've
> seen pictures of one for an IBM terminal with about twenty-odd
> function keys well up above the rest on a pooched-out looking
> top.

Exactly and those who used them felt they were far superior to the AT
keyboard in terms of feel.

But as I sad, if you are willing to pay the money this type of
keyboard is still available.

[Mr. B1ack]

On Thu, 21 May 2015 11:07:24 -0700, Mike Painter
<md.pa...@outlook.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 15 May 2015 22:35:28 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>
>wrote:
>
>>

>> I don't remember a switch on the original IBM-PC keyboard.
>> It was a lot like the 'AT' keyboard - minus "Sys Req". The
>> 'AT' unit, "model F", had capacitive switches under the
>> keys and could handle more key combinations, and was
>> thus the superior unit. As I recall, the "feel" of both was
>> an attempt to replicate the Selectric keyboard, which
>> wasn't quite possible because the typewriter keys operated
>> some mechanical levers.
>
>The original did not have a switch. Most AT keyboards had a switch
>that allowed them to be used with PC or AT clones.

Hey ... you're right ! There was some difference in how
the keystrokes were encoded between the original PC
and the PC-AT. Likely something to do with being able
to produce more unique codes by pressing several
keys at the same time. The first clone keyboards DID
have switches so they could be used on either unit.

>> Both the original and 'AT' keyboards had 10 function keys
>> as two vertical rows on the left side (where they were
>> easy to get to). Later some idiots started putting them in
>> a long row above the "1!2@3#4$5%" keys where they
>> were NOT easy to use. In any case, "buckling spring"
>> keys ain't cheap to make ... so now we have mushy
>> no-'feel' keyboards for $19.95 instead. Can't even tell
>> when you've actually pushed the key far enough to
>> register .... awful ............
>
>Function keys on the left is where they should be but main frames had
>far more than 10 and I've never seen one that had less than twenty
>across the top.
>
>><snip>
>>
>>>I have a friend who still uses yet another IBM keyboard with a raised
>>>area for two rows of function keys.
>>>He holds that is the best and he types in the 180 range.
>>
>> Raised area ? I don't remember those for their PC line. I've
>> seen pictures of one for an IBM terminal with about twenty-odd
>> function keys well up above the rest on a pooched-out looking
>> top.
>
>Exactly and those who used them felt they were far superior to the AT
>keyboard in terms of feel.
>
>But as I sad, if you are willing to pay the money this type of
>keyboard is still available.

But not plug-compatible fer-sure.

I'd have to program a microcontroller to do the
translation ... sure to be voltage-level issues too ...

[Earle Jones27]

*
Can we steer this discussion back to same-sex marriage.

Or, lacking that, the discussion of origins.

earle
*

[Mr. B1ack]

Well .... this IS a discussion of "evolution" and
"selective pressure" after all ... just not about
conventional lifeforms :-)

But the same rules apply.

And who gives a shit about same-sex marriage ?

Oh yea ... terminal Jeezus junkies ....... screw 'em.

As for the 'origins' aspect ... yes ... I'm more interested
in that - and have posted a number of previous letters
on the "Has Biological Evolution Reached Its Limit ?"
thing.

IMHO, the answer is "Definitely NO". Humans have
deliberately intervened in the evolution of a handful
of lifeforms ... but they're a TINY fraction of the whole.
Are we a 'selective pressure' in and of ourselves ?
Well, at various levels depending, yes. But so are
volcanoes and a mass of other things, which
dilutes our relevance.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, May 22, 2015 at 3:03:34 AM UTC-4, Mr. B1ack wrote:
> On Thu, 21 May 2015 22:11:14 -0700, Earle Jones27
> <earle...@comcast.net> wrote:

> >Can we steer this discussion back to same-sex marriage.
> >
> >Or, lacking that, the discussion of origins.
>
>
> Well .... this IS a discussion of "evolution" and
> "selective pressure" after all ... just not about
> conventional lifeforms :-)
>
> But the same rules apply.
>
> And who gives a shit about same-sex marriage ?
>
> Oh yea ... terminal Jeezus junkies ....... screw 'em.

I don't know of any here that fit that description. On the other
hand, terminal Gay Power junkies "Roger Shrubber" and Mark Isaak
and "Sneaky O. Possum" are totally gung-ho on how absolutely
bigoted anyone is who wants the word "marriage" to go on meaning a
certain kind of commitment/contract/covenant between people of
opposite sexes.

I mean, as long as civil unions between people of the same sex
are treated just like marriage except for the use of the
word "marriage" on legal documents and forms, who gives a shit, eh?

I mean, besides those three... did I leave anyone out?

> As for the 'origins' aspect ... yes ... I'm more interested
> in that - and have posted a number of previous letters
> on the "Has Biological Evolution Reached Its Limit ?"
> thing.
>
> IMHO, the answer is "Definitely NO". Humans have
> deliberately intervened in the evolution of a handful
> of lifeforms ... but they're a TINY fraction of the whole.
> Are we a 'selective pressure' in and of ourselves ?
> Well, at various levels depending, yes. But so are
> volcanoes and a mass of other things, which
> dilutes our relevance.

I made that same point, but in different words -- so different that
someone calling himself "Mr. B1ack" acted as though he and I were in
disagreement about what "larger than foxes" was all about when,
in fact, we were in full agreement.

By the way, the same "Mr. B1ack" may not be aware that, until
I actually addressed the comment in the OP, nobody talked about it,
not even the OP-poster, who merely said it was interesting.

Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

Peter Nyikos wrote:

> I don't know of any here that fit that description. On the other
> hand, terminal Gay Power junkies "Roger Shrubber" and Mark Isaak
> and "Sneaky O. Possum" are totally gung-ho on how absolutely
> bigoted anyone is who wants the word "marriage" to go on meaning a
> certain kind of commitment/contract/covenant between people of
> opposite sexes.

You are quite liberal with these, hmmm, untruths.

But then the phraseology "terminal Gay Power junkies" is the
sort of thing that does have an incipient boomerang nature to it.
It isn't quite Band Name quality though. Regardless, if I thought
anybody worth note took you seriously, or that your attack had
qualities that anybody would take seriously, I would protest more
vigorously. As it stands, have pity on yourself, and give it a rest.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, May 22, 2015 at 4:28:32 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> > I don't know of any here that fit that description. On the other
> > hand, terminal Gay Power junkies "Roger Shrubber" and Mark Isaak
> > and "Sneaky O. Possum" are totally gung-ho on how absolutely
> > bigoted anyone is who wants the word "marriage" to go on meaning a
> > certain kind of commitment/contract/covenant between people of
> > opposite sexes.
>
> You are quite liberal with these, hmmm, untruths.

Where's the truth in The World According to Roger Shrubber? You
don't even hint at where I went wrong, if I did.

Est-ce que you only call such people bigots if they happen
to be someone named Peter Nyikos or someone who goes by the
handle AlwaysAskingQuestions?

> But then the phraseology "terminal Gay Power junkies" is the
> sort of thing that does have an incipient boomerang nature to it.

Yes, I was boomeranging "Mr. B1ack"s own words onto the three of you;
a fact which you obscured by snipping his words:

And who gives a shit about same-sex marriage ?
Oh yea ... terminal Jeezus junkies ....... screw 'em.

Est-ce que you are leery of crossing "Mr. B1ack" and so you would
prefer to deal just with me?

> It isn't quite Band Name quality though. Regardless, if I thought
> anybody worth note took you seriously, or that your attack had
> qualities that anybody would take seriously, I would protest more
> vigorously. As it stands, have pity on yourself, and give it a rest.

Your insouciance should fool no one. You certainly took note a year or
two ago when I sided with Glenn on an on-topic matter. It was like
coming between a hungry lion and his dinner.

After the flare-up had gone on for a little while, you revealed that you
had been caring for a dying relative, calling me a "pissant"
while making that revelation. Paul Gans capitalized on this
by treating me as though I had been clairvoyant
and KNOWN that you had been under such huge stress, and as though I
should have treated you with kid gloves rather than provoke you
into calling me "a worthless piece of shit" or words to that effect.

Do you remember the extent to which I went to convince people that
I would have treated you differently, had I known?

Peter Nyikos

[RSNorman]

On Fri, 22 May 2015 12:40:09 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:


>I mean, as long as civil unions between people of the same sex
>are treated just like marriage except for the use of the
>word "marriage" on legal documents and forms, who gives a shit, eh?
>
>I mean, besides those three... did I leave anyone out?

I would guess an awful lot of people here have been left out including
me. Most of us simply think that talk.origins is not the proper place
to argue these issues. The matter really is settled as far as I am
concerned: Going all the way back to Abraham and Jacob, the great
King David and the wise Solomon, marriage has always had one
definition and one alone: a sacred union very specifically between one
man and one woman. Don't these examples prove it?

[Roger Shrubber]

RSNorman wrote:

> I would guess an awful lot of people here have been left out including
> me. Most of us simply think that talk.origins is not the proper place
> to argue these issues. The matter really is settled as far as I am
> concerned: Going all the way back to Abraham and Jacob, the great
> King David and the wise Solomon, marriage has always had one
> definition and one alone: a sacred union very specifically between one
> man and one woman. Don't these examples prove it?

Are you defining marriage, sacred, or one?

[RSNorman]

It has been brought to my attention that my examples may be
interpreted in a different way. Marriage is a sacred institution,
timeless and universal in its meaning. My definition was, I admit,
perhaps flawed. So here is the REAL definition of marriage: A
permanent and indissoluble union based on love and mutual affection
between one man and one or possibly more than one fully consenting
adult women. Certainly nobody could object to that! Certainly it
could never be anything else, nowhere and at no time.

[Roger Shrubber]

Here I confess I always mix up my Pluto and my Plato.
One references a distant world discovered by our imagination, beyond
our current reach, uncontaminated and unpopulated by us humans, with
our imperfections, our failings and failures, and the other is, I think,
a dog.

[Burkhard]

Obviously not. Especially as "consent" can also be given by a competent
agent acting on a person's behalf, like a father.

But did you not mean "a mutual border of two adjacent fields, which are
so much easier to plough if they are owned by the same person"? But
then, "affection" is a good shorthand for that.

[RSNorman]

On Fri, 22 May 2015 19:58:53 -0400, Roger Shrubber

So you are suggesting that my new definition to be a purely imaginary
canine? It has now been brought to my attention, by Burkhard among
other of my own researches, that permanent, indissoluble, love, mutual
affection, adult and consent have nothing whatsoever to do with
marriage.

Goodness gracious, it turns out that the notion of marriage is quite
flexible, having always been adjusted to one's time and place and
general philosophical and social and economic disposition. Perhaps,
dare I say, it is time to rethink exactly what we now call "marriage"
and allow new possibilities to reflect our own time and place and
feelings about true equality, fairness, and diversity of life styles.

[Mike Painter]

On Thu, 21 May 2015 22:50:10 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>

http://www.amazon.com/IBM-Keyboard-Model-M-1391401/dp/B00F4FHY64 is a
source. In the questions section they have a number for particular
years.

>
> But not plug-compatible fer-sure.
>
> I'd have to program a microcontroller to do the
> translation ... sure to be voltage-level issues too ...

Or buy an adaptor.
https://www.google.com/search?q=B00008ZPED&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7WQIA_enUS612&gws_rd=ssl

[Mr. B1ack]

On Fri, 22 May 2015 12:40:09 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Friday, May 22, 2015 at 3:03:34 AM UTC-4, Mr. B1ack wrote:
>> On Thu, 21 May 2015 22:11:14 -0700, Earle Jones27
>> <earle...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> >Can we steer this discussion back to same-sex marriage.
>> >
>> >Or, lacking that, the discussion of origins.
>>
>>
>> Well .... this IS a discussion of "evolution" and
>> "selective pressure" after all ... just not about
>> conventional lifeforms :-)
>>
>> But the same rules apply.
>>
>> And who gives a shit about same-sex marriage ?
>>
>> Oh yea ... terminal Jeezus junkies ....... screw 'em.
>
>I don't know of any here that fit that description. On the other
>hand, terminal Gay Power junkies "Roger Shrubber" and Mark Isaak
>and "Sneaky O. Possum" are totally gung-ho on how absolutely
>bigoted anyone is who wants the word "marriage" to go on meaning a
>certain kind of commitment/contract/covenant between people of
>opposite sexes.

Well, people are *allowed* to want the long-time meaning
to remain the only meaning ... and also *allowed* to want
to adjust the meaning. People like what they like - and this
isn't an objective question with an objective quantifiable
answer ... it's "people stuff".

Alas the word whose definition has REALLY gotten out of
hand is the word "bigoted". It's now become a battle-axe
to be used against anybody who disagrees with you in
any way on a "people stuff" issue.

>I mean, as long as civil unions between people of the same sex
>are treated just like marriage except for the use of the
>word "marriage" on legal documents and forms, who gives a shit, eh?
>
>I mean, besides those three... did I leave anyone out?
>
>> As for the 'origins' aspect ... yes ... I'm more interested
>> in that - and have posted a number of previous letters
>> on the "Has Biological Evolution Reached Its Limit ?"
>> thing.
>>
>> IMHO, the answer is "Definitely NO". Humans have
>> deliberately intervened in the evolution of a handful
>> of lifeforms ... but they're a TINY fraction of the whole.
>> Are we a 'selective pressure' in and of ourselves ?
>> Well, at various levels depending, yes. But so are
>> volcanoes and a mass of other things, which
>> dilutes our relevance.
>
>I made that same point, but in different words -- so different that
>someone calling himself "Mr. B1ack" acted as though he and I were in
>disagreement about what "larger than foxes" was all about when,
>in fact, we were in full agreement.

I didn't think the size of a fox was a good yardstick :-)

In any case, it's all a mutual cause & effect situation. Rats
influence our evolution, we influence the evolution of cats
which influences the evolution of rats and ..... 'round and
'round it goes, usually on a much larger scale than just
rats and cats. We can't help being one of the selective
pressures operating on the ecosystem - but it's pure
hubris to suggest that we have taken-over evolution
on the planet. Hell, we can't even get a grip on the flu
viruses ....

>By the way, the same "Mr. B1ack" may not be aware that, until
>I actually addressed the comment in the OP, nobody talked about it,
>not even the OP-poster, who merely said it was interesting.

The thread was already underway when I noticed it. It had
already diverged somewhat from it's alleged theme. Hmm..
is this "thread evolution" ? :-)

[Mr. B1ack]

On Fri, 22 May 2015 19:08:24 -0700, Mike Painter

Heh heh ... no, you ain't gonna find an
adaptor for THOSE pre-PC keyboards :-)

In the bad old days, engineers just kind of
winged it ... a keyboard was usually very
unique to whatever it was supposed to
be attached to - often a matter of just
what hardware was availible at the moment.

I always thought they should be straight RS-232,
it'd make sense, but Noooooo ....

An ancient terminal keyboard ... the codes aren't
going to be anything like a PC, and electrically it
may use tri-state ... positive, zero and negative
voltages. A customized adaptor would be
required. A PIC chip or Arduino plus a few custom
transistor circuits would likely do the trick.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

"Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net> wrote in
news:qrnvlalrf8ju0ocsf...@4ax.com:
[snip]

> I didn't think the size of a fox was a good yardstick :-)
>
> In any case, it's all a mutual cause & effect situation. Rats
> influence our evolution, we influence the evolution of cats
> which influences the evolution of rats and ..... 'round and
> 'round it goes, usually on a much larger scale than just
> rats and cats.

Rats influence our evolution if you use 'evolution' in the sense 'A
process of gradual change occurring in a system, institution, subject,
artefact, product, etc.' They had no demonstrable influence on our
evolution in the biological sense of 'the transformation of animals,
plants, and other living organisms into different forms by the
accumulation of changes over successive generations; the transmutation
of species', or in any other biological sense, for that matter.

And we breed dogs to kill rats. Cats kill mice; rats are too big and
aggressive for 'em.

> We can't help being one of the selective
> pressures operating on the ecosystem - but it's pure
> hubris to suggest that we have taken-over evolution
> on the planet. Hell, we can't even get a grip on the flu
> viruses ....

Since Bill was the one who originally suggested it ('biological
evolution has probably reached its limit due to human interference'),
it's not so much hubristic as vaporous.

When Paranoid Pete says he thinks it's quite likely that Bill 'is
correct as far as medium-to-large vertebrates are concerned, that's not
so much hubristic as ignorant. Biological evolution cannot 'reach its
limit' - the phrase is meaningless. Bio-evo has limits, in the sense
that there are things it can't do, but that has nothing to do with human
interference, and I don't think that's what Bill meant, in any case.
--
S.O.P.

[Mr. B1ack]

On Sat, 23 May 2015 21:52:10 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
<sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:

>"Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net> wrote in
>news:qrnvlalrf8ju0ocsf...@4ax.com:
>[snip]
>> I didn't think the size of a fox was a good yardstick :-)
>>
>> In any case, it's all a mutual cause & effect situation. Rats
>> influence our evolution, we influence the evolution of cats
>> which influences the evolution of rats and ..... 'round and
>> 'round it goes, usually on a much larger scale than just
>> rats and cats.
>
>Rats influence our evolution if you use 'evolution' in the sense 'A
>process of gradual change occurring in a system, institution, subject,
>artefact, product, etc.' They had no demonstrable influence on our
>evolution in the biological sense of 'the transformation of animals,
>plants,

Oh, but they DID ....

The term "Black Death" comes to mind. 50+ percent
obliteration in many european communities. The
survivors were the lucky - and those who had a
less-than-fatal encounter with the disease.

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/02/black-death-left-mark-human-genome

Interestingly, cats were considered unlucky/satanic during
much of that period and deliberately destroyed.

>and other living organisms into different forms by the
>accumulation of changes over successive generations; the transmutation
>of species', or in any other biological sense, for that matter.
>
>And we breed dogs to kill rats. Cats kill mice; rats are too big and
>aggressive for 'em.

You must have wimpy cats in your neck of the woods :-)

And I've never heard of dogs being used as rat-hunters
in the USA. Were "Rat Terriers" bred for that specific
purpose in europe at some point ?

>> We can't help being one of the selective
>> pressures operating on the ecosystem - but it's pure
>> hubris to suggest that we have taken-over evolution
>> on the planet. Hell, we can't even get a grip on the flu
>> viruses ....
>
>Since Bill was the one who originally suggested it ('biological
>evolution has probably reached its limit due to human interference'),
>it's not so much hubristic as vaporous.

Perhaps, but I prefer to offer at least one sane answer
in the hope of redeeming the Bills of the world. There
are a LOT of them ... and they're allowed to vote .....

>When Paranoid Pete says he thinks it's quite likely that Bill 'is
>correct as far as medium-to-large vertebrates are concerned, that's not
>so much hubristic as ignorant. Biological evolution cannot 'reach its
>limit' - the phrase is meaningless.

Agreed ... unless that "limit" is extinction.

>Bio-evo has limits, in the sense
>that there are things it can't do, but that has nothing to do with human
>interference, and I don't think that's what Bill meant, in any case.

Whether humans "interfere" or not, it's STILL "evolution".
Doesn't matter whether the selective pressure is a big
volcano in Indonesia or Beavis & Butthead down at
Gene-o-Tek.

Hmm ... maybe we can splice in a few things from wolves
into cats ... turn 'em into cooperative hunters ? Then even
the biggest rats would be in trouble. Might be a slight problem
if you don't bring home enough of your cats favorite treats
however ...... "Man discovered scratched to death - News
at 11 !" :-)

[James Beck]

On Sun, 24 May 2015 21:49:19 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>
wrote:

>On Sat, 23 May 2015 21:52:10 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
><sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>"Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net> wrote in
>>news:qrnvlalrf8ju0ocsf...@4ax.com:

[snip]

>>And we breed dogs to kill rats. Cats kill mice; rats are too big and
>>aggressive for 'em.
>
> You must have wimpy cats in your neck of the woods :-)
>
> And I've never heard of dogs being used as rat-hunters
> in the USA.

You haven't looked.

>Were "Rat Terriers" bred for that specific
> purpose in europe at some point ?

Yes.

[snip]

[Sneaky O. Possum]

"Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net> wrote in

news:tqu4matvqu9q5vf3p...@4ax.com:

> On Sat, 23 May 2015 21:52:10 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
> <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>"Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net> wrote in
>>news:qrnvlalrf8ju0ocsf...@4ax.com:
>>[snip]
>>> I didn't think the size of a fox was a good yardstick :-)
>>>
>>> In any case, it's all a mutual cause & effect situation. Rats
>>> influence our evolution, we influence the evolution of cats
>>> which influences the evolution of rats and ..... 'round and
>>> 'round it goes, usually on a much larger scale than just
>>> rats and cats.
>>
>>Rats influence our evolution if you use 'evolution' in the sense 'A
>>process of gradual change occurring in a system, institution, subject,
>>artefact, product, etc.' They had no demonstrable influence on our
>>evolution in the biological sense of 'the transformation of animals,
>>plants,
>
> Oh, but they DID ....
>
> The term "Black Death" comes to mind. 50+ percent
> obliteration in many european communities. The
> survivors were the lucky - and those who had a
> less-than-fatal encounter with the disease.

Oh, but they DIDN'T ...

A) Rats don't transmit *Y. pestis* to humans.

B) Post-plague humans are the same species as pre-plague humans.

> http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/02/black-death-left-mark-human-
> genome

*Y. pestis* is transmitted by fleas.

> Interestingly, cats were considered unlucky/satanic during
> much of that period and deliberately destroyed.

Even more interestingly, I've seen that claim parroted dozens of times
but have yet to see any actual evidence for it.

According to Joseph Byrne's *Encyclopedia of the Black Death* (Santa
Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2012), various domestic animals, including cats,
were put to death because they were believed to be vectors of the
plague, but the animals most frequently singled out were dogs, who have
an unfortunate tendency to dig up corpses (13).

>>and other living organisms into different forms by the
>>accumulation of changes over successive generations; the transmutation
>>of species', or in any other biological sense, for that matter.
>>
>>And we breed dogs to kill rats. Cats kill mice; rats are too big and
>>aggressive for 'em.
>
> You must have wimpy cats in your neck of the woods :-)

Don't think the token nicety of that insipid smiley will save you. If
you think rats are easy to catch and kill, then I invite you to catch
and kill some.

As those of us who take the trouble to learn stuff may know, domestic
dogs have a substantially greater bite force in relation to body mass
than domestic cats do - about twice as much force, on average. Even a
comparatively small dog can easily catch a rat in his jaws and crush him
or her to death, and the poor bastards (the dogs, that is) are so eager
to please their 'masters' (us) that they'll do it over and over again:

The writer once visited a farm by inviation for an hour's sport
killing rats. A friend was having a barley rick threshed, and when
the bottom, or bedding, was reached the rats tumbled out thick and
fast, and it was a pretty sight to see a brace of Irish Terriers and
an old Sheepdog literally slaughter them...The trio were not long in
accounting for 137. An Irish Terrier has such a punishing jaw, and
puts so much dash into killing rats, that one sometimes thinks ...
that such sport should be relegated to smaller breeds, for he not
only kills them but smashes them with the same apparent ease as one
could smash eggs with a mallet.
G. Perry, in Drury, *British Dogs* (3rd ed., 1903), 469.

Another reason domestic cats don't bother to hunt rats is that they kill
to eat, not to impress. A mouse or a small bird can be swallowed whole,
with the difficulty of sorting the edible bits from the inedibles left
to the digestive tract; rats are too big to be swallowed whole, and cats
lack a certain *je ne sais quoi* when it comes to filleting.

> And I've never heard of dogs being used as rat-hunters
> in the USA.

You've never heard of a lot of things. Dogs are even now being used as
rat-hunters in the USA.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/rat-hunting-dogs-bite-new-york-city-vermin-problem-article-1.1331191

http://tinyurl.com/mqavgxb

> Were "Rat Terriers" bred for that specific purpose in europe at some
> point ?

Bingo! Good to see you're not quite so stupid as you'd like us to think.

>>> We can't help being one of the selective
>>> pressures operating on the ecosystem - but it's pure
>>> hubris to suggest that we have taken-over evolution
>>> on the planet. Hell, we can't even get a grip on the flu
>>> viruses ....
>>
>>Since Bill was the one who originally suggested it ('biological
>>evolution has probably reached its limit due to human interference'),
>>it's not so much hubristic as vaporous.
>
> Perhaps, but I prefer to offer at least one sane answer
> in the hope of redeeming the Bills of the world. There
> are a LOT of them ... and they're allowed to vote .....

So are you, I suppose. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

>>When Paranoid Pete says he thinks it's quite likely that Bill 'is
>>correct as far as medium-to-large vertebrates are concerned, that's
>>not so much hubristic as ignorant. Biological evolution cannot 'reach
>>its limit' - the phrase is meaningless.
>
> Agreed ... unless that "limit" is extinction.

Extinction is a limit on life, not a limit on evolution.
--
S.O.P.

From 8x11436.3629...@news04.mailrealtime.pl Mon May 25 13:32:30 2015

[Mr. B1ack]

On Mon, 25 May 2015 04:16:33 -0600, James Beck <jdbec...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Some 'animal rights' group would complain or
do terrorism these days if you set dogs loose
on poor defenseless fuzzy rats :-)

From pos...@giganews.com Mon May 25 17:47:28 2015

[Mr. B1ack]

On Mon, 25 May 2015 04:16:33 -0600, James Beck <jdbec...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Some 'animal rights' group would complain or
do terrorism these days if you set dogs loose
on poor defenseless fuzzy rats :-)

From pos...@giganews.com Mon May 25 22:10:46 2015

[Burkhard]

I'd be a bit more nuanced on that one. Cats can and do kill rats on
occasion - especially very young ones if there is no mother to protect
them, or old and weak ones. However, my grandparents tom would also take
on fully grown ones, probably as en expression of territorial instincts
rather than hunting (nobody catches my food...)Here is a story that made
the rounds in the UK a while ago:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/shocking-clip-cat-killing-rat-5202575

But in general terms you are right, a domestic cat will not normally
attack a full sized rat.

[Mr. B1ack]

On Mon, 25 May 2015 17:27:26 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"

They are part of the vector chain. YP --> fleas, fleas -->rats,
rats-->human habitations, fleas-->humans, YP-->humans.

Some other animals can be vectors too, but they don't
associate with humans to nearly the degree rats do.

>B) Post-plague humans are the same species as pre-plague humans.

Huh ? Never said they made us into a different *species* ...
that'd be a lot more complicated. They DID select for certain
genes and/or exo-genes however. Not nearly enough to
create a whole new species though.

>> http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/02/black-death-left-mark-human-

I guess you didn't follow my thoughtfully-provided link ...

[Sneaky O. Possum]

"Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net> wrote in

news:ndfcma1brlmcptq9s...@4ax.com:

In other words, they don't transmit *Y. pestis* to humans.

> Some other animals can be vectors too, but they don't
> associate with humans to nearly the degree rats do.

On the contrary. Recent research indicates that the disease was vectored
by animals that associates with us far more closely than any species of
*Rattus* does: to wit, us. Experiments with body lice (*Pediculus
humanus*) indicate that they're better at transmitting *Y. pestis* than
any of the fleas hopping around Europe in the 14th century would have
been. (The fleas most closely associated with transmission of *Y.
pestis* are *Xenopsylla cheopis*, which wasn't found in Europe during
the Middle Ages, and *Oropsylla montana*, which isn't found in the
eastern hemisphere.)

>
>>B) Post-plague humans are the same species as pre-plague humans.
>
> Huh ? Never said they made us into a different *species* ...
> that'd be a lot more complicated.

That'd be evolution.
--
S.O.P.

[Mr. B1ack]

On Thu, 28 May 2015 02:33:54 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"

They attract and then transport the fleas. They are
part of the vector chain. Without them the fleas
would probably remain dispersed in the woods
somewhere.

>> Some other animals can be vectors too, but they don't
>> associate with humans to nearly the degree rats do.
>
>On the contrary. Recent research indicates that the disease was vectored
>by animals that associates with us far more closely than any species of
>*Rattus* does: to wit, us. Experiments with body lice (*Pediculus
>humanus*) indicate that they're better at transmitting *Y. pestis* than
>any of the fleas hopping around Europe in the 14th century would have
>been. (The fleas most closely associated with transmission of *Y.
>pestis* are *Xenopsylla cheopis*, which wasn't found in Europe during
>the Middle Ages, and *Oropsylla montana*, which isn't found in the
>eastern hemisphere.)

The Black Death didn't start in europe ... it was a side-
effect of expanded trading with the near and far east.
Maybe lice CAN transmit it ... but european lice didn't
HAVE it until it was brought in from afar ... and fleas
and the rats they lived on are good suspects.

>>>B) Post-plague humans are the same species as pre-plague humans.
>>
>> Huh ? Never said they made us into a different *species* ...
>> that'd be a lot more complicated.
>
>That'd be evolution.

There's no exact point where genetic changes in a population
can be said to have created a whole new species. Even the
old "can breed with" yardstick isn't entirely true. HSS and
Neanderthals could crossbreed - likely humans, Neanderthals
and H.erectus could - and produce fertile offspring. However
H.E. is clearly not HSS. The 'species'/'subspecies' thing is,
and remains, and probably should be, kinda fuzzy. Nature
is under no obligation to fit into our convenient pigeonholes.

The plague DID cause what I guess you could call "micro-
evolution" ... it left a permanent genetic effect that seems
to have actual real-world consequences. The remaining
population there was "more fit" ... at least for a plague-
infested world. Nowadays this genetic tweak would very
rarely convey an advantage - not much plague, lots of
antibiotics.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, May 22, 2015 at 8:28:31 PM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:
> On Fri, 22 May 2015 19:58:53 -0400, Roger Shrubber
> <rog.sh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >RSNorman wrote:
> >> On Fri, 22 May 2015 18:29:19 -0400, Roger Shrubber
> >> <rog.sh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> RSNorman wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I would guess an awful lot of people here have been left out including
> >>>> me. Most of us simply think that talk.origins is not the proper place
> >>>> to argue these issues. The matter really is settled as far as I am
> >>>> concerned: Going all the way back to Abraham and Jacob, the great
> >>>> King David and the wise Solomon, marriage has always had one
> >>>> definition and one alone: a sacred union very specifically between one
> >>>> man and one woman. Don't these examples prove it?
> >>>
> >>> Are you defining marriage, sacred, or one?
> >>
> >> It has been brought to my attention that my examples may be
> >> interpreted in a different way.

Indeed, only a clueless person could fail to see how you very
carefully chose a one-sided selection from the OT and asked
a very tongue-in-cheek question.

And you continued to keep your tongue firmly in your cheek:

> >> Marriage is a sacred institution,
> >> timeless and universal in its meaning. My definition was, I admit,
> >> perhaps flawed. So here is the REAL definition of marriage: A
> >> permanent and indissoluble union based on love and mutual affection
> >> between one man and one or possibly more than one fully consenting
> >> adult women. Certainly nobody could object to that! Certainly it
> >> could never be anything else, nowhere and at no time.
> >
> >Here I confess I always mix up my Pluto and my Plato.
> >One references a distant world discovered by our imagination, beyond
> >our current reach, uncontaminated and unpopulated by us humans, with
> >our imperfections, our failings and failures, and the other is, I think,
> >a dog.

> So you are suggesting that my new definition to be a purely imaginary
> canine?

You and Shrubber make quite a team. On another thread, you've
both accused me of misrepresentation, but neither of you has quite
succeeded in identifying where the alleged misrepresentation is.

Is that because you are as flippant there as you are here?

> It has now been brought to my attention, by Burkhard among
> other of my own researches, that permanent, indissoluble, love, mutual
> affection, adult and consent have nothing whatsoever to do with
> marriage.

The scary part is, I'm not sure you are still being flippant.

> Goodness gracious, it turns out that the notion of marriage is quite
> flexible, having always been adjusted to one's time and place and
> general philosophical and social and economic disposition. Perhaps,
> dare I say, it is time to rethink exactly what we now call "marriage"
> and allow new possibilities to reflect our own time and place and
> feelings about true equality, fairness, and diversity of life styles.

Assuming you have finally told us your true opinion, let me
mention the possibility of someone taking care of a chimpanzee
and wanting to get married to it, in order to get the tax breaks that go
with "married, filing jointly". [After all, it's quite expensive
to maintain a chimpanzee in good health.] Do you think that allowing
this is a progressive position to take in the direction of
true equality, fairness, and diversity of life styles?

And now a <gasp> on-topic question: is it possible for a human and
a chimp of opposite sexes to have offspring, maybe only sterile
offspring like in the case of mules and hinnies because of the
different chromosome numbers?

IOW, is it possible to have something approximating the situation
in "The Planet of the Apes" series just before the apes took over,
with sterile offspring of humans and chimps doing most of the
grunt work and able to converse with humans?

Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

I explicitly acknowledge that Peter finds significant similarity
between the hypothetical relationship between a human and a
chimp, and a human and another human. Sure, a grossly unempathetic
mathematician might consider such a comparison to be meaningful
but such a person (the unempathetic mathematician) is a creature
that stretches credulity. Can such a person walk and chew gum?

> And now a <gasp> on-topic question: is it possible for a human and
> a chimp of opposite sexes to have offspring, maybe only sterile
> offspring like in the case of mules and hinnies because of the
> different chromosome numbers?

It boggles the mind that you consider this relevant. It really does.
You apparently have very little contact with fellow humans. I
seriously struggle to invent any other compensation that accommodates
your comments. And I fear for any dogs you might have loved.

> IOW, is it possible to have something approximating the situation
> in "The Planet of the Apes" series just before the apes took over,
> with sterile offspring of humans and chimps doing most of the
> grunt work and able to converse with humans?

You scare me. It's worse than the absurdities that Solar Penguin
has spewed forth. I understand (perhaps) the nature of the crude
mathematical equivalence of your comparisons, but your analogues
demonstrate a really warped sense of equivalence. And I will take
this to the next level. It's the kind of absurdity that is exposed
in the likes of Josh Duggar playing the circuit to proclaim that
homosexuals are a threat to children because he claims that they
are child molesters when in fact, he was the child molester,
riding his bizarre world of male dominance and female subservience.
These damnable facts keep revealing examples of hypocrites
that manufacture documentation of manifest evil, in contrast to
their assertions of evil. Your world requires that we ignore
data and adhere to hateful rhetoric. Fuck you.

[RSNorman]

I went to extremes to make a statement: " that the notion of marriage

is quite flexible, having always been adjusted to one's time and place
and general philosophical and social and economic disposition."

Somehow you now argue that to extend that flexibility any further will
result in your "Planet of the Apes" scenario. Or is your argument that
the notion of marriage is fixed and unchangeable, ordained by God and
not to be undone by governments?

I am flippant about some subjects and terribly serious about others
and, as you point out earlier, only a clueless person could fail to
see the distinction.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, May 29, 2015 at 8:08:12 AM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:
> On Thu, 28 May 2015 20:25:27 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >On Friday, May 22, 2015 at 8:28:31 PM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:

> >> Goodness gracious, it turns out that the notion of marriage is quite
> >> flexible, having always been adjusted to one's time and place and
> >> general philosophical and social and economic disposition. Perhaps,
> >> dare I say, it is time to rethink exactly what we now call "marriage"
> >> and allow new possibilities to reflect our own time and place and
> >> feelings about true equality, fairness, and diversity of life styles.
> >
> >Assuming you have finally told us your true opinion, let me
> >mention the possibility of someone taking care of a chimpanzee
> >and wanting to get married to it, in order to get the tax breaks that go
> >with "married, filing jointly". [After all, it's quite expensive
> >to maintain a chimpanzee in good health.]

Also, of course, there is the tax break with being able to
count the chimp as a dependent.

> > Do you think that allowing
> >this is a progressive position to take in the direction of
> >true equality, fairness, and diversity of life styles?

You and Shrubber both ducked this question, but you did it
with aplomb while Shrubber's ranting and raving says a lot
about how screwed up he is about me, and says next to nothing
about the three issues I brought up, one above and then two below:

> >And now a <gasp> on-topic question: is it possible for a human and
> >a chimp of opposite sexes to have offspring, maybe only sterile
> >offspring like in the case of mules and hinnies because of the
> >different chromosome numbers?

The "IOW" below, launching a third scenario, may have misled you.
Put the emphasis on the word "possible" [theoretically possible, yet very
far from probable-looking even if the answer to both my questions is "Yes"]
and then the "IOW" should make sense.

> >IOW, is it possible to have something approximating the situation
> >in "The Planet of the Apes" series just before the apes took over,
> >with sterile offspring of humans and chimps doing most of the
> >grunt work and able to converse with humans?
> >

> I went to extremes to make a statement: " that the notion of marriage
> is quite flexible, having always been adjusted to one's time and place
> and general philosophical and social and economic disposition."

So you don't really insist on same-sex marriage being mandated by
"true equality, fairness, and diversity of life styles."??

Shrubber may be very disappointed with you if you answer that you
don't insist on it.

> Somehow you now argue that to extend that flexibility any further will
> result in your "Planet of the Apes" scenario.

Still somewhat flippant? Of course, it is difficult to steer a middle
course between me and the paranoid, foaming-at-the-mouth Shrubber.

Shubber's rage is probably born of frustration, due to his inability to
come up with a rational argument against the FIRST scenario. That was
as expected by me as the rising of the sun; Shrubber is that kind of
political animal.

What did surprise me is that he has NOTHING to say about the biological
barriers, if any, in the way of humans and chimps having offspring,
albeit probably sterile ones. I thought he knew enough about genetics
to answer it one way or the other.

That second scenario really has very little to do with the first;
even if human-chimp marriage became a reality, offspring or even
sexual relations would be completely different issue than the civil union.

THAT is my real analogy to same-sex marriage:
I keep saying "gay marriage" is a misnomer for same-sex
marriage because it assumes that if two people contract a marriage
that means they will also have sex with each other.

Of course, if you put it that way, then any thinking person would
disagree with the assumption. The trouble is, hardly anyone

bothers to think in that direction. Just look at the way Shrubber's
personal attack on me avoids that direction like the plague.

> Or is your argument that
> the notion of marriage is fixed and unchangeable, ordained by God and
> not to be undone by governments?

You really need to do something about your propensity to look only
at extremes. Even more basic to my argument than the gay/same-sex
analogy is the thesis that same-sex marriage has nothing to do
with fairness, equality, or rights, and everything to do with
privilege and power.

And supporting my thesis is the fact that Gay Power propagandists
never try to reason WHY it has to do with rights, and why
human-chimp civil unions have nothing to do with rights.

They know that there are animal rights enthusiasts like Peter
Singer, with his Princeton U. endowed chair distancing him
light years from PETA types, ready to turn any rational arguments
in the direction of rights for chimps. And so the Gay Power
propagandists, like "Roger Shrubber" [who is probably either Wade Hines
or Herb Huston] are forced to resort to virulent *ad hominem* attacks
and keep as far away from rational argument as possible.

The assault on "speciesism" is still in its infancy, but already
an Argentine Court has ruled that a certain orangutan is a
"nonhuman person"; there has been a similar legal case involving
a chimpanzee here in the USA, although it hasn't gone that far.

> I am flippant about some subjects and terribly serious about others
> and, as you point out earlier, only a clueless person could fail to
> see the distinction.

But there is a gray area that you might not be aware of, which causes
you to ignore the vast gulf between the first thing you suggested
I might be arguing for, and the second thing. Here is a little
essay that might give you some idea of how vast the middle ground
is just between traditional "God-given" marriage and same-sex marriage:

http://historeo.com/web/?p=3271#more-3271

Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

Peter Nyikos wrote:

> You and Shrubber both ducked this question, but you did it
> with aplomb while Shrubber's ranting and raving says a lot
> about how screwed up he is about me, and says next to nothing
> about the three issues I brought up, one above and then two below:

....

> Shrubber may be very disappointed with you if you answer that you
> don't insist on it.

....

> Still somewhat flippant? Of course, it is difficult to steer a middle
> course between me and the paranoid, foaming-at-the-mouth Shrubber.

> Shubber's rage is probably born of frustration, due to his inability to
> come up with a rational argument against the FIRST scenario. That was
> as expected by me as the rising of the sun; Shrubber is that kind of
> political animal.

Shrubber thinks that you responding to somebody else while making
all sorts of accusations about Shrubber displays your true character.
It further documents that you need to delete context, avoid context,
and otherwise obscure context to deliver your own delusions. And yet,
you inadvertently provide a context for your own way of thinking.
Keep digging. I'll send down another shovel when that one breaks
but I don't see how you can get any deeper given that everything you
toss up is just falling back down on your head.

[Peter Nyikos]

This was the first of three questions I asked RSNorman, who has very
prudently remained silent after my long reply to him where I
explained its true import, and that of the other two questions.

> I explicitly acknowledge that Peter finds significant similarity
> between the hypothetical relationship between a human and a
> chimp, and a human and another human.

You "acknowledge" a figment of your imagination. As I said just now,
I explained to RSNorman the real import of my three very loosely connected
questions, giving three theses, one serious issue for each question.

You replied to that long post, deleting every one of my questions
and every one of those issues, with a piece of pure polemical
opportunism.

Will you now add another bit of polemical opportunism, downplaying
the word "significant" to a point where it makes hash of your
next two sentences? [After all, you've amply demonstrated how
reason and consistency go flying out the window where my three questions
and their true import are involved.]

> Sure, a grossly unempathetic
> mathematician might consider such a comparison to be meaningful
> but such a person (the unempathetic mathematician) is a creature
> that stretches credulity. Can such a person walk and chew gum?

The "comparison" has to do with how people might come to game
the system where the concept of "marriage" is concerned.

Later this week I will post a scenario which makes somewhat
plausible such a gaming of the system, say, a few decades from now.

Will you post another tirade in reply to that, or will you play it cool?
Time will tell.

> > And now a <gasp> on-topic question: is it possible for a human and
> > a chimp of opposite sexes to have offspring, maybe only sterile
> > offspring like in the case of mules and hinnies because of the
> > different chromosome numbers?

Once people start to game the system as indicated above, this
second question will undoubtedly come to many people's minds,
inasmuch as "what goes on behind closed doors is nobody's business,
as long as it doesn't break any laws" seems to be settled law.

> It boggles the mind that you consider this relevant. It really does.

Does it really boggle YOUR mind? Or are you venting because you don't want
to answer the question? Do you really have no idea as to
the correct answer, despite your touted knowledge of genetics?

> You apparently have very little contact with fellow humans. I
> seriously struggle to invent any other compensation that accommodates
> your comments. And I fear for any dogs you might have loved.

In my replies to you last week, I had such comments in mind
when I used terms like "ranting and raving" and "foaming at the mouth."

But those had only to do with externals of style and substance.
Could it be that the above paragraph is a coldly calculated,
cynical attempt to manipulate the emotions of your readers?
Your studied nonchalance in several of your replies to me in
other threads does make this question relevant.

> > IOW, is it possible to have something approximating the situation
> > in "The Planet of the Apes" series just before the apes took over,
> > with sterile offspring of humans and chimps doing most of the
> > grunt work and able to converse with humans?

Despite the IOW, this third question is only very loosely connected
with the previous two. The stress is all on "possible" and I certainly
hope it never happens. But with so much "transhumanism" in the air
these days, I fear it is at least remotely possible.

By the way, "grunt work" was inspired by the "hybrid vigor" displayed
by mules.

> You scare me. It's worse than the absurdities that Solar Penguin
> has spewed forth. I understand (perhaps) the nature of the crude
> mathematical equivalence of your comparisons,

Typical leftist propaganda use of the word "equivalence" noted.
I wonder how far back in time it goes. Did people of Jonathan
Swift's day accuse him of claiming what the British do in Ireland
is "equivalent" to cannibalism in reaction to "A Modest Proposal"?

> but your analogues
> demonstrate a really warped sense of equivalence. And I will take
> this to the next level. It's the kind of absurdity that is exposed
> in the likes of Josh Duggar playing the circuit to proclaim that
> homosexuals are a threat to children because he claims that they
> are child molesters when in fact, he was the child molester,
> riding his bizarre world of male dominance and female subservience.

Were I to share your screwed-up vocabulary, I'd accuse you of
alleging "equivalence" between me and serial child molesters,
and between me and people inhabiting a "bizarre world of

male dominance and female subservience."

> These damnable facts keep revealing examples of hypocrites
> that manufacture documentation of manifest evil, in contrast to
> their assertions of evil. Your world requires that we ignore
> data and adhere to hateful rhetoric. Fuck you.

More (coldly calculated?) "foaming at the mouth" by you,
who are perhaps the greatest promoter in this newsgroup
of the fallacy of guilt by association.

You'd be helpless without that fallacy, wouldn't you?

By the way, was your "requires" a Freudian slip? You are indeed
ignoring data [my explanation of the three questions] and
adhering to hateful rhetoric. [Yes, you wrote it before you
carefully ignored my "data"--but that just goes to suggest that
such behavior is indeed a "requirement" for you.]

Peter Nyikos

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Peter Nyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
news:55232cfc-006d-4b71...@googlegroups.com:

> On Friday, May 29, 2015 at 12:48:11 AM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
>> Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> > Assuming you have finally told us your true opinion, let me
>> > mention the possibility of someone taking care of a chimpanzee
>> > and wanting to get married to it, in order to get the tax breaks
>> > that go with "married, filing jointly". [After all, it's quite
>> > expensive to maintain a chimpanzee in good health.] Do you think
>> > that allowing this is a progressive position to take in the
>> > direction of true equality, fairness, and diversity of life
>> > styles?
>
> This was the first of three questions I asked RSNorman, who has very
> prudently remained silent after my long reply to him where I
> explained its true import, and that of the other two questions.

Its true import is obvious, Peter. You know perfectly well that a
chimpanzee cannot consent to any such arrangement: thus, you know
perfectly well that your question has no bearing on the issue of
changing the law to allow two consenting adults to marry even though
they're the same sex. (And by the way, I see that a majority of Irish
voters - 1,201,607 of them - voted 'Yes' on the referendum.)

Since you know your question is utterly irrelevant, you ask it so you
can display your loathing of homosexuality while pretending that you're
not displaying your loathing of homosexuality.

That's its true import. Can you acknowledge that? I doubt it.

And Ray Martinez is right about you: you don't believe that either he or
Ron Okimoto is seriously unstable mentally. When you wrote 'Both you and
Ron O are seriously unstable mentally', you stated something that you
did not believe to be true. Can you acknowledge that?
--
S.O.P.

[RSNorman]

On Mon, 1 Jun 2015 06:29:27 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:


>This was the first of three questions I asked RSNorman, who has very
>prudently remained silent after my long reply to him where I
>explained its true import, and that of the other two questions.
>

You do write long replies and my prudence in failing to answer has
nothing to do with the power of your argument in silencing me. Rather
it has to do with the lack of value in pursuing endlessly the same
material and in choosing not to meander into the irrelevancies you
propose, not to mention having to wade through your review of all the
injustices heaped upon you in days past. You raised an outlandish
issue of human-chimpanzee pairing and proceeded from there. That is
not worth going through.

My only real point, and it is a serious one despite the light-handed
approach I took with it, is that the concept of marriage has changed
drastically over the millenia and between different cultures and I see
no reason why one particular concept should now be enshrined in
permanancy. You have offered nothing to counter that notion except to
indicate that there are ways in which it could change that you (and
many others) find unacceptable.

[Burkhard]

RSNorman wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Jun 2015 06:29:27 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
>> This was the first of three questions I asked RSNorman, who has very
>> prudently remained silent after my long reply to him where I
>> explained its true import, and that of the other two questions.
>>
>
> You do write long replies and my prudence in failing to answer has
> nothing to do with the power of your argument in silencing me. Rather
> it has to do with the lack of value in pursuing endlessly the same
> material and in choosing not to meander into the irrelevancies you
> propose, not to mention having to wade through your review of all the
> injustices heaped upon you in days past. You raised an outlandish
> issue of human-chimpanzee pairing and proceeded from there. That is
> not worth going through.
>
> My only real point, and it is a serious one despite the light-handed
> approach I took with it, is that the concept of marriage has changed
> drastically over the millenia and between different cultures and I see
> no reason why one particular concept should now be enshrined in
> permanancy.

Not to encourage Peter's inane speculation about intra-species marriage
which shows at best that his conception of marriage doesn't require
consent, but there have been cultures that permitted animal marriage for
certain religious and symbolic purposes - further making your point
about the cultural relativity of the concept.

A recent report was from a tribal community in India, where a girl was
wedded to a dog in an emergency ceremony to ward off evil spirits that
attack unmarried persons only.

And of course, the Girl Who Married a Dog had a lasting impact on us, as
she gave us the Pleiades

[Rolf]

"Roger Shrubber" <rog.sh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:VLadnTEO7JnEtvTI...@giganews.com...

Gravity is God and Shrubber his prophet?

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, June 1, 2015 at 10:13:01 AM UTC-4, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> Peter Nyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
> news:55232cfc-006d-4b71...@googlegroups.com:
>
> > On Friday, May 29, 2015 at 12:48:11 AM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> >> Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >> > Assuming you have finally told us your true opinion, let me
> >> > mention the possibility of someone taking care of a chimpanzee
> >> > and wanting to get married to it, in order to get the tax breaks
> >> > that go with "married, filing jointly". [After all, it's quite
> >> > expensive to maintain a chimpanzee in good health.] Do you think
> >> > that allowing this is a progressive position to take in the
> >> > direction of true equality, fairness, and diversity of life
> >> > styles?
> >
> > This was the first of three questions I asked RSNorman, who has very
> > prudently remained silent after my long reply to him where I
> > explained its true import, and that of the other two questions.

> Its true import is obvious, Peter.

You claimed you would no longer reply to me, "Sneaky," after posting
a bunch of unmitigated crap and ducking a challenge to
back up your allegation of homophobic statements by me.

I will now "return the favor" and ignore what you wrote after your
opening sentence until you cough up a statement by me that you
allege to fit that description.

Turnabout is fair play. I don't always invoke that principle,
but against a dedicated part-time troll like you, you can expect
me to invoke it in ways that are not actually unethical.

Peter Nyikos

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, June 1, 2015 at 10:28:04 AM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Jun 2015 06:29:27 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
> >This was the first of three questions I asked RSNorman, who has very
> >prudently remained silent after my long reply to him where I
> >explained its true import, and that of the other two questions.
> >
>
> You do write long replies and my prudence in failing to answer has
> nothing to do with the power of your argument in silencing me.

You are completely missing the point of "prudently," but I'd rather
not get into that now.

Your one real misunderstanding was in thinking the three questions were
somehow inextricably linked with each other. Actually they were
a matter of free association, one question making me think of the next.

> Rather
> it has to do with the lack of value in pursuing endlessly the same
> material and in choosing not to meander into the irrelevancies you
> propose, not to mention having to wade through your review of all the
> injustices heaped upon you in days past.

Are you afraid to let some non-empty subset of the words "Roger Shrubber"
show at this point? That is the only person whose injustices are
relevant here.

> You raised an outlandish
> issue of human-chimpanzee pairing and proceeded from there.

You seem to be conflating my first question with the second.

Do you know the answer to my purely biological second
question of whether humans an chimps are capable of having
offspring? That is HIGHLY relevant to talk.origins, since creationists
are adamant on separate creation of humans and their great distance
from the great apes.

> That is
> not worth going through.

Can't you see the consternation an offspring of humans and chimps
(either *paniscus* or *troglodyetes*) could cause among creationists
of all kinds? It would be a terrible blow to the claim that we are
an utterly different "kind" from them.

We are both highly intelligent people, you and I. Has your
intelligence produced a blind spot to where you cannot see how my
first two questions were logically independent of each other?

As to the first question, which seems to be uppermost in your mind,
Burkhard has handled it nicely, in a way that I might have handled
it too.

Burkhard has killfiled me, so he is under the mistaken impression
that he is somehow thinking differently about the first question
than I actually am. And neither you nor Shrubber are making it
easier for him, the way you are deleting my explanations for what
the three questions are all about.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
nyikos "at" math.sc.edu

[RSNorman]

On Tue, 2 Jun 2015 09:46:53 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos

Please avoid any reference to other posters when you respond to me
unless you adress specific on-topic material that they reference. And
"mistaken impressions" or "making things easy" are not on-topic.

You say you raised three questions. They seem to me to be

1: about marrying a chimpanzee: " Do you think that allowing this is a

progressive position to take in the direction of true equality,

fairness, and diversity of life styles?" That was uppermost in my
mind and now you say it is disposed of so just let it lie there in
peace.

2. " is it possible for a human and a chimp of opposite sexes to have

offspring, maybe only sterile offspring like in the case of mules and

hinnies because of the different chromosome numbers?" Yes, this is a
real question of science but, in my mind, extremely uninteresting. My
impression is no, there is too much divergence regardless of the
chromosomal differences. I would guess (without having data or papers
to cite) that the major differences are details of development,
especially brain development and it is unlikely that the combination
of genes will work properly. It would be considered totally unethical
by standards of science to attempt to create such a hybrid. Human
society also has some things to say about this. (Yes, a deliberate
massive understatement.) That creationist might be thrown into
consternation by such a feat is completely irrelevant. I doubt they
would be.

3. I can't for the life of me see a third question because the third
one you do ask is prefaced: "IOW". It relates the the movie "The
Planet of the Apes." And so I considered it entirely superfluous and
not really deserving of a serious answer.

So only number 2 is a real question and I also didn't think it
worthwhile in the present context to raise it. Intergeneric hybrids
are known in biology, both in plants and animals. And there are even
cases of interfamilial animals although what counts as a genus and
family in birds can be somewhat different from the case in other
animal groups. So biologically whether humans and other great apes
can interbreed doesn't prove anything about evolution.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Tuesday, June 2, 2015 at 1:57:58 PM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:
> On Tue, 2 Jun 2015 09:46:53 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> > Do you know the answer to my purely biological second

> >question of whether humans [and] chimps are capable of having

> >offspring? That is HIGHLY relevant to talk.origins, since creationists
> >are adamant on separate creation of humans and their great distance
> >from the great apes.
> >
> >> That is
> >> not worth going through.
> >
> >Can't you see the consternation an offspring of humans and chimps
> >(either *paniscus* or *troglodyetes*) could cause among creationists
> >of all kinds? It would be a terrible blow to the claim that we are
> >an utterly different "kind" from them.

<snip>

> >Burkhard has killfiled me, so he is under the mistaken impression
> >that he is somehow thinking differently about the first question
> >than I actually am. And neither you nor Shrubber are making it
> >easier for him, the way you are deleting my explanations for what
> >the three questions are all about.
>
> Please avoid any reference to other posters when you respond to me
> unless you adress specific on-topic material that they reference. And
> "mistaken impressions" or "making things easy" are not on-topic.

Somehow, I don't think you've been this restrictive in choice of
topics in the past.

> You say you raised three questions. They seem to me to be
>
> 1: about marrying a chimpanzee: " Do you think that allowing this is a
> progressive position to take in the direction of true equality,
> fairness, and diversity of life styles?" That was uppermost in my
> mind and now you say it is disposed of so just let it lie there in
> peace.

...without you ever having given a straight answer. But that's OK;
the question will be approached from a different angle later this
week [assuming I have the time for it, otherwise next week] in
which I concentrate on a somewhat plausible scenario for the
human-chimp "marriage" [of the same genre that Burkhard had in mind].

> 2. " is it possible for a human and a chimp of opposite sexes to have
> offspring, maybe only sterile offspring like in the case of mules and
> hinnies because of the different chromosome numbers?" Yes, this is a
> real question of science but, in my mind, extremely uninteresting.
> My impression is no, there is too much divergence regardless of the
> chromosomal differences. I would guess (without having data or papers
> to cite) that the major differences are details of development,
> especially brain development and it is unlikely that the combination
> of genes will work properly.

Human microcephalics would seem to indicate otherwise wrt brain
development.

>
> It would be considered totally unethical
> by standards of science to attempt to create such a hybrid.

I think you are way behind on the whole subject of bioethics.
[Which, by the way, is not science -- ethics is a branch
of philosophy, not science.]

Do you know about three-parent embryos, for instance? Those
have been approved in Britain, IIRC.

> Human
> society also has some things to say about this. (Yes, a deliberate
> massive understatement.)

I am unaware of any present laws against it. Not too long ago,
in fact, a governor of South Carolina was derisively
called "the bestiality governor" because he wanted bestiality
outlawed.

> That creationist might be thrown into
> consternation by such a feat is completely irrelevant. I doubt they
> would be.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

> 3. I can't for the life of me see a third question because the third
> one you do ask is prefaced: "IOW". It relates the the movie "The
> Planet of the Apes." And so I considered it entirely superfluous and
> not really deserving of a serious answer.

The IOW only had to do with possibility. The scenario, however farfetched,
is a separate issue. It is one of a society in which a significant
amount of "grunt" work is done by human-ape hybrids. Since you
have serious doubts about such hybrids being a possibility, I guess
I'll just wait and see whether anyone else is interested in exploring
whether such a society, if possible, is desirable.

> So only number 2 is a real question and I also didn't think it
> worthwhile in the present context to raise it. Intergeneric hybrids
> are known in biology, both in plants and animals. And there are even
> cases of interfamilial animals although what counts as a genus and
> family in birds can be somewhat different from the case in other
> animal groups. So biologically whether humans and other great apes
> can interbreed doesn't prove anything about evolution.

Except that it may not have reached a limit in this specific
direction. Note the title of this whole thread.

Peter Nyikos
nyikos at math.sc.edu

[Bill]

So, global warming is a hoax? Humans have no influence on
their environment? What about the great bee die-off that's
scaring the farmers or oil spills off California and the
dead zone at Chernoble? Humans are very deliberately
engineering their environment. Biological evolution is no
longer a random process, mindlessly bumbling along.

Bill

[Pete K.]

Evolution never was random and such human activity doesn't make it any
more or less so, Where we've altered the environment organisms will
either adapt or go extinct as always when the environment changes.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Bill <fre...@gmail.com> wrote in news:mklc4g$ul1$1...@dont-email.me:

> Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
[snip]

>> Since Bill was the one who originally suggested it
>> ('biological evolution has probably reached its limit due
>> to human interference'), it's not so much hubristic as
>> vaporous.
>>
>> When Paranoid Pete says he thinks it's quite likely that
>> Bill 'is correct as far as medium-to-large vertebrates are
>> concerned, that's not so much hubristic as ignorant.
>> Biological evolution cannot 'reach its limit' - the phrase
>> is meaningless. Bio-evo has limits, in the sense that
>> there are things it can't do, but that has nothing to do
>> with human interference, and I don't think that's what
>> Bill meant, in any case.
>
> So, global warming is a hoax? Humans have no influence on their
> environment?

Human influence on the environment does not cause biological evolution
to 'reach its limit.' The Chicxulub impactor did Very Bad Things to the
environment, but it didn't cause biological evolution to 'reach its
limit.' The natural phenomena caused the Permian-Triassic extinction
event did even worse things to the environment, but biological evolution
didn't reach its limit.

I should note that I overstated the case when I wrote that 'Biological
evolution cannot "reach its limit"'. In fact, it can do so: after the
extinction of all life everywhere, it will have done so - but not before
then.

As for our influence, well - we're very good at driving other species to
extinction, but we're not *that* good.
--
S.O.P.

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:53:52 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Bill <fre...@gmail.com>:

It never was a "random process" although random mutations
formed part of the input to the process, just as the
activities of humans, as part of the environment, do now.

And this is a far cry from the idea that, because human
activity is now included in the inputs to the process, the
process has somehow "reached its limit", an idea which is
"not even wrong". Only someone who has the mistaken notion
that only a "natural" environment (by which they seem to
mean "an environment without humans or the activities of
humans"; a canard) can make such a ridiculous claim.
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, June 3, 2015 at 10:37:55 AM UTC-4, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> Bill <fre...@gmail.com> wrote in news:mklc4g$ul1$1...@dont-email.me:
>
> > Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> [snip]
>
> >> Since Bill was the one who originally suggested it
> >> ('biological evolution has probably reached its limit due
> >> to human interference'), it's not so much hubristic as
> >> vaporous.
> >>
> >> When Paranoid Pete

Not paranoid at all. If you are looking for someone paranoid,
you need look no further than your kindred spirit, "Roger Shrubber,"
on this thread. You will find evidence of his paranoia, to a slightly
lesser degree, on at least four other threads as well.

In fact -- aren't you calling me "Paranoid Pete" to deflect attention
from Roger Shrubber? Aren't you trying to make people forget that he said,
"You scare me." after posting a bizarre fantasy about me, followed
by another immediately afterwards in the same post?

> >> says he thinks it's quite likely that
> >> Bill 'is correct as far as medium-to-large vertebrates are
> >> concerned, that's not so much hubristic as ignorant.

My argument, which nobody has really asked me for, is that
when one gets beyond the size of foxes -- which are noticeably
larger than rats -- the animals involved have little chance to
escape human attention or to adapt to humans changing the environment.
They can and probably will be managed and preserved in their present
form to the degree humans can do that.

Take red wolves, for instance. Humans intervened to prevent them
getting so diluted with coyote genes as to be irreparably extinct
in their pristine form. Now I have actually seen some of them in
the North Carolina Zoological park.

In fact, some retrograde action has been taken to try and bring back
extinct animals, like aurochs and the tarpan. How successfully, no
one really knows.

<snip for focus>

> > So, global warming is a hoax? Humans have no influence on their
> > environment?
>
> Human influence on the environment does not cause biological evolution
> to 'reach its limit.' The Chicxulub impactor did Very Bad Things to the
> environment, but it didn't cause biological evolution to 'reach its
> limit.' The natural phenomena caused the Permian-Triassic extinction
> event did even worse things to the environment, but biological evolution
> didn't reach its limit.
>
> I should note that I overstated the case when I wrote that 'Biological
> evolution cannot "reach its limit"'. In fact, it can do so: after the
> extinction of all life everywhere, it will have done so - but not before
> then.
>
> As for our influence, well - we're very good at driving other species to
> extinction, but we're not *that* good.

Where large animals are concerned, humans have been spectacularly successful.
Look at skeletons of megafauna of all continents except Antarctica, and you
can see how successful even our primitive ancestors have been.

By the way, thanks for finally identifying who began this topic. I just
didn't recognize Bill by his e-mail address, which is all DSH
let us know about.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --
U. of South Carolina at Columbia
www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Peter Nyikos]

"Roger Shrubber" never did reply to this post of mine, and after
his exhibition of cowardice and dishonesty (which included naked
guilt by association, among other things) I doubt that he ever
will. But now, on looking at this post again, I see a possibility
that escaped me when I first wrote it.

On Friday, May 22, 2015 at 5:23:33 PM UTC-4, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> On Friday, May 22, 2015 at 4:28:32 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> > Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >

> > > I don't know of any here that fit that description. On the other
> > > hand, terminal Gay Power junkies "Roger Shrubber" and Mark Isaak
> > > and "Sneaky O. Possum" are totally gung-ho on how absolutely
> > > bigoted anyone is who wants the word "marriage" to go on meaning a
> > > certain kind of commitment/contract/covenant between people of
> > > opposite sexes.
> >
> > You are quite liberal with these, hmmm, untruths.
>
> Where's the truth in The World According to Roger Shrubber? You
> don't even hint at where I went wrong, if I did.
>
> Est-ce que you only call such people bigots if they happen
> to be someone named Peter Nyikos or someone who goes by the
> handle AlwaysAskingQuestions?

Is it just a coincidence that Shrubber has called AAQ and me bigots,
and perhaps no one else? AAQ and I are both Roman Catholics, and offhand
I know of no one else posting to talk.origins of the same faith.

This would be in line with the way several people in t.o. have been
known to associate "priests" with "pedophiles" as though the two
were almost synonymous.

And note this: Roger Shrubber wouldn't dream of insinuating that
such people are closet pedophiles. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised
to learn that he is one of these "such people."

But note also: his kind loves to tease gay-bashers with insinuations
that they are closet gays or at least people who are unsure of their
own sexual orientation.

But then, who ever accused Roger Shrubber of consistency? :-)

Peter Nyikos


> > But then the phraseology "terminal Gay Power junkies" is the
> > sort of thing that does have an incipient boomerang nature to it.
>
> Yes, I was boomeranging "Mr. B1ack"s own words onto the three of you;
> a fact which you obscured by snipping his words:
>
> And who gives a shit about same-sex marriage ?
> Oh yea ... terminal Jeezus junkies ....... screw 'em.
>
> Est-ce que you are leery of crossing "Mr. B1ack" and so you would
> prefer to deal just with me?
>
> > It isn't quite Band Name quality though. Regardless, if I thought
> > anybody worth note took you seriously, or that your attack had
> > qualities that anybody would take seriously, I would protest more
> > vigorously. As it stands, have pity on yourself, and give it a rest.
>
> Your insouciance should fool no one. You certainly took note a year or
> two ago when I sided with Glenn on an on-topic matter. It was like
> coming between a hungry lion and his dinner.
>
> After the flare-up had gone on for a little while, you revealed that you
> had been caring for a dying relative, calling me a "pissant"
> while making that revelation. Paul Gans capitalized on this
> by treating me as though I had been clairvoyant
> and KNOWN that you had been under such huge stress, and as though I
> should have treated you with kid gloves rather than provoke you
> into calling me "a worthless piece of shit" or words to that effect.
>
> Do you remember the extent to which I went to convince people that
> I would have treated you differently, had I known?
>
> Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

Peter, you are lying. I did not call AAQ a bigot. And I did not call
you a bigot for just not wanting to call same sex marriage "marriage".
I call you a bigot for leaping from same sex marriage to talk of
incest, polygamy and bestiality. They are invidious associations
whether you label them "free association" or not. And you do it repeatedly.

In fact, in threads you participated in I very clearly did not
call AAQ a bigot, and when he felt I was doing so I made it
extra clear that I was not. You ought to understand the difference
between the political motivation ascribed to a group and the
motivations of each group member. I did explain it previously,
but I should not have to explain compositional fallacies to you,
not to a set theory topologist.

I did claim that the political motivation of the largest groups
in the US to oppose same sex marriage are bigotted. I cited
the Family Research Council that has people going around speaking
about how they claim that homosexuals are more likely to be
child molesters. And guess what, Josh Duggar was one of those paid
spokesmen for the Family Research Council. It is a bigoted hateful
lie, in this case told by a someone who molested younger girls,
including his own sisters. Those are facts about the real "work"
done by the FRC and real people.

In contrast, you letting your mind "free associate" from same
sex marraige to incest, polygamy and bestiality is a fact about
you and your mind, not about same sex marriage.

I also challenged the legitimacy with which the Catholic
church, especially in Ireland, could be trusted to speak in
the best interests of children in families. Their opposition
to the recent referendum had lots of references that were
in effect, "what about the children". And I specifically
reference their known behavior in the treatment of unwed
mothers and their children. It is a history of forcible removal
of the children from their mothers, virtual enslavement of
the mothers, and mistreatment of the "bastard" children in
orphanages. And on top of it all, there's the church's role
in perpetuating the attitudes that make the children born
of non-standard families feel inferior, and actually be
inferior in the sense that they are tangibly treated so.
That is a legacy, specific to how families and children
are treated, that impeaches their credibility to speak
in the interests of children and their parents.

That surely offends you, yet the facts remain.

You tried to claim that is an ad hominem fallacy and have
refused to defend that claim in light of the obvious
relevance of their historic treatment of children and women
who bore those children out of wedlock. The relevance is
clear and explicit.

Now if I invoked crimes of the crusades, the Inquisition,
selling indulgences or the like, that would be an ad hominem
fallacy as those are irrelevant. If I invoked child molesting
priests, that would be irrelevant. If I invoked Bishops hiding
the crimes of child molesting priests and sending those priests
to new parishes, where the do it again, and then sending them
on to the next parish, that would return to relevance as it
speaks of how the church weighs its interests versus the
interests of children. I bring it up because you did, so I
know you have an interest in the subject.

Now, I expect you to delete all that and claim I have some
hate-filled agenda, probably toss in a few more dog whistles
that play your favorite tunes about "Gay Power" and I
probably don't even care. You just embarrass yourself.

[Peter Nyikos]

As you say below, he did "think" publicly you were calling him that, and
that is what I recalled.

> And I did not call
> you a bigot for just not wanting to call same sex marriage "marriage".

That's the only logical charge you can pin on me.

> I call you a bigot for leaping from same sex marriage to talk of
> incest, polygamy and bestiality.

That is an illogical charge, because the connection I make between
these things is this, and only this: there is no rational reason
for the claims people make for the first thing to be a fundamental human
right and the others not deserving any of the rights that go with marriage.

You've amply shown this past week, with the way you avoid reason like
the plague and go for cheap (worthless, actually) personal attacks,
that I am right on target by saying this.

Am I also correct in thinking that propaganda in favor of same-sex
marriage never gets better than your demonstration of it this
past week? That no one on earth has significantly more rational
arguments than you do?

> They are invidious associations
> whether you label them "free association" or not.

I used the term "free association" in a completely different way.
My actual points were as I told Norman in my long reply to him, and to you
in my last reply to you on this thread. For example:

_____________________excerpt ________________________________

> Sure, a grossly unempathetic
> mathematician might consider such a comparison to be meaningful
> but such a person (the unempathetic mathematician) is a creature
> that stretches credulity. Can such a person walk and chew gum?

The "comparison" has to do with how people might come to game
the system where the concept of "marriage" is concerned.

Later this week I will post a scenario which makes somewhat
plausible such a gaming of the system, say, a few decades from now.

Will you post another tirade in reply to that, or will you play it cool?
Time will tell.

=================== end of excerpt======================

People have been gaming the system in lots of ways where marriage is
concerned, for a long time, including a publicized case of a couple
getting divorced every year long enough to count as "single" rather
than "married, filing separately" when they make roughly comparable
amounts of money, and then getting remarried.

You still haven't replied to the post from which the above excerpt is taken.
In your last post to this thread but this one, you replied to the post where
I had explained to Norman the real points behind my questions, and you deleted
every statement of mine that was relevant to the questions, along with
the questions themselves.

Instead, you focused on a question Norman STILL hasn't answered
about his own true opinions, and my comment about you connected
with it whose truth you made no attempt to deny, and tried to stir up
a tempest in a teapot over the fact that I was saying it to
Norman instead of you.

Did you stop drooling over your attempted tempest when you discovered
that I had told you about that post in another thread only a few minutes
after posting it?

Or did you really start drooling over how you had ridiculed me for
cross referencing posts from one thread to another?

>And you do it repeatedly.
>
> In fact, in threads you participated in I very clearly did not
> call AAQ a bigot,

What about other threads?

> and when he felt I was doing so I made it
> extra clear that I was not.

"was not" -- do you mean to say "never did"?

Continued in next reply.

Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

You're good at forgetting things when it allows you to make
accusations against others. Or not reading them, deleting them,
and mischaracterizing them. But in your mind you remain a
paragon of virtue.

>> And I did not call
>> you a bigot for just not wanting to call same sex marriage "marriage".
>
> That's the only logical charge you can pin on me.
>
>> I call you a bigot for leaping from same sex marriage to talk of
>> incest, polygamy and bestiality.
>
> That is an illogical charge, because the connection I make between
> these things is this, and only this: there is no rational reason
> for the claims people make for the first thing to be a fundamental human
> right and the others not deserving any of the rights that go with marriage.

The logic is simple. You make the same invidious association, again
and again and again.

And you have not seen me argue that marriage is a fundamental human
right. You just make these accusations against people based on the
fantasies you construct about what others think. The fact that we
have never given you support for your assertions doesn't matter to you.

The reason to give same sex couples equal rights to be married is that
there is no good reason to deny them. And, they have equally legitimate
pair bonded relationships as do standarly male-female married couples.
Further, it support the well being of any children involved and, the
married couple themselves. The right, such as it exists, is to equal
and fair treatment respective to the legitimately pair-bonded families
they are. Your inability to recognize this simple fact, and to spew
forth about incest, polygamy and bestiality documents your bigotry.
And that bigotry hurts real people, including any children involved.

> You've amply shown this past week, with the way you avoid reason like
> the plague and go for cheap (worthless, actually) personal attacks,
> that I am right on target by saying this.

I give you lots of reasons, you relegate them to a separate post,
and here accuse me of not providing reasons. I have previously
told you that the best reason to support same sex marriage is
for the benefit of any children being raised in a same sex household.
You are a dishonest piece of crap who will probably claim to have
just forgotten. If you can't remember what people have said,
maybe you should not go around accusing them of things regarding
what they have and have not said.

> Am I also correct in thinking that propaganda in favor of same-sex
> marriage never gets better than your demonstration of it this
> past week? That no one on earth has significantly more rational
> arguments than you do?

This from a guy who spews forth statements like
<quote>On the contrary, it (edit marriage, one man, one woman)
designates a certain kind of relationship which has been one of
the foundations of civilization for as far back as historical
records go. </quote>
You were challenged by multiple people and never defended
that bromide. Understandably, it's not defensible to anyone
who knows history. It's propaganda.

>> They are invidious associations
>> whether you label them "free association" or not.
>
> I used the term "free association" in a completely different way.
> My actual points were as I told Norman in my long reply to him, and to you
> in my last reply to you on this thread. For example:
>
> _____________________excerpt ________________________________
>
>> Sure, a grossly unempathetic
>> mathematician might consider such a comparison to be meaningful
>> but such a person (the unempathetic mathematician) is a creature
>> that stretches credulity. Can such a person walk and chew gum?
>
> The "comparison" has to do with how people might come to game
> the system where the concept of "marriage" is concerned.
>
> Later this week I will post a scenario which makes somewhat
> plausible such a gaming of the system, say, a few decades from now.
>
> Will you post another tirade in reply to that, or will you play it cool?
> Time will tell.
> =================== end of excerpt======================
>
> People have been gaming the system in lots of ways where marriage is
> concerned, for a long time, including a publicized case of a couple
> getting divorced every year long enough to count as "single" rather
> than "married, filing separately" when they make roughly comparable
> amounts of money, and then getting remarried.

Same sex marriage has nothing to do with people "gaming the system".
It doesn't start an opportunity for people to do so, it does not
significantly change the opportunity for people to do so, it has not
been associated with an increase in people doing so where it is legal.
To the extent you think "gaming the system" is a significant issue
respective to same sex marriage, you are lying to yourself. You might
believe that lie. I doubt many others will.

> You still haven't replied to the post from which the above excerpt is taken.

It was not a post to me, and even if it was, I don't feel the need
to reply to all of your posts. Not even the many you keep making
that toss in insults aimed toward me. I'm not obligated to defend
myself from insult hurled by somebody with as little credibility
as you have.

> In your last post to this thread but this one, you replied to the post where
> I had explained to Norman the real points behind my questions, and you deleted
> every statement of mine that was relevant to the questions, along with
> the questions themselves.
>
> Instead, you focused on a question Norman STILL hasn't answered
> about his own true opinions, and my comment about you connected
> with it whose truth you made no attempt to deny, and tried to stir up
> a tempest in a teapot over the fact that I was saying it to
> Norman instead of you.
>
> Did you stop drooling over your attempted tempest when you discovered
> that I had told you about that post in another thread only a few minutes
> after posting it?
>
> Or did you really start drooling over how you had ridiculed me for
> cross referencing posts from one thread to another?

I sighed and shook my head. You are losing it.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

'You claimed you would no longer reply to me, "Sneaky," after posting

a bunch of unmitigated crap and ducking a challenge to
back up your allegation of homophobic statements by me.

'I will now "return the favor" and ignore what you wrote after your
opening sentence until you cough up a statement by me that you

allege to fit that description.'

- Peter Nyikos, 1 June 2015

[Peter Nyikos]

What's your point?

Are you indirectly letting me know that you have no intention
of ever coughing up such a statement?

Or are you even more indirectly implying that I will just get
laughed at if I give such a trivial thing as you posting wild
derogatory assertions about me that you have no intention
of ever demonstrating, as evidence that you are a part-time troll?

Or are you directly demonstrating your weak command of English
and/or logic by misreading "wrote" as "will ever write from now
on"?

Will Shrubber think any the less of you if you run away from
the above questions?

Time will tell, even if the telling is as indirect as Shrubber
continuing to play "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"
where you are concerned.

Peter Nyikos

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Peter Nyikos has asked me to post some evidence of his bigotry.

Let's take a look at Peter's allusions to Gay Power propaganda.

Peter Nyikos claims that Mark Isaak is one of the 'propagandists for Gay
Power'. From the thread 'Kenneth Miller Laetare Address':

It is the propagandists for Gay Power, like Mark Isaak, who have
their own private definition [of homophobia], which they are
foisting on the world ("today, the blue states; tomorrow, the USA;
next week, the world") by promoting the USAGE that Mark Isaak is
promoting below without ever spelling out a definition.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/NC1ygpGHKIMJ

Peter believes, or affects to believe, that there is a Gay Power
movement that seeks to dominate the world. According to him, this
movement was responsible for New Zealand's approval of gay marriage:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/kGw60wgn1F4J

In fact, he says they 'drove' the entire nation 'into going along with'
their agenda:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/M9ejHUVSdL8/shO4cshGl_gJ

On 12 June 2014, I advised Peter to feel free to post any evidence he
might have that 'Gay Power' is 'the moving force behind a campaign about
which the general public is poorly informed ...'

To date, he has posted no evidence. I advance the hypothesis that there
is no evidence to post.
--
S.O.P.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 10:12:53 AM UTC-4, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> Peter Nyikos has asked me to post some evidence of his bigotry.

Nice to see you are not disputing the fact that you displayed
incredibly weak command of English and/or logic in the post that
I replied to this morning.

And now we see why you bluffed for so long--where's the bigotry anywhere
in your quotes?

> Let's take a look at Peter's allusions to Gay Power propaganda.
>
> Peter Nyikos claims that Mark Isaak is one of the 'propagandists for Gay
> Power'.

Do you deny that? What you quote from me is a description of
propaganda, of a sneaky sort.

From the thread 'Kenneth Miller Laetare Address':

> It is the propagandists for Gay Power, like Mark Isaak, who have
> their own private definition [of homophobia], which they are
> foisting on the world ("today, the blue states; tomorrow, the USA;
> next week, the world") by promoting the USAGE that Mark Isaak is
> promoting below without ever spelling out a definition.

Got any rational rebuttal to that, in the form of an official definition
that MARK scrupulously adheres to? Or to which even half the LGBTT [1]
promoters/sympathizers/propagandists in politically charged forums like
t.o. scrupulously adhere?

If so, you would be setting a good example for Roger Shrubber,
who has tried to re-don his mask of reasonableness, but his rebuttals
still have little or no rational component to them.

[1] The first T is for Transsexual, the second for Transgendered.
Why is only one T in general use? It's been a long time since
I last saw someone identified as transsexual in the popular media.

> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/NC1ygpGHKIMJ
>
> Peter believes, or affects to believe, that there is a Gay Power
> movement that seeks to dominate the world.

Wishful thinking of a malicious sort. You would never accuse the people
behind the Black Power movement of trying to dominate the world, would
you?

[snip of some things to be dealt with in second reply]

> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/M9ejHUVSdL8/shO4cshGl_gJ

You posted this url, and I looked, and saw where I mentioned
another example of reluctance to rock the boat:

deadrat:
> And if you think
> gay people care whether you call them married once they are able to get
> married, then you haven't been paying attention.

Nyikos:
Au contraire, AAQ has been paying VERY close attention to what Mark
Isaak has been saying on one side of the street [while] you have been
working the other side of the street, with nary a peep of criticism
out of you.

It's ye olde "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" treatment towards
people you claim not to be allied with. And anyone who disputes that
claim will instantly be labeled "paranoid," "conspiracy theorist," etc.
_______________________end of excerpt____________________________

Continued in next reply to this post.

Peter Nyikos

[Peter Nyikos]

On Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 10:12:53 AM UTC-4, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:

Repeating a bit from first reply, for continuity:

> Peter believes, or affects to believe, that there is a Gay Power
> movement that seeks to dominate the world.

Wishful thinking of a malicious sort. You would never accuse the people
behind the Black Power movement of trying to dominate the world, would
you?

The main aim of the Gay Power movement is to reshape people's thinking
about gays, and as a corollary, the rest of LGBTTQ.

That reshaping has run amok with the vanguard of the movement aggressively
pressing for things that most of the movement doesn't really care about:
e.g., see some of Burkhard's posts on same-sex marriage. Other examples are the
outlawing of therapy that would help an underage "Q" to become heterosexual,
even if he or she has expressed a desire for it; and petitions to make
Medicaid funds for hormones to help underage [would-be] transsexuals avoid
puberty and the consequent growth of "unwanted" traits of their
biological sex.

However, like in almost any mass movement, the people in it who are not
fired up about the antics of the vanguard are reluctant to rock the
boat.

And even the vanguard is afraid to rock some boats, it seems. Have
you ever heard of an unequivocal condemnation of NAMBLA from your kind?
or an explicit repudiation of some of the statements in Carl Witten's
"A Gay Manifesto"?

http://library.gayhomeland.org/0006/EN/A_Gay_Manifesto.htm

I alluded to a little microcosm of the same phenomenon in my first post,
where Mark Isaak and deadrat were claiming mutually incompatible
things, yet neither had any inclination to rock the other's boat.

By the way, the post from which you gave the first quote has some very timely
things to which to refer to as this general issue unfolds. Like Mitchell
Coffey, you can't help but remind me of all the weapons I have posted
against the likes of you.

Concluded in next reply to this post.

Peter Nyikos

[Peter Nyikos]

On Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 10:12:53 AM UTC-4, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:


> According to him, this
> movement was responsible for New Zealand's approval of gay marriage:
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/kGw60wgn1F4J

Without their propaganda, it would have gone nowhere, IMO.

> In fact, he says they 'drove' the entire nation 'into going along with'
> their agenda:
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/M9ejHUVSdL8/shO4cshGl_gJ

"entire" is your editorializing. Their propaganda influenced
the Parliament to vote for pinning the label of "marriage" on civil
unions that already gave the main rights of marriage to those in them.

The only "entire" nation that has done what you are polemically
implying is Ireland, and I hope AAQ gives us a good "post mortem"
on that referendum before long.

> On 12 June 2014, I advised Peter to feel free to post any evidence he
> might have that 'Gay Power' is 'the moving force behind a campaign about
> which the general public is poorly informed ...'
>
> To date, he has posted no evidence. I advance the hypothesis that there
> is no evidence to post.

You are steeped in the movement like a fish in water, as are Shrubber,
Isaak, Chris Thompson, and goodness knows who else.

There are people even cruder than y'all spewing their hate at anyone
who dares to say anything negative about LGBTT [e.g. the drawbacks of
being raised by two parents of the same gender], in forum after forum,
year after year.

And so, the movement has no shortage of "useful idiots", all of whom I
count as part of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

Peter Nyikos

[Mr. B1ack]

On Thu, 4 Jun 2015 14:07:14 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
<sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:

>https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/NC1ygpGHKIMJ
>
>Peter believes, or affects to believe, that there is a Gay Power
>movement that seeks to dominate the world. According to him, this
>movement was responsible for New Zealand's approval of gay marriage:
>
>https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/kGw60wgn1F4J
>
>In fact, he says they 'drove' the entire nation 'into going along with'
>their agenda:

More likely they knew the names of all the young intern boys
the politicians were diddlin' in the cloakroom :-)

[Peter Nyikos]

On Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 9:17:50 PM UTC-4, Mr. B1ack wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Jun 2015 14:07:14 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
> <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/NC1ygpGHKIMJ
> >
> >Peter believes, or affects to believe, that there is a Gay Power
> >movement that seeks to dominate the world. According to him, this
> >movement was responsible for New Zealand's approval of gay marriage:
> >
> >https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/kGw60wgn1F4J
> >
> >In fact, he says they 'drove' the entire nation 'into going along with'
> >their agenda:

See my last reply to S.O.P. yesterday for a clarification of these
two statements, both mild (for S.O.P.) distortions of what I wrote.
Now we come to your contribution, Mr. B1ack:

>
> More likely they knew the names of all the young intern boys
> the politicians were diddlin' in the cloakroom :-)

There may have been that contributing factor, yes. Both as to shaming
some guilty politicians of the NZ parliament into voting for the
label-granting, and as to discrediting the politicians who would have
voted against.

As to the latter: just look at the way Shrubber parlayed the Duggar case
into a general attack on the FRC [which probably knew nothing about the
case until it broke] and even into a personal attack on me, claiming that
I had "defended" the FRC but giving no details as to when or where.

The smart money says he was employing USENETese, and its use of "defense"
as shorthand for "correcting distortions and falsehoods of the attackers."

Shrubber never gave enough information to suggest any other meaning. See his
wishy-washy replies to the following posts of mine:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/Ht68kvjzq0s/gAU7hFKu_L8J
Message-ID: <390d3de5-383b-44e2...@googlegroups.com>

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/Ht68kvjzq0s/gAU7hFKu_L8J
Message-ID: <390d3de5-383b-44e2...@googlegroups.com>

Both posts were made late last evening on the thread,
Subject: Re: Chris Thompson can run, but he can't hide Re: Marriage

They demolish Shrubber's irrational, illogical attempt to "equate" me
[more USENETese, much beloved of Shrubber and his ilk, turnabout being
fair play] with the Duggars.


But back to the international front: such factors also may have played
a decisive role with the general public in Ireland, both as to individuals
with guilty consciences and as to whom the general public is willing to
take seriously.

A huge factor in the Ireland referendum was people who turned a deaf
ear to the arguments of the Irish bishops, due to the cover-up by some
of them of atrocities by priests, etc. against children. It doesn't
take a fanatic like Shrubber to draw such *ad hominem* conclusions.
The general public is all too prone to such fallacies, especially when
gross misconduct and even felony is involved.

Peter Nyikos

[Sneaky O. Possum]

"Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net> wrote in

news:frt1na54jneqcokl9...@4ax.com:

Don't be silly. In New Zealand the politicians diddle sheep.

No doubt Nyikos supports a politician's right to have a civil union with
a sheep, since he supports a child's right to marry a widowed parent, so
long as they're only doing it for financial gain:

Try applying that to single people caring for aging parents no
longer able to reproduce. Why would you want to deny them such
privileges as "married, filing jointly" on their income tax?

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/M9ejHUVSdL8/uop8eKId_MkJ
--
S.O.P.

[Mitchell Coffey]

Has anyone pointed out to Dr. Nykios that it would arguably be sound
public policy to allow single people caring for aging parents similar
tax benefits as those "married, filing jointly," with no need to call it
"marriage"?

Mitchell Coffey

[jillery]

On Fri, 5 Jun 2015 14:37:15 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
<sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> More likely they knew the names of all the young intern boys
>> the politicians were diddlin' in the cloakroom :-)
>>
>
>Don't be silly. In New Zealand the politicians diddle sheep.

I didn't know they used sheep as interns.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, June 5, 2015 at 10:42:49 AM UTC-4, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net> wrote in
> news:frt1na54jneqcokl9...@4ax.com:
>
> > On Thu, 4 Jun 2015 14:07:14 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
> > <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:

About same-sex civil unions now being called "marriage" in New Zealand:
> >>https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/NC1
> >>ygpGHKIMJ
[...]
> >>https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/kGw
> >>60wgn1F4J

> > More likely they knew the names of all the young intern boys
> > the politicians were diddlin' in the cloakroom :-)
> >
>
> Don't be silly. In New Zealand the politicians diddle sheep.

Well, there are about 50 sheep there for each human, so the
possibilities are much closer to endless--not that I'd approve
of such behavior.

> No doubt Nyikos supports a politician's right to have a civil union with
> a sheep,

You bring up a separate issue, which has got nothing to do with politicians
(as opposed to human adults of all varieties) nor with diddling nor other
sexual relations; nor with any rights besides narrowly legal ones.

Even so, I'd rather cross that bridge when the political/public
climate comes near to it.

Shorter answer: you need to doubt it, because it is false at the present
time.

Even where great apes are concerned, it's "...cross that bridge..." but
I think we might come to that bridge some time in the next two decades,
due to the way the animal rights campaign is progressing.

Just in the last two weeks, two events of note have occurred.
1. Princeton U. endowed chair Peter Singer did an interview for
the New York Times:

Peter Singer: On Racism, Animal Rights and Human Rights
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/peter-singer-on-speciesism-and-racism/?_r=2

2. An Argentine court has decided to review an earlier court decision
that designated an orangutan a "nonhuman person". That decision
is described here:

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2014/12/29/orangutan-declared-non-human-person-in-argentina/

and the new developments in the case are described here:

http://www.reuters.com/video/2015/05/21/argentine-court-weighs-whether-an-orangu?videoId=364311811&videoChannel=117760&channelName=World+News

For more on the general issue of rights for great apes, see the following
post in sci.bio.paleontology, and Harshman's reply:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/sci.bio.paleontology/6FW51gZ5yZo/XS4n0gHJgH0J
Message-ID: <3879e054-4439-46e8...@googlegroups.com>

> since he supports a child's right to marry a widowed parent,

Not necessarily widowed, if polygamy starts to become accepted.

> so long as they're only doing it for financial gain:

The reason is nobody's business but that of the individuals involved.
I think that's settled law, so settled in the eyes of the Left
that the Left would become a laughingstock in the eyes of
everyone not on the Left if it made an exception in this case.

> Try applying that to single people caring for aging parents no
> longer able to reproduce. Why would you want to deny them such
> privileges as "married, filing jointly" on their income tax?
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/M9ejHUVSdL8/uop8eKId_MkJ
> --
> S.O.P.

Thanks for bringing these issues to our attention, Sneaky.

Peter Nyikos

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, June 5, 2015 at 11:12:48 AM UTC-4, Mitchell Coffey wrote:

S.O.P. quoted the following from me:

> > Try applying that to single people caring for aging parents no
> > longer able to reproduce. Why would you want to deny them such
> > privileges as "married, filing jointly" on their income tax?
> >
> > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/M9ejHUVSdL8/uop8eKId_MkJ
>
> Has anyone pointed out to Dr. Nykios that it would arguably be sound
> public policy to allow single people caring for aging parents similar
> tax benefits as those "married, filing jointly," with no need to call it
> "marriage"?

Fine with me, as long as the same reasoning is applied to same-sex
civil unions. But also, don't forget to apply it to other benefits,
such as the right for one of the parties to "permanent alien resident"
status if the other is a citizen or permanent resident alien.

Similar reasoning could apply to someone caring for chimps. For
instance, some animal rights organization may successfully litigate
a zoo with writ of *habeas corpus* demanding that these chimp
prisoners be released. But the court may decide that these chimps,
having all been born in captivity, could not be deported to
Africa and released into the wild -- their chances of survival
would be slim to none.

So, in this scenario, it would be incumbent on the group bringing
civil/criminal action to find an arrangement that would at least
treat chimps in a manner appropriate to their level of intelligence,
social skills, etc.

And so, a future Jane Goodall type, having had years of experience
living with chimps, would be the perfect candidate for taking care
of them. Jane Goodall herself has been widowed since 1980 but is
probably too old to take on such a responsibility herself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall
excerpt:
She has served on the board of the Nonhuman Rights Project since
its founding in 1996.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonhuman_Rights_Project
excerpt:
"The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is an American animal rights nonprofit
organization seeking to change the legal status of at least some nonhuman
animals from that of property to that of persons, with a goal of securing
rights to bodily liberty (the right not to be imprisoned) and bodily
integrity (the right not to be experimented on)."

Let me emphasize again that civil union involves bodily integrity
in the form of no sexual relations without the consent of both parties.
Whether chimps are able to give such consent is problematic, and
I don't know where the NhRP or Peter Singer stands on this issue.

But we live in a changing world, and so their stands may evolve.

Peter Nyikos

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 05 Jun 2015 11:26:32 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:

>On Fri, 5 Jun 2015 14:37:15 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
><sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> More likely they knew the names of all the young intern boys
>>> the politicians were diddlin' in the cloakroom :-)
>>>
>>
>>Don't be silly. In New Zealand the politicians diddle sheep.
>
>
>I didn't know they used sheep as interns.

Seems a safer option than Bill picked; at least they won't
"tell all" on national news.

[Greg Guarino]

On 6/5/2015 12:49 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> Has anyone pointed out to Dr. Nykios that it would arguably be sound
>> >public policy to allow single people caring for aging parents similar
>> >tax benefits as those "married, filing jointly," with no need to call it
>> >"marriage"?

> Fine with me, as long as the same reasoning is applied to same-sex
> civil unions.

Why?

The gay couples I know have relationships that seem similar to the one
my wife and I have. Some are even parents, as we are. Some seem well
suited and content; Others less so. To whatever degree I can tell from
the outside, a similar range of "success" and "failure" can be found
among my heterosexual friends and acquaintances.

Those caring for aging parents have a different sort of relationship, as
do single parents caring for children, even though they may be two
people living under one roof. It's no slight not to call them married,
and none of them are asking for the label.

As I mentioned once before, one couple we know was just married a few
weeks ago. Another, whose wedding we will be attending, are to be
married soon. I'm happy for them and hope they'll have the kind of life
together that my wife and I have had. Leaving aside any practical
considerations - which do still exist - it would hurt them to be
relegated to a "second class" status. Absent some real harm to someone
else, I would not want them to be hurt in that way. And I see no such harm.

That future generations may view us (and those before us) negatively
because we were too backward to recognize the same sex marriages that by
then may be commonplace seems a piss-poor reason to deny my friends
their wishes. That's a recipe for never changing anything, and it favors
the reputation of the dead over the happiness of the living. And the
"view" you fear isn't even that far off the mark. Homosexuality was
reviled in many places and for a very long time. That future generations
might not appreciate all of the subtleties of the early twenty-first
century doesn't concern me.

I'm curious; do you have any gay friends? Acquaintances? Would you feel
comfortable telling them you can't attend their wedding because of
possible repercussions for the reputations of generations long dead?

[jillery]

On Fri, 05 Jun 2015 10:52:59 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>
wrote:

>On Fri, 05 Jun 2015 11:26:32 -0400, the following appeared
>in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:
>
>>On Fri, 5 Jun 2015 14:37:15 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
>><sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> More likely they knew the names of all the young intern boys
>>>> the politicians were diddlin' in the cloakroom :-)
>>>>
>>>
>>>Don't be silly. In New Zealand the politicians diddle sheep.
>>
>>
>>I didn't know they used sheep as interns.
>
>Seems a safer option than Bill picked; at least they won't
>"tell all" on national news.

And their wool suits don't need cleaning. If only they could cook...

[Burkhard]

Greg Guarino wrote:
> On 6/5/2015 12:49 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> Has anyone pointed out to Dr. Nykios that it would arguably be sound
>>> >public policy to allow single people caring for aging parents similar
>>> >tax benefits as those "married, filing jointly," with no need to
>>> call it
>>> >"marriage"?
>
>> Fine with me, as long as the same reasoning is applied to same-sex
>> civil unions.
>
> Why?
>
> The gay couples I know have relationships that seem similar to the one
> my wife and I have. Some are even parents, as we are. Some seem well
> suited and content; Others less so. To whatever degree I can tell from
> the outside, a similar range of "success" and "failure" can be found
> among my heterosexual friends and acquaintances.
>
> Those caring for aging parents have a different sort of relationship, as
> do single parents caring for children, even though they may be two
> people living under one roof. It's no slight not to call them married,
> and none of them are asking for the label.

Indeed. And in the UK at least, being married doesn't give you any tax
benefits, caring for an elderly or disabled relative however can. Which
I always thought makes perfect sense, form a societal perspective.

[Roger Shrubber]

Yes but what would you call such a filing status, "Head of Household"
or some such wacky crazy thing that you just invented here and now?

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, June 5, 2015 at 1:57:48 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> On 6/5/2015 12:49 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >> Has anyone pointed out to Dr. Nykios that it would arguably be sound
> >> >public policy to allow single people caring for aging parents similar
> >> >tax benefits as those "married, filing jointly," with no need to call it
> >> >"marriage"?
>
> > Fine with me, as long as the same reasoning is applied to same-sex
> > civil unions.
>
> Why?

Consistency. Your reasons below are superficially plausible, but
they do not make up for my reasons for opposing the use of the
label "marriage" for civil unions which have been given different
names traditionally ["blood brothers" is a particularly time-honored one].

The main reasons are to be found by clicking on the second url that S.O.P.
posted, the second of three that supposedly displayed bigotry by me, but did
nothing of the sort:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/XBtzf2VIhMs/kGw60wgn1F4J

> The gay couples I know have relationships that seem similar to the one
> my wife and I have. Some are even parents, as we are.

But the children lack daily contact with one or more of the biological
parents, don't they? Yes, that is true of adoptive couples as well, but in the
ages-old setting, the child gets socialization with parents of both sexes.

By the way, are your children adopted? your "seem similar" invites such
questions, but you need not answer this one if you wish.

But I do want an answer to this one: how many gay couples with children
do you have frequent [more than once a month] contact with? Do any of them
live within walking distance of you?

> Some seem well
> suited and content; Others less so. To whatever degree I can tell from
> the outside, a similar range of "success" and "failure" can be found
> among my heterosexual friends and acquaintances.
>
> Those caring for aging parents have a different sort of relationship, as
> do single parents caring for children, even though they may be two
> people living under one roof. It's no slight not to call them married,
> and none of them are asking for the label.

They didn't stop to think of the tax break that comes with
"married, filing jointly."

But more importantly: what is the point of asking for something
that you know is hopelessly out of reach? Do you know of any of
your gay couples that would help them if they were to ask?
My guess is that their (perhaps unspoken) reaction would be something
like this:

It took us four decades to sell the public on the
idea of same sex marriage being a right, and you never
tried to help us. Why should we lift a finger to make things
easier for you?

> As I mentioned once before, one couple we know was just married a few
> weeks ago. Another, whose wedding we will be attending, are to be
> married soon. I'm happy for them and hope they'll have the kind of life
> together that my wife and I have had. Leaving aside any practical
> considerations - which do still exist - it would hurt them to be
> relegated to a "second class" status.

That is a ridiculous hyperbole for the lack of official LEGAL status of
a label that they are perfectly free to use in day to day conversation.

> Absent some real harm to someone else, I would not want them to be
> hurt in that way.

Stop using *argumentum ad misericordiam* rhetoric, if you please.

> And I see no such harm.

Read what's in the url I gave you up there, and get back with me, OK?

Peter Nyikos

[Peter Nyikos]

Foreign readers deserve to know that there is such a column in the
USA tax tables, and that the tax break is quite inferior to that of
"married, filing jointly."

True story: when I first filed an income tax return, I was living alone,
and so I figured I was the head of a one-person household--a typical
mistake for a mathematician. I figured I was quite unlike
someone living with relatives and sharing the costs of things that
I had to pay for all alone.

The IRS people were quite nice about setting me straight on what
that category really meant. They didn't even charge me a penalty
for something that might have been construed as trying to cheat on my
income tax.

Peter Nyikos

[Robert Camp]

For future reference, this is exactly the kind of comment that suggests
you are a bigot.

Your willingness to negatively characterize an entire class of people is
unfortunate, if not a surprise. Just for a bit of perspective, let me
ask - would you be likely to similarly characterize any other group, say
race, or ethnicity or religion? Would you assert that women or
African-Americans would - as a body - react with such petulant,
uncharitable rhetoric when confronted with the desires of another
aggrieved class?

[Peter Nyikos]

My guess is a little different now: this could happen in electronic
media but is unlikely in face to face conversation -- unless tempers
flare. And it would more likely be unspoken thoughts, with the
actual verbiage a little milder [see below].

> For future reference, this is exactly the kind of comment that suggests
> you are a bigot.

It's much like one kind of frequent comment I keep seeing on the
internet when I make such comparisons. Usually it's a bit milder, like,
"If enough people want to be able to marry their parents or siblings,
let them organize like we did and we'll support them when they really
get something going to where they are close to succeeding."

I will grant this: these people highly self-select. They are people
who are fired up about the subject, like you and me and Guarino
and just about everyone in this newsgroup who writes on same-sex
marriage.

On the other hand, Guarino's same-sex couple acquaintances
might be a random sample of that extremely special population.
Come to think of it, they probably never were activists and
never lifted a finger to influence the public, so why should they begin now?

> Your willingness to negatively characterize an entire class of people is
> unfortunate, if not a surprise.

Your willingness to consistently put just about the worst spin on
what I write is not a surprise at all by now. The only thing that separates
your animosity from that of Shrubber is that you are less of a dogged pursuer
of me than Shrubber is. Oh, and you haven't behaved as irrationally as
he has in the past week, although prior to that you were about on a par.

Whether you realize it or not, "Roger Shrubber" really gave himself
away this past week, and his record will haunt him every time
he tries to mess with me again. You gave yourself away long ago,
though not nearly on so spectacular a scale.

> Just for a bit of perspective, let me
> ask - would you be likely to similarly characterize any other group, say
> race, or ethnicity or religion? Would you assert that women or
> African-Americans would - as a body - react with such petulant,
> uncharitable rhetoric when confronted with the desires of another
> aggrieved class?

Same-sex couples are not an aggrieved class, are they now? Nor are
people who argue on the internet like you and Gurarino
and Shrubber and myself an aggrieved class.

And talk.origins still doesn't bring out the worst in people, methinks.
Regulars in this newsgroup have a good idea of each other's strengths
and weaknesses, and will be encountering each other again and again.

Contrast us with some of the people in the comments section of the following article. For instance, even though Erick Chamberlain is on the same side
in the LGBTT debate as you and Guarino, his style is a lot cruder
than yours or even Shrubber's. [The article itself is a
personal account of a woman who had a transgender father, and has
some deep emotional scars from the experience.]

http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/26/i-had-a-transgender-parent-unlike-obama-i-dont-think-transgender-parents-should-be-able-to-adopt/

I wonder, though: would you or Shrubber behave like Chamberlain if nobody
kept track of your past posts where you let your mask slip and you
gave yourself away?

Peter Nyikos