rpjday@violet.waterloo.edu (Rob Day) (04/17/88)
Hello, campers, This is the first formal appeal for those who are interested in participating in a mailing list, which may turn into a moderated newsgroup if interest warrants. Just to get everyone upset right now and let them calm down later, the mailing list/newsgroup will concern itself with critical inspection of "scientific creationism." The major difference between this and the talk.origins newsgroup is that the pitch here is for knowledgeable authorities who are familiar with the issues and are either aware of the more technical refutations of the common creationist arguments or know where to find them. (To put it more crudely, this group is for those who have already made up their mind about creationism and wish to share the ammunition.) A second reason for the group is to exchange information on recent activities of travelling creationists -- who debated who where and when about what, any new arguments that seem to have cropped up, summaries of the results of either the debate or single-person presentation. Anyone familiar with the work of the Committees of Correspondence (of which I am a member) will no doubt recognize this second activity as a major one of the Committee. The aim is to be forewarned about upcoming creationist get-togethers. Since (against better judgement) I will have to be responsible for deciding what gets in and what doesn't, I should point out that any pro-creation articles are not necessarily verboten; in fact, cogently written pro-creation articles are welcome. To use an example, it is certainly acceptable to ask how radiometric dating works, what assmptions are made for any of the techniques and why scientists consider them to be reasonably reliable. On the other hand, a posting simply stating that dating is completely unreliable will be turfed into the bit bucket. Also welcome are explanations of creationist arguments that are either new or are not covered well in the current literature. As an example, I am putting together an article on B. Setterfield and his claim that the speed of light has been decreasing since the date of creation in 4040 B.C., including his misquotation of the scientific literature, selective use of data and VERY selective choice of a mathematical formula to fit his data. Summaries like this for other areas would be welcome. For those who may have read it, I suppose the comp.risks newsgroup would be the closest model for what I have in mind. Take a look at it if you're curious. I will be leaving shortly and will be unavailable until the 28th of this month; any interested warm bodies are invited to drop me a mail message and I will summarize the response when I get back. Have a good one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ______________________________________________________________________ R Day rpjday@violet.uucp CS Department rpjday%violet@waterloo.csnet U. of Waterloo rpjday%violet%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa