On Tuesday, 22 August 2023 at 05:42:15 UTC+3, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>
> > More
> > than enough said.
>
> It would probably have been best to have it all unsaid.
> But at least this way I think we might be able to
> clear up some of these misconceptions.
>
Dislike, despise, and/or being strongly prejudiced against some
group of people can't be usually altered with logic. Even if the
person wants to but usually they don't. It is just like trying to
convince someone out of their acrophobia, claustrophobia,
arachnophobia, mysophobia or such. They just feel you are
fool trying to convince them into some horrible error.

You can get pile of to the old wives' tales how earwigs burrowed
into the brains of humans through the ear and laid their eggs
there. It will have nothing to do with anything discussed like
birds, mutations, beaks, Mendel ... you see.

On 22.8.2023. 10:07, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> On Tuesday, 22 August 2023 at 05:42:15 UTC+3, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>
>>> More
>>> than enough said.
>>
>> It would probably have been best to have it all unsaid.
>> But at least this way I think we might be able to
>> clear up some of these misconceptions.
>>
> Dislike, despise, and/or being strongly prejudiced against some
> group of people can't be usually altered with logic. Even if the
> person wants to but usually they don't. It is just like trying to
> convince someone out of their acrophobia, claustrophobia,
> arachnophobia, mysophobia or such. They just feel you are
> fool trying to convince them into some horrible error.
>
> You can get pile of to the old wives' tales how earwigs burrowed
> into the brains of humans through the ear and laid their eggs
> there. It will have nothing to do with anything discussed like
> birds, mutations, beaks, Mendel ... you see.

Well, now I have to say that all individuals aren't the same, but also
all societies aren't the same, that individuals make societies. These
are all facts. I don't understand why you are so desperately trying to
influence the acknowledgement of those facts? Is there any particular
reason why you don't like a group of people that think the same as me? I
mean, I didn't express any intolerance against your views on this subject.
You are just another case o brain washing, I am used to it. Just the
other day I heard how Russians are surprised why Ukrainians hate them,
Russians don't hate Ukrainians. But they would hate them if Ukrainians
do to them what Russians are doing to Ukrainians.
It is kind of attitude, I rape your daughter every day in a most
brutal way, and I don't hate anybody, and if you hate me, there is
something wrong with you. Simple and stupid. Science is full with it.
How long you've been in Afghanistan? You achieved nothing, neither you
ever will, although you may talk to the end of the world how all humans
are just the same. And guess what, Vatican just love Afghanistan, and
just hates you.

On 22.8.2023. 10:55, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 22.8.2023. 10:07, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 22 August 2023 at 05:42:15 UTC+3, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> More
>>>> than enough said.
>>>
>>> It would probably have been best to have it all unsaid.
>>> But at least this way I think we might be able to
>>> clear up some of these misconceptions.
>>>
>> Dislike, despise, and/or being strongly prejudiced against some
>> group of people can't be usually altered with logic. Even if the
>> person wants to but usually they don't. It is just like trying to
>> convince someone out of their acrophobia,  claustrophobia,
>> arachnophobia, mysophobia or such. They just feel you are
>> fool trying to convince them into some horrible error.
>>
>> You can get pile of to the old wives' tales how earwigs burrowed
>> into the brains of humans through the ear and laid their eggs
>> there. It will have nothing to do with anything discussed like
>> birds, mutations, beaks, Mendel ... you see.
>
>         Well, now I have to say that all individuals aren't the same,
> but also all societies aren't the same, that individuals make societies.
> These are all facts. I don't understand why you are so desperately
> trying to influence the acknowledgement of those facts? Is there any
> particular reason why you don't like a group of people that think the
> same as me? I mean, I didn't express any intolerance against your views
> on this subject.
>         You are just another case o brain washing, I am used to it.
> Just the other day I heard how Russians are surprised why Ukrainians
> hate them, Russians don't hate Ukrainians. But they would hate them if
> Ukrainians do to them what Russians are doing to Ukrainians.
>         It is kind of attitude, I rape your daughter every day in a
> most brutal way, and I don't hate anybody, and if you hate me, there is
> something wrong with you. Simple and stupid. Science is full with it.
>         How long you've been in Afghanistan? You achieved nothing,
> neither you ever will, although you may talk to the end of the world how
> all humans are just the same. And guess what, Vatican just love
> Afghanistan, and just hates you.

Oh yes, if you didn't get it, "don't hate your abuser, your abuser
doesn't hate yo, and if you hate him, there is something wrong with you"
is the pivotal idea of Catholic church. Now you see how sick all this
is, and for whom Catholic church works. And also you can see who
brainwashed you, and you can see also *why*, for what reason, they
brainwashed you.

On 22.8.2023. 11:03, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 22.8.2023. 10:55, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 22.8.2023. 10:07, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, 22 August 2023 at 05:42:15 UTC+3, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> More
>>>>> than enough said.
>>>>
>>>> It would probably have been best to have it all unsaid.
>>>> But at least this way I think we might be able to
>>>> clear up some of these misconceptions.
>>>>
>>> Dislike, despise, and/or being strongly prejudiced against some
>>> group of people can't be usually altered with logic. Even if the
>>> person wants to but usually they don't. It is just like trying to
>>> convince someone out of their acrophobia,  claustrophobia,
>>> arachnophobia, mysophobia or such. They just feel you are
>>> fool trying to convince them into some horrible error.
>>>
>>> You can get pile of to the old wives' tales how earwigs burrowed
>>> into the brains of humans through the ear and laid their eggs
>>> there. It will have nothing to do with anything discussed like
>>> birds, mutations, beaks, Mendel ... you see.
>>
>>          Well, now I have to say that all individuals aren't the same,
>> but also all societies aren't the same, that individuals make
>> societies. These are all facts. I don't understand why you are so
>> desperately trying to influence the acknowledgement of those facts? Is
>> there any particular reason why you don't like a group of people that
>> think the same as me? I mean, I didn't express any intolerance against
>> your views on this subject.
>>          You are just another case o brain washing, I am used to it.
>> Just the other day I heard how Russians are surprised why Ukrainians
>> hate them, Russians don't hate Ukrainians. But they would hate them if
>> Ukrainians do to them what Russians are doing to Ukrainians.
>>          It is kind of attitude, I rape your daughter every day in a
>> most brutal way, and I don't hate anybody, and if you hate me, there
>> is something wrong with you. Simple and stupid. Science is full with it.
>>          How long you've been in Afghanistan? You achieved nothing,
>> neither you ever will, although you may talk to the end of the world
>> how all humans are just the same. And guess what, Vatican just love
>> Afghanistan, and just hates you.
>
>         Oh yes, if you didn't get it, "don't hate your abuser, your
> abuser doesn't hate yo, and if you hate him, there is something wrong
> with you" is the pivotal idea of Catholic church. Now you see how sick
> all this is, and for whom Catholic church works. And also you can see
> who brainwashed you, and you can see also *why*, for what reason, they
> brainwashed you.

In short, if you would be smart enough to take a closer look, you will
understand that the type of people who hate are the victims, they hate
their abusers. Whoever told you to hate the ones who hate, he told you
to hate victims, and to give open hands for abusers to continue with
abusing. This is the core meaning of Catholic church.

On 22.8.2023. 12:50, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 22.8.2023. 11:03, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 22.8.2023. 10:55, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 22.8.2023. 10:07, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, 22 August 2023 at 05:42:15 UTC+3, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> More
>>>>>> than enough said.
>>>>>
>>>>> It would probably have been best to have it all unsaid.
>>>>> But at least this way I think we might be able to
>>>>> clear up some of these misconceptions.
>>>>>
>>>> Dislike, despise, and/or being strongly prejudiced against some
>>>> group of people can't be usually altered with logic. Even if the
>>>> person wants to but usually they don't. It is just like trying to
>>>> convince someone out of their acrophobia,  claustrophobia,
>>>> arachnophobia, mysophobia or such. They just feel you are
>>>> fool trying to convince them into some horrible error.
>>>>
>>>> You can get pile of to the old wives' tales how earwigs burrowed
>>>> into the brains of humans through the ear and laid their eggs
>>>> there. It will have nothing to do with anything discussed like
>>>> birds, mutations, beaks, Mendel ... you see.
>>>
>>>          Well, now I have to say that all individuals aren't the
>>> same, but also all societies aren't the same, that individuals make
>>> societies. These are all facts. I don't understand why you are so
>>> desperately trying to influence the acknowledgement of those facts?
>>> Is there any particular reason why you don't like a group of people
>>> that think the same as me? I mean, I didn't express any intolerance
>>> against your views on this subject.
>>>          You are just another case o brain washing, I am used to it.
>>> Just the other day I heard how Russians are surprised why Ukrainians
>>> hate them, Russians don't hate Ukrainians. But they would hate them
>>> if Ukrainians do to them what Russians are doing to Ukrainians.
>>>          It is kind of attitude, I rape your daughter every day in a
>>> most brutal way, and I don't hate anybody, and if you hate me, there
>>> is something wrong with you. Simple and stupid. Science is full with it.
>>>          How long you've been in Afghanistan? You achieved nothing,
>>> neither you ever will, although you may talk to the end of the world
>>> how all humans are just the same. And guess what, Vatican just love
>>> Afghanistan, and just hates you.
>>
>>          Oh yes, if you didn't get it, "don't hate your abuser, your
>> abuser doesn't hate yo, and if you hate him, there is something wrong
>> with you" is the pivotal idea of Catholic church. Now you see how sick
>> all this is, and for whom Catholic church works. And also you can see
>> who brainwashed you, and you can see also *why*, for what reason, they
>> brainwashed you.
>
>         In short, if you would be smart enough to take a closer look,
> you will understand that the type of people who hate are the victims,
> they hate their abusers. Whoever told you to hate the ones who hate, he
> told you to hate victims, and to give open hands for abusers to continue
> with abusing. This is the core meaning of Catholic church.

In other words, hatred is the sin, not abusing, abusing is ok. Says
Catholic church. And it made hatred the uttermost sin. Not a word
against abusing. Although the victims are the ones who hate. And
Catholic church knows this very well, trust me.

On 22.8.2023. 12:57, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 22.8.2023. 12:50, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 22.8.2023. 11:03, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 22.8.2023. 10:55, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 22.8.2023. 10:07, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>>>> On Tuesday, 22 August 2023 at 05:42:15 UTC+3, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Mario
>>>>>> Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> More
>>>>>>> than enough said.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It would probably have been best to have it all unsaid.
>>>>>> But at least this way I think we might be able to
>>>>>> clear up some of these misconceptions.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Dislike, despise, and/or being strongly prejudiced against some
>>>>> group of people can't be usually altered with logic. Even if the
>>>>> person wants to but usually they don't. It is just like trying to
>>>>> convince someone out of their acrophobia,  claustrophobia,
>>>>> arachnophobia, mysophobia or such. They just feel you are
>>>>> fool trying to convince them into some horrible error.
>>>>>
>>>>> You can get pile of to the old wives' tales how earwigs burrowed
>>>>> into the brains of humans through the ear and laid their eggs
>>>>> there. It will have nothing to do with anything discussed like
>>>>> birds, mutations, beaks, Mendel ... you see.
>>>>
>>>>          Well, now I have to say that all individuals aren't the
>>>> same, but also all societies aren't the same, that individuals make
>>>> societies. These are all facts. I don't understand why you are so
>>>> desperately trying to influence the acknowledgement of those facts?
>>>> Is there any particular reason why you don't like a group of people
>>>> that think the same as me? I mean, I didn't express any intolerance
>>>> against your views on this subject.
>>>>          You are just another case o brain washing, I am used to it.
>>>> Just the other day I heard how Russians are surprised why Ukrainians
>>>> hate them, Russians don't hate Ukrainians. But they would hate them
>>>> if Ukrainians do to them what Russians are doing to Ukrainians.
>>>>          It is kind of attitude, I rape your daughter every day in a
>>>> most brutal way, and I don't hate anybody, and if you hate me, there
>>>> is something wrong with you. Simple and stupid. Science is full with
>>>> it.
>>>>          How long you've been in Afghanistan? You achieved nothing,
>>>> neither you ever will, although you may talk to the end of the world
>>>> how all humans are just the same. And guess what, Vatican just love
>>>> Afghanistan, and just hates you.
>>>
>>>          Oh yes, if you didn't get it, "don't hate your abuser, your
>>> abuser doesn't hate yo, and if you hate him, there is something wrong
>>> with you" is the pivotal idea of Catholic church. Now you see how
>>> sick all this is, and for whom Catholic church works. And also you
>>> can see who brainwashed you, and you can see also *why*, for what
>>> reason, they brainwashed you.
>>
>>          In short, if you would be smart enough to take a closer look,
>> you will understand that the type of people who hate are the victims,
>> they hate their abusers. Whoever told you to hate the ones who hate,
>> he told you to hate victims, and to give open hands for abusers to
>> continue with abusing. This is the core meaning of Catholic church.
>
>         In other words, hatred is the sin, not abusing, abusing is ok.
> Says Catholic church. And it made hatred the uttermost sin. Not a word
> against abusing. Although the victims are the ones who hate. And
> Catholic church knows this very well, trust me.

And guess what, what I just told you I didn't read in any book, there
is no book written which says what I just told you. Scientists just
repeat what Catholic church tells them. Simple and stupid. I had to
figure out everything all by myself. Which makes me, automatically,
wrong. But I know that I am right. Whether you know that I am right is
completely different matter.

On 22.8.2023. 13:39, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 22.8.2023. 12:57, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 22.8.2023. 12:50, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 22.8.2023. 11:03, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 22.8.2023. 10:55, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>> On 22.8.2023. 10:07, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>>>>> On Tuesday, 22 August 2023 at 05:42:15 UTC+3, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Mario
>>>>>>> Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> More
>>>>>>>> than enough said.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It would probably have been best to have it all unsaid.
>>>>>>> But at least this way I think we might be able to
>>>>>>> clear up some of these misconceptions.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dislike, despise, and/or being strongly prejudiced against some
>>>>>> group of people can't be usually altered with logic. Even if the
>>>>>> person wants to but usually they don't. It is just like trying to
>>>>>> convince someone out of their acrophobia,  claustrophobia,
>>>>>> arachnophobia, mysophobia or such. They just feel you are
>>>>>> fool trying to convince them into some horrible error.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You can get pile of to the old wives' tales how earwigs burrowed
>>>>>> into the brains of humans through the ear and laid their eggs
>>>>>> there. It will have nothing to do with anything discussed like
>>>>>> birds, mutations, beaks, Mendel ... you see.
>>>>>
>>>>>          Well, now I have to say that all individuals aren't the
>>>>> same, but also all societies aren't the same, that individuals make
>>>>> societies. These are all facts. I don't understand why you are so
>>>>> desperately trying to influence the acknowledgement of those facts?
>>>>> Is there any particular reason why you don't like a group of people
>>>>> that think the same as me? I mean, I didn't express any intolerance
>>>>> against your views on this subject.
>>>>>          You are just another case o brain washing, I am used to
>>>>> it. Just the other day I heard how Russians are surprised why
>>>>> Ukrainians hate them, Russians don't hate Ukrainians. But they
>>>>> would hate them if Ukrainians do to them what Russians are doing to
>>>>> Ukrainians.
>>>>>          It is kind of attitude, I rape your daughter every day in
>>>>> a most brutal way, and I don't hate anybody, and if you hate me,
>>>>> there is something wrong with you. Simple and stupid. Science is
>>>>> full with it.
>>>>>          How long you've been in Afghanistan? You achieved nothing,
>>>>> neither you ever will, although you may talk to the end of the
>>>>> world how all humans are just the same. And guess what, Vatican
>>>>> just love Afghanistan, and just hates you.
>>>>
>>>>          Oh yes, if you didn't get it, "don't hate your abuser, your
>>>> abuser doesn't hate yo, and if you hate him, there is something
>>>> wrong with you" is the pivotal idea of Catholic church. Now you see
>>>> how sick all this is, and for whom Catholic church works. And also
>>>> you can see who brainwashed you, and you can see also *why*, for
>>>> what reason, they brainwashed you.
>>>
>>>          In short, if you would be smart enough to take a closer
>>> look, you will understand that the type of people who hate are the
>>> victims, they hate their abusers. Whoever told you to hate the ones
>>> who hate, he told you to hate victims, and to give open hands for
>>> abusers to continue with abusing. This is the core meaning of
>>> Catholic church.
>>
>>          In other words, hatred is the sin, not abusing, abusing is
>> ok. Says Catholic church. And it made hatred the uttermost sin. Not a
>> word against abusing. Although the victims are the ones who hate. And
>> Catholic church knows this very well, trust me.
>
>         And guess what, what I just told you I didn't read in any book,
> there is no book written which says what I just told you. Scientists
> just repeat what Catholic church tells them. Simple and stupid. I had to
> figure out everything all by myself. Which makes me, automatically,
> wrong. But I know that I am right. Whether you know that I am right is
> completely different matter.

Maybe now is the time to explain how I do it. This isn't a simple
process, like you have some problem, and you solve it. Nothing like
this. First you have to make realistic basis. For the whole time you
must take great care to not be biased in any way. You mustn't have any
goal, and you mustn't be ambitious at all. If you don't follow each and
every point that I mentioned, you will fail. You must let your brain to
work, by instinct, you have to catch every hint, not just those that are
100 % proved, like science does. You have to look as far as you can, not
just as close as you can, like science does. You got to have a sense to
smell blood, and to follow the scent. Everything has to be connected by
logic, so when logic forces you to research something, only then you go
and research, and what you find you incorporate into grid of logic,
where everything is connected. By logical connection you see when
something doesn't fit. Science just researches anything, in a hope that
it will find the magic key. I call this method counting grains of sand
in desert. I cannot read 10 books in 10 hours, it takes me half an hour
just to read one page. Because what I read I immediately incorporate
into logical grid. What I do is a matter of quality, what science does
is a matter of quantity. Of course I will be better than science, any
time, :) .

On 22.8.2023. 13:58, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 22.8.2023. 13:39, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 22.8.2023. 12:57, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 22.8.2023. 12:50, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 22.8.2023. 11:03, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>> On 22.8.2023. 10:55, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>> On 22.8.2023. 10:07, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tuesday, 22 August 2023 at 05:42:15 UTC+3, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Mario
>>>>>>>> Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> More
>>>>>>>>> than enough said.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It would probably have been best to have it all unsaid.
>>>>>>>> But at least this way I think we might be able to
>>>>>>>> clear up some of these misconceptions.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dislike, despise, and/or being strongly prejudiced against some
>>>>>>> group of people can't be usually altered with logic. Even if the
>>>>>>> person wants to but usually they don't. It is just like trying to
>>>>>>> convince someone out of their acrophobia,  claustrophobia,
>>>>>>> arachnophobia, mysophobia or such. They just feel you are
>>>>>>> fool trying to convince them into some horrible error.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You can get pile of to the old wives' tales how earwigs burrowed
>>>>>>> into the brains of humans through the ear and laid their eggs
>>>>>>> there. It will have nothing to do with anything discussed like
>>>>>>> birds, mutations, beaks, Mendel ... you see.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>          Well, now I have to say that all individuals aren't the
>>>>>> same, but also all societies aren't the same, that individuals
>>>>>> make societies. These are all facts. I don't understand why you
>>>>>> are so desperately trying to influence the acknowledgement of
>>>>>> those facts? Is there any particular reason why you don't like a
>>>>>> group of people that think the same as me? I mean, I didn't
>>>>>> express any intolerance against your views on this subject.
>>>>>>          You are just another case o brain washing, I am used to
>>>>>> it. Just the other day I heard how Russians are surprised why
>>>>>> Ukrainians hate them, Russians don't hate Ukrainians. But they
>>>>>> would hate them if Ukrainians do to them what Russians are doing
>>>>>> to Ukrainians.
>>>>>>          It is kind of attitude, I rape your daughter every day in
>>>>>> a most brutal way, and I don't hate anybody, and if you hate me,
>>>>>> there is something wrong with you. Simple and stupid. Science is
>>>>>> full with it.
>>>>>>          How long you've been in Afghanistan? You achieved
>>>>>> nothing, neither you ever will, although you may talk to the end
>>>>>> of the world how all humans are just the same. And guess what,
>>>>>> Vatican just love Afghanistan, and just hates you.
>>>>>
>>>>>          Oh yes, if you didn't get it, "don't hate your abuser,
>>>>> your abuser doesn't hate yo, and if you hate him, there is
>>>>> something wrong with you" is the pivotal idea of Catholic church.
>>>>> Now you see how sick all this is, and for whom Catholic church
>>>>> works. And also you can see who brainwashed you, and you can see
>>>>> also *why*, for what reason, they brainwashed you.
>>>>
>>>>          In short, if you would be smart enough to take a closer
>>>> look, you will understand that the type of people who hate are the
>>>> victims, they hate their abusers. Whoever told you to hate the ones
>>>> who hate, he told you to hate victims, and to give open hands for
>>>> abusers to continue with abusing. This is the core meaning of
>>>> Catholic church.
>>>
>>>          In other words, hatred is the sin, not abusing, abusing is
>>> ok. Says Catholic church. And it made hatred the uttermost sin. Not a
>>> word against abusing. Although the victims are the ones who hate. And
>>> Catholic church knows this very well, trust me.
>>
>>          And guess what, what I just told you I didn't read in any
>> book, there is no book written which says what I just told you.
>> Scientists just repeat what Catholic church tells them. Simple and
>> stupid. I had to figure out everything all by myself. Which makes me,
>> automatically, wrong. But I know that I am right. Whether you know
>> that I am right is completely different matter.
>
>         Maybe now is the time to explain how I do it. This isn't a
> simple process, like you have some problem, and you solve it. Nothing
> like this. First you have to make realistic basis. For the whole time
> you must take great care to not be biased in any way. You mustn't have
> any goal, and you mustn't be ambitious at all. If you don't follow each
> and every point that I mentioned, you will fail. You must let your brain
> to work, by instinct, you have to catch every hint, not just those that
> are 100 % proved, like science does. You have to look as far as you can,
> not just as close as you can, like science does. You got to have a sense
> to smell blood, and to follow the scent. Everything has to be connected
> by logic, so when logic forces you to research something, only then you
> go and research, and what you find you incorporate into grid of logic,
> where everything is connected. By logical connection you see when
> something doesn't fit. Science just researches anything, in a hope that
> it will find the magic key. I call this method counting grains of sand
> in desert. I cannot read 10 books in 10 hours, it takes me half an hour
> just to read one page. Because what I read I immediately incorporate
> into logical grid. What I do is a matter of quality, what science does
> is a matter of quantity. Of course I will be better than science, any
> time, :) .

Ok, now why this method is better? Because this is how human brain
works. People think that brain is like neutral calculator, you put any
kind of numbers in it, and it will give you the result. Not at all, our
brain evolved behaving in some particular way. It didn't evolve by
putting some garbage into memory 8 hours a day, and then you go home.
No, it evolved thinking the way I am thinking. I am even acting like the
world is flat, although I know very well that the world is a ball. But,
our brain isn't yet used to this state, for millions of years Earth was
flat to it. I keep my mind in as natural condition as I can, it feels
good that way, it works well that way. If you have a dirt bike, don't
use it on asphalt tracks, use it the way it is build to be used, that
way it will work the best. So, when you sense blood, you follow the
scent, your brain knows where to go. Instead, people try to measure
things, do other mechanical and artificial things. No, our brain,
simply, doesn't work well that way, it follows logic, not 21st century
procedures. There are people around that are much more intelligent than
I am, but their work is hollow, it doesn't have sense, they are going
nowhere, they are just doing tasks that somebody else prepared for them,
like they are machines. Recently I noticed one good expression for such
behaving, "tools", they are just tools of the system, hollow and
senseless, system tells them what to do, not their instinct.

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 12:10:29 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 22.8.2023. 4:42, Peter Nyikos wrote:

Note how all the following were on the same PM, once you account
for the time zone difference. You should really consider slowing down
your responses. Harshman cannot be expected to do that. He is just
as quick to reply to me as he is to you. It is I who am responsible
for a much slower overall pace between us.

> > On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >> On 20.8.2023. 4:50, John Harshman wrote:
> >>> On 8/19/23 7:33 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>> On 20.8.2023. 3:21, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>> On 8/19/23 5:10 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>>> On 20.8.2023. 1:46, John Harshman wrote:

> >>>>>>> But what you describe is not recognizable as anything in actual
> >>>>>>> evolutionary biology. Nor does Mendel have anything at all to do
> >>>>>>> with mutations. If paleoanthropologists said that, which I strongly
> >>>>>>> doubt, they were wrong.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> You may not be insane, but what you're saying is nonsensical.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Hm, on papers 10 and more years old you can read that
> >>>>>> Genetic Mutation Theory is by Mendel: "Genetic algorithm (GA) is an
> >>>>>> optimization searching algorithm based on the theory of evolution
> >>>>>> and the genetic mutation theory of Mendel (Atmar, 1994, Chaudhry et
> >>>>>> al., 2000, Fogel, 1994, Srinivas and Patnaik, 1994)." These days,
> >>>>>> though, everybody says that it is De Vries's. Now, what and why?
> >>>>>> And, frankly, I am really puzzled how suddenly you don't know
> >>>>>> anything about it.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> What are you quoting there? What are the cited references? If it's
> >>>>> about genetic algorithms is would seem very peripheral to
> >>>>> evolutionary biology, and I wouldn't be confident that it's right in
> >>>>> its attributions.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It's true that De Vries had a theory of mutation, though Mendel did not.

<snip for focus>

> >>>>>>> Organisms do correct mutations; that's called proofreading and
> >>>>>>> repair. But repair doesn't fix all mutations and it actually causes
> >>>>>>> some of them. Observed mutation rates take repair into account. Not
> >>>>>>> sure what "it didn't stop to evolve" is about. Mutations do happen,
> >>>>>>> some of them affect phenotype, and some of them are beneficial.
> >>>>>>> That's how adaptive evolution works.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I am giving up.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> If only that were true.
> >>>>>

<snip for focus>

> >>>>>> From the fact that the Genetic Mutation Theory was accepted
> >>>>>> after it was rediscovered by three independent scientists in a
> >>>>>> matter of two months, in a time when there wasn't even a radio. If
> >>>>>> you would use your brain you would figure out the trick, but I don't
> >>>>>> expect this from you:
> >>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel#Rediscovery_of_Mendel's_work
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Notice that nowhere in that article is there any mention of mutation.
> >>>>> And if you actually read it you will find that the rediscovery of
> >>>>> Mendel is all about the fact that inheritance is particulate, not
> >>>>> blending. That's Mendel's work and that's Mendel's theory.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> First, this Catholic priest was a liar, then "somebody"
> >>>>>> used trick to sell his theory to the world.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Nobody is saying any of that.
> >>>>
> >>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel#Mendelian_paradox
> >>>
> >>> That has nothing to do with any of your claims.

Here is where I came in.

> > You seem to have a bee in your bonnet [are you familiar with this colloquialism?]
> > about the Catholic Church, Mario.
> >
> > Your being 61 correlates to your being about 2 years old when Brezhnev took
> > power in 1964, and so your formative years were spent until he died in 1982,
> > when you would have been an adult. You were in Yugoslavia the whole time;
> > and I suspect your education was steeped in anti-Catholic propaganda
> > much of the time. Catholicism was especially opposed of the Christian denominations,
> > because of its unified character, making it a more formidable enemy of Communism
> > than perhaps all the Protestant denominations put together.
> >
> > We were once given an abominable anti-Christian book for elementary school children,
> > written in Hungarian and published in Hungary in the 1960's. It opened with a fiction
> > loosely based on the book of Genesis, making God look like a bumbling idiot whose behavior
> > was nothing like what Genesis depicts. Yet it was written "with a straight face" as though
> > it were an accurate portrayal of what Christians believe.
> >
> > I say all this because what you write below reads like it was permeated
> > with anti-Catholic propaganda that you may have accepted uncritically.
> > I've kept it intact at first, then picked it apart because it contains
> > such concentrated mistakes.
> >
> >> Mendel was a liar
> >
> > He simplified some data to make it look like inheritance of traits was
> > more perfectly describable in multiples of 1/4 or 1/8 or whatever
> > negative power of 2 was appropriate to the situation. But as
> > a general approximation to the truth it was good enough for practical purposes.
> >
> > If this is the only lie that Mendel was guilty of, then he was less of a
> > liar than two of the participants in this thread, and many other participants
> > in talk.origins.
> >
> >
> > (just like all Catholic priests are,
> >
> > Is that what you were taught through much of your education?
> >
> >
> >> plus a lot of them are pedophiles,
> >
> > About 5% engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior with underage minors during the
> > height of sex abuse, only about one-fifth of which were children below puberty,
> > the only young people to whom the word "pedophile" applies. You find similar
> > figures in lots of places, including the public schools.
> >
> >
> >> plus, the ones who aren't, those protect
> >> pedophiles),
> >
> > You have been reading a lot of anti-Catholic propaganda that
> > ultimately has Marxist roots. It's late, otherwise I'd go into the
> > whole story. Maybe tomorrow I'll have the time.
> >
> >
> >> and Catholic church used psychological trick to sneak in
> >> Mendel's work.
> >
> > I can't imagine a source for this except Stalinist propagandists
> > steeped in Lysenkoism.
> >
> >
> >> And the Big Bang Theory also originated in Vatican.
> >
> > The Vatican had no role in it, and besides, why do you
> > think it is incorrect at all?
> >
> >
> >> More
> >> than enough said.
> >
> > It would probably have been best to have it all unsaid.
> > But at least this way I think we might be able to
> > clear up some of these misconceptions.

> First Peter, thanks for taking care about it.

I'm glad you are willing to discuss this so openly.

Before we go further, I think I know why you are of the impression
that the Big Bang Theory is a false product of the Vatican.
It's because the Soviet Union was committed to the universe
having always been here, and never ending. What you write below
is very much in line with that.

> Ok, lets start with clearing misconceptions about my uprising,
> regarding Catholicism. My mother was strong believer. She had some
> problems with communists in her life, so she never raised us in
> Catholicism and nationalism, so, she, although being strong Catholic,
> kept it for herself.

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 12:33:45 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 22.8.2023. 6:29, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > On 22.8.2023. 6:10, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >> On 22.8.2023. 4:42, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> >>> You seem to have a bee in your bonnet [are you familiar with this
> >>> colloquialism?]
> >>> about the Catholic Church, Mario.
> >>>
> >>> Your being 61 correlates to your being about 2 years old when
> >>> Brezhnev took
> >>> power in 1964, and so your formative years were spent until he died
> >>> in 1982,
> >>> when you would have been an adult. You were in Yugoslavia the whole
> >>> time;
> >>> and I suspect your education was steeped in anti-Catholic propaganda
> >>> much of the time. Catholicism was especially opposed of the Christian
> >>> denominations,
> >>> because of its unified character, making it a more formidable enemy
> >>> of Communism
> >>> than perhaps all the Protestant denominations put together.
> >>>
> >>> We were once given an abominable anti-Christian book for elementary
> >>> school children,
> >>> written in Hungarian and published in Hungary in the 1960's. It
> >>> opened with a fiction
> >>> loosely based on the book of Genesis, making God look like a
> >>> bumbling idiot whose behavior
> >>> was nothing like what Genesis depicts. Yet it was written "with a
> >>> straight face" as though
> >>> it were an accurate portrayal of what Christians believe.
> >>>
> >>> I say all this because what you write below reads like it was permeated
> >>> with anti-Catholic propaganda that you may have accepted uncritically..
> >>> I've kept it intact at first, then picked it apart because it contains
> >>> such concentrated mistakes.

I had originally intended to include two versions, one with your amazing
paragraph intact, then picked apart. But then I got absent-minded.

Here is your amazing paragraph:

"Mendel was a liar (just like all Catholic priests are, plus a lot of
them are pedophiles, plus, the ones who aren't, those protect
pedophiles), and Catholic church used psychological trick to sneak in
Mendel's work. And the Big Bang Theory also originated in Vatican. More
than enough said."

And here is how I picked it apart:

> >>>
> >>>> Mendel was a liar
> >>>
> >>> He simplified some data to make it look like inheritance of traits was
> >>> more perfectly describable in multiples of 1/4 or 1/8 or whatever
> >>> negative power of 2 was appropriate to the situation. But as
> >>> a general approximation to the truth it was good enough for practical
> >>> purposes.
> >>>
> >>> If this is the only lie that Mendel was guilty of, then he was less
> >>> of a
> >>> liar than two of the participants in this thread, and many other
> >>> participants
> >>> in talk.origins.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> (just like all Catholic priests are,
> >>>
> >>> Is that what you were taught through much of your education?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> plus a lot of them are pedophiles,
> >>>
> >>> About 5% engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior with underage minors during the
> >>> height of sex abuse, only about one-fifth of which were children below puberty,
> >>> the only young people to whom the word "pedophile" applies. You find
> >>> similar figures in lots of places, including the public schools.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> plus, the ones who aren't, those protect
> >>>> pedophiles),
> >>>
> >>> You have been reading a lot of anti-Catholic propaganda that
> >>> ultimately has Marxist roots. It's late, otherwise I'd go into the
> >>> whole story. Maybe tomorrow I'll have the time.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> and Catholic church used psychological trick to sneak in
> >>>> Mendel's work.
> >>>
> >>> I can't imagine a source for this except Stalinist propagandists
> >>> steeped in Lysenkoism.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> And the Big Bang Theory also originated in Vatican.
> >>>
> >>> The Vatican had no role in it, and besides, why do you
> >>> think it is incorrect at all?

<snip to get to your new words>

> > In fact, Christmas was a holiday in Yugoslavia, and Midnight
> > Mass was big celebration, the whole town celebrated. It wasn't quiet, it
> > wasn't "Silent Night", because this was a night when Croats were
> > celebrating their Christianity publicly, so this was huge celebration,
> > and everybody went to Zagreb Cathedral at that night. You may picture
> > how big celebration it is when even the nonbelievers (including me)
> > attended. Especially if you take into account that Orthodox Serbs
> > celebrate it using Gregorian calendar, so 15 days after Catholics.

Don't you mean the Julian calendar? if so, 15 days before.
Easy way to remember: the Glorious October Bolshevik Revolution
actually took place in November by the Gregorian calendar.

But my impression is that the Orthodox calendar has a different
basis than the dates for the Catholic calendar. They celebrate Easter
later than we do.

Anyway, Zagreb is in Croatia, so you would have celebrated it on the 24-25th of December.

> > So at Christmas it was a time for celebration for Croats. But it was so huge
> > celebration that even young Serbs would come to Zagreb Cathedral and
> > have fun. So, nothing like you think was happening in Yugoslavia,
> > Christianity was tolerated, especially if you know that Vatican actually
> > works for communists.

I cannot know something that is not so. When you were almost an adult,
the Catholic world was astounded by the new Pope being a Pole--
the first non-Italian elected Pope in four centuries.

Then it got a shock when an assassination attempt was made on
John Paul II. It later was determined that the would-be assassin
was the agent of Soviets. So where was the Vatican working
for communists, eh?

> Oh yes, it was big celebration, loud, with firecrackers. Actually, it
> was the only occasion when you could hit firecracker behind a policeman
> (police was very austere back then), and he wouldn't do anything about
> it, :) .

What, no firecrackers on New Year's Eve?

Just northeast of you, in Hungary, what we call Christmas
was called "little Christmas" [kis Karácsony] while New Year's day
was "great Christmas" [nagy Karácsony]. That was the day
when Father Winter [Télapó] went around distributing gifts to the good children.

[Trivia: Alexander the Great is called "Nagy Sándor" in Hungarian.
It sounds to my ears like an ordinary everyday Magyar name,
like the names of the people you meet on the street every day.
My youngest brother is named Nyíkos Sándor -- surname first, as in oriental languages.]

Peter Nyikos [Nyíkos Péter]

On 22.8.2023. 15:37, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 12:10:29 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 22.8.2023. 4:42, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> Note how all the following were on the same PM, once you account
> for the time zone difference. You should really consider slowing down
> your responses. Harshman cannot be expected to do that. He is just
> as quick to reply to me as he is to you. It is I who am responsible
> for a much slower overall pace between us.

Sorry, but I don't do that (adjusting my behavior).

>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 20.8.2023. 4:50, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>> On 8/19/23 7:33 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>> On 20.8.2023. 3:21, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>> On 8/19/23 5:10 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 20.8.2023. 1:46, John Harshman wrote:
>
>>>>>>>>> But what you describe is not recognizable as anything in actual
>>>>>>>>> evolutionary biology. Nor does Mendel have anything at all to do
>>>>>>>>> with mutations. If paleoanthropologists said that, which I strongly
>>>>>>>>> doubt, they were wrong.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> You may not be insane, but what you're saying is nonsensical.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hm, on papers 10 and more years old you can read that
>>>>>>>> Genetic Mutation Theory is by Mendel: "Genetic algorithm (GA) is an
>>>>>>>> optimization searching algorithm based on the theory of evolution
>>>>>>>> and the genetic mutation theory of Mendel (Atmar, 1994, Chaudhry et
>>>>>>>> al., 2000, Fogel, 1994, Srinivas and Patnaik, 1994)." These days,
>>>>>>>> though, everybody says that it is De Vries's. Now, what and why?
>>>>>>>> And, frankly, I am really puzzled how suddenly you don't know
>>>>>>>> anything about it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What are you quoting there? What are the cited references? If it's
>>>>>>> about genetic algorithms is would seem very peripheral to
>>>>>>> evolutionary biology, and I wouldn't be confident that it's right in
>>>>>>> its attributions.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It's true that De Vries had a theory of mutation, though Mendel did not.
>
> <snip for focus>
>
>
>>>>>>>>> Organisms do correct mutations; that's called proofreading and
>>>>>>>>> repair. But repair doesn't fix all mutations and it actually causes
>>>>>>>>> some of them. Observed mutation rates take repair into account. Not
>>>>>>>>> sure what "it didn't stop to evolve" is about. Mutations do happen,
>>>>>>>>> some of them affect phenotype, and some of them are beneficial.
>>>>>>>>> That's how adaptive evolution works.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I am giving up.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If only that were true.
>>>>>>>
>
> <snip for focus>
>
>>>>>>>> From the fact that the Genetic Mutation Theory was accepted
>>>>>>>> after it was rediscovered by three independent scientists in a
>>>>>>>> matter of two months, in a time when there wasn't even a radio. If
>>>>>>>> you would use your brain you would figure out the trick, but I don't
>>>>>>>> expect this from you:
>>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel#Rediscovery_of_Mendel's_work
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Notice that nowhere in that article is there any mention of mutation.
>>>>>>> And if you actually read it you will find that the rediscovery of
>>>>>>> Mendel is all about the fact that inheritance is particulate, not
>>>>>>> blending. That's Mendel's work and that's Mendel's theory.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> First, this Catholic priest was a liar, then "somebody"
>>>>>>>> used trick to sell his theory to the world.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Nobody is saying any of that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel#Mendelian_paradox
>>>>>
>>>>> That has nothing to do with any of your claims.
>
> Here is where I came in.
>
>>> You seem to have a bee in your bonnet [are you familiar with this colloquialism?]
>>> about the Catholic Church, Mario.
>>>
>>> Your being 61 correlates to your being about 2 years old when Brezhnev took
>>> power in 1964, and so your formative years were spent until he died in 1982,
>>> when you would have been an adult. You were in Yugoslavia the whole time;
>>> and I suspect your education was steeped in anti-Catholic propaganda
>>> much of the time. Catholicism was especially opposed of the Christian denominations,
>>> because of its unified character, making it a more formidable enemy of Communism
>>> than perhaps all the Protestant denominations put together.
>>>
>>> We were once given an abominable anti-Christian book for elementary school children,
>>> written in Hungarian and published in Hungary in the 1960's. It opened with a fiction
>>> loosely based on the book of Genesis, making God look like a bumbling idiot whose behavior
>>> was nothing like what Genesis depicts. Yet it was written "with a straight face" as though
>>> it were an accurate portrayal of what Christians believe.
>>>
>>> I say all this because what you write below reads like it was permeated
>>> with anti-Catholic propaganda that you may have accepted uncritically.
>>> I've kept it intact at first, then picked it apart because it contains
>>> such concentrated mistakes.
>>>
>>>> Mendel was a liar
>>>
>>> He simplified some data to make it look like inheritance of traits was
>>> more perfectly describable in multiples of 1/4 or 1/8 or whatever
>>> negative power of 2 was appropriate to the situation. But as
>>> a general approximation to the truth it was good enough for practical purposes.
>>>
>>> If this is the only lie that Mendel was guilty of, then he was less of a
>>> liar than two of the participants in this thread, and many other participants
>>> in talk.origins.
>>>
>>>
>>> (just like all Catholic priests are,
>>>
>>> Is that what you were taught through much of your education?
>>>
>>>
>>>> plus a lot of them are pedophiles,
>>>
>>> About 5% engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior with underage minors during the
>>> height of sex abuse, only about one-fifth of which were children below puberty,
>>> the only young people to whom the word "pedophile" applies. You find similar
>>> figures in lots of places, including the public schools.
>>>
>>>
>>>> plus, the ones who aren't, those protect
>>>> pedophiles),
>>>
>>> You have been reading a lot of anti-Catholic propaganda that
>>> ultimately has Marxist roots. It's late, otherwise I'd go into the
>>> whole story. Maybe tomorrow I'll have the time.
>>>
>>>
>>>> and Catholic church used psychological trick to sneak in
>>>> Mendel's work.
>>>
>>> I can't imagine a source for this except Stalinist propagandists
>>> steeped in Lysenkoism.
>>>
>>>
>>>> And the Big Bang Theory also originated in Vatican.
>>>
>>> The Vatican had no role in it, and besides, why do you
>>> think it is incorrect at all?
>>>
>>>
>>>> More
>>>> than enough said.
>>>
>>> It would probably have been best to have it all unsaid.
>>> But at least this way I think we might be able to
>>> clear up some of these misconceptions.
>
>> First Peter, thanks for taking care about it.
>
> I'm glad you are willing to discuss this so openly.
>
> Before we go further, I think I know why you are of the impression
> that the Big Bang Theory is a false product of the Vatican.
> It's because the Soviet Union was committed to the universe
> having always been here, and never ending. What you write below
> is very much in line with that.

On 22.8.2023. 17:15, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 12:33:45 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 22.8.2023. 6:29, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 22.8.2023. 6:10, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 22.8.2023. 4:42, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
>>>>> You seem to have a bee in your bonnet [are you familiar with this
>>>>> colloquialism?]
>>>>> about the Catholic Church, Mario.
>>>>>
>>>>> Your being 61 correlates to your being about 2 years old when
>>>>> Brezhnev took
>>>>> power in 1964, and so your formative years were spent until he died
>>>>> in 1982,
>>>>> when you would have been an adult. You were in Yugoslavia the whole
>>>>> time;
>>>>> and I suspect your education was steeped in anti-Catholic propaganda
>>>>> much of the time. Catholicism was especially opposed of the Christian
>>>>> denominations,
>>>>> because of its unified character, making it a more formidable enemy
>>>>> of Communism
>>>>> than perhaps all the Protestant denominations put together.
>>>>>
>>>>> We were once given an abominable anti-Christian book for elementary
>>>>> school children,
>>>>> written in Hungarian and published in Hungary in the 1960's. It
>>>>> opened with a fiction
>>>>> loosely based on the book of Genesis, making God look like a
>>>>> bumbling idiot whose behavior
>>>>> was nothing like what Genesis depicts. Yet it was written "with a
>>>>> straight face" as though
>>>>> it were an accurate portrayal of what Christians believe.
>>>>>
>>>>> I say all this because what you write below reads like it was permeated
>>>>> with anti-Catholic propaganda that you may have accepted uncritically.
>>>>> I've kept it intact at first, then picked it apart because it contains
>>>>> such concentrated mistakes.
>
> I had originally intended to include two versions, one with your amazing
> paragraph intact, then picked apart. But then I got absent-minded.
>
> Here is your amazing paragraph:
>
> "Mendel was a liar (just like all Catholic priests are, plus a lot of
> them are pedophiles, plus, the ones who aren't, those protect
> pedophiles), and Catholic church used psychological trick to sneak in
> Mendel's work. And the Big Bang Theory also originated in Vatican. More
> than enough said."
>
> And here is how I picked it apart:
>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Mendel was a liar
>>>>>
>>>>> He simplified some data to make it look like inheritance of traits was
>>>>> more perfectly describable in multiples of 1/4 or 1/8 or whatever
>>>>> negative power of 2 was appropriate to the situation. But as
>>>>> a general approximation to the truth it was good enough for practical
>>>>> purposes.
>>>>>
>>>>> If this is the only lie that Mendel was guilty of, then he was less
>>>>> of a
>>>>> liar than two of the participants in this thread, and many other
>>>>> participants
>>>>> in talk.origins.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> (just like all Catholic priests are,
>>>>>
>>>>> Is that what you were taught through much of your education?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> plus a lot of them are pedophiles,
>>>>>
>>>>> About 5% engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior with underage minors during the
>>>>> height of sex abuse, only about one-fifth of which were children below puberty,
>>>>> the only young people to whom the word "pedophile" applies. You find
>>>>> similar figures in lots of places, including the public schools.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> plus, the ones who aren't, those protect
>>>>>> pedophiles),
>>>>>
>>>>> You have been reading a lot of anti-Catholic propaganda that
>>>>> ultimately has Marxist roots. It's late, otherwise I'd go into the
>>>>> whole story. Maybe tomorrow I'll have the time.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> and Catholic church used psychological trick to sneak in
>>>>>> Mendel's work.
>>>>>
>>>>> I can't imagine a source for this except Stalinist propagandists
>>>>> steeped in Lysenkoism.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> And the Big Bang Theory also originated in Vatican.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Vatican had no role in it, and besides, why do you
>>>>> think it is incorrect at all?
>
>
> <snip to get to your new words>
>
>
>>> In fact, Christmas was a holiday in Yugoslavia, and Midnight
>>> Mass was big celebration, the whole town celebrated. It wasn't quiet, it
>>> wasn't "Silent Night", because this was a night when Croats were
>>> celebrating their Christianity publicly, so this was huge celebration,
>>> and everybody went to Zagreb Cathedral at that night. You may picture
>>> how big celebration it is when even the nonbelievers (including me)
>>> attended. Especially if you take into account that Orthodox Serbs
>>> celebrate it using Gregorian calendar, so 15 days after Catholics.
>
> Don't you mean the Julian calendar? if so, 15 days before.
> Easy way to remember: the Glorious October Bolshevik Revolution
> actually took place in November by the Gregorian calendar.
>
> But my impression is that the Orthodox calendar has a different
> basis than the dates for the Catholic calendar. They celebrate Easter
> later than we do.
>
> Anyway, Zagreb is in Croatia, so you would have celebrated it on the 24-25th of December.

Uh, yes, Croats are Gregorian. I don't know which is which, I confused
things, Croats - Gregorian, Serbs - Julian (I hope this is correct, I
really don't know which name is which). Anyway, Croats celebrate like
the rest of the world, while Serbs celebrate like it was before.

>>> So at Christmas it was a time for celebration for Croats. But it was so huge
>>> celebration that even young Serbs would come to Zagreb Cathedral and
>>> have fun. So, nothing like you think was happening in Yugoslavia,
>>> Christianity was tolerated, especially if you know that Vatican actually
>>> works for communists.
>
> I cannot know something that is not so. When you were almost an adult,
> the Catholic world was astounded by the new Pope being a Pole--
> the first non-Italian elected Pope in four centuries.
>
> Then it got a shock when an assassination attempt was made on
> John Paul II. It later was determined that the would-be assassin
> was the agent of Soviets. So where was the Vatican working
> for communists, eh?

To set things strait, communist don't work for Vatican, Vatican works
for communists. Communists don't want competing religion, while Pope
uses communists for fight against West. Pope cannot fight alone, he
doesn't have army, he is using communists. And Muslim migrants. Anybody.
In America it is using poor people from Latin America to invade USA.
Pope is using anybody, anywhere, anytime, against West.

>> Oh yes, it was big celebration, loud, with firecrackers. Actually, it
>> was the only occasion when you could hit firecracker behind a policeman
>> (police was very austere back then), and he wouldn't do anything about
>> it, :) .
>
> What, no firecrackers on New Year's Eve?

We had few firecrackers celebrating Christmas, and wide use of
firecrackers on New Years Eve. Then we had holiday, one day for
Christmas, and two days for New Year, now we have two days for
Christmas, and one day for New Year.

> Just northeast of you, in Hungary, what we call Christmas
> was called "little Christmas" [kis Karácsony] while New Year's day
> was "great Christmas" [nagy Karácsony]. That was the day
> when Father Winter [Télapó] went around distributing gifts to the good children.
>
>
> [Trivia: Alexander the Great is called "Nagy Sándor" in Hungarian.
> It sounds to my ears like an ordinary everyday Magyar name,
> like the names of the people you meet on the street every day.
> My youngest brother is named Nyíkos Sándor -- surname first, as in oriental languages.]

On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 10:15:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/18/23 6:50 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > Harshman, you are getting to be as flagrant at trolling as JTEM.

> Your characterization of everything here is grossly erroneous. But I see
> there's no point in talking to you.

Stop grandstanding, liar. You could easily have extricated yourself at the beginning
by saying something like:

"Correction: I meant to say that the beak is not the *only*
thing involved in woodpeckers digging into bark.

But you just kept on digging yourself in deeper, as I show below.

> > Mario, take note: you were right about Harshman, and if you've needed
> > any more proof for warning others about him, you have it below.
> >
> > On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 8:53:49 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 8/18/23 5:25 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 6:50:34 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 8/18/23 1:40 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 8:06:40 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>>> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>>> So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???

This would have been a perfect time to say what I suggested above just now.
And it would not have caused you any loss of face, only a trifling bit of embarrassment.
But your hubris wouldn't let you do it.

Your curt two-line response to everything in this post is typical of another
destructive aspect to your overall behavior.

You are like a one-ton shark at the end of a five-pound-test line. If I pull too hard,
as I apparently did at the end, the line breaks and you swim away, free to be equally perverse another day.
But if I pull too gently lest the line break, you try to lord it over me like you did with
your first response, and in the majority of replies you do to me.

You just ran out of ideas to get the upper hand this third time around.

Peter Nyikos

PS I left in the whole documentation below, so that anyone who thinks I
am being unfair to you can check for themselves how the whole thing unfolded.

> >>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
> >>>>>>> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
> >>>>>>> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
> >>>>>>> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
> >>>>>>> comparison were apt.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
> >>>>>>> attention. It's called "drumming".
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make such
> >>>>>> faulty conclusions?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It would be a lot harder, if not impossible, if you had not deleted
> >>>>> a really stupid comment by Harshman, which I have restored.
> >>>>> Notice how he completely changed the subject and then
> >>>>> said something that indirectly revealed that what he had claimed earlier
> >>>>> was indeed an abysmally stupid comment.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat various
> >>>>>> food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions that birds
> >>>>>> in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and had various
> >>>>>> behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Instead of nailing Harshman on his stupidity and his attempt to wiggle out of it,
> >>>>> you say something that doesn't fit anything he had said earlier.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Maybe you wouldn't make such mistakes if you slowed down to about
> >>>>> half as many posts per day as you do now, and spread out over
> >>>>> more than one thread. Next week I'll be starting a thread on pterosaurs,
> >>>>> so if you are interested in them, you can talk about them on the same days
> >>>>> you talk about birds.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Of course the first bird
> >>>>>> occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had only one
> >>>>>> type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
> >>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations, in the
> >>>>>> beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I mean,
> >>>>>> bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches that
> >>>>>> today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish, and
> >>>>>> didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
> >>>>>> mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
> >>>>>> to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
> >>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are they
> >>>>>> drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you get, the
> >>>>>> crazier you are.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> If you had not hurried so much through this paragraph, you might
> >>>>> have realized that you aren't referring to anything Harshman explicitly wrote.
> >>>>> Just think of how you could have been even more critical
> >>>>> of what he actually did write!
> >>>
> >>>> I get tired of posts where you say I'm saying something stupid but don't
> >>>> manage to explain just what's stupid about it.
> >
> > You will get them all the time if you continue to say abysmally
> > stupid things and then lie about what you said, like you do below.
> >
> >>> You are indulging in the moral equivalent of a frivolous lawsuit.
> >
> >> Am I? But you don't say how. Again, you say I've done something bad
> >> without managing to explain what's bad about it.
> >
> > You are just adding to your frivolous lawsuit equivalent. Read on.
> >
> >
> >>>> I'm not even sure what
> >>>> comment you're talking about.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> As if it weren't obvious:
> >>>
> >>> "It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark."
> >>>
> >>> So tell me, turkey, what DOES let them dig into bark,
> >>> now that you have eliminated their beaks?
> >
> >> You misunderstand the comment, though perhaps I wasn't sufficiently
> >> clear.
> >
> > There is no other way to read the comment, liar.
> >
> > (And why the gratuitous "turkey"?)
> >
> > Poor baby. You once gaslighted me with an accusation of megalomania,
> > a clinical form of insanity, when I was only a wee bit melodramatic.
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
> >
> > [I wrote "Poor baby" instead of "Hypocrite" because you are used to having
> > that word go like water off a duck's back.]
> >
> >
> >> As I said,
> >
> > You are just filibustering below and making no attempt to clarify the abysmally stupid thing you wrote.
> >
> >> all birds have
> >> beaks but only woodpeckers hammer trees with them. Therefore, having
> >> beaks is not sufficient for hammering trees, and we can't claim that
> >> early birds did so just because they had beaks. Further, since early
> >> birds lacked the skeletal adaptations that enable woodpeckers to hammer
> >> trees, the evidence suggests that they did not. And beaks therefore did
> >> not evolve for the purpose of hammering trees.
> >>
> >> (It occurs to me, however, that advanced alvarezsaurs like Mononykus
> >> might conceivably have done some tree-hammering, though not with their
> >> noses.)
> >
> >>
> >> So how much of that was stupid, and if so, why?
> >
> > Writing a bunch of interesting facts does not cancel out the fact that
> > you said something abysmally stupid, then lied when confronted by what you had done.
> >
> >
> > Peter Nyikos

On 8/23/23 12:53 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 10:15:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/18/23 6:50 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
>>> Harshman, you are getting to be as flagrant at trolling as JTEM.
>
>> Your characterization of everything here is grossly erroneous. But I see
>> there's no point in talking to you.
>
> Stop grandstanding, liar. You could easily have extricated yourself at the beginning
> by saying something like:
>
> "Correction: I meant to say that the beak is not the *only*
> thing involved in woodpeckers digging into bark.
>
> But you just kept on digging yourself in deeper, as I show below.

You show nothing below. Much of your online life happens in your
imagination.

>>> Mario, take note: you were right about Harshman, and if you've needed
>>> any more proof for warning others about him, you have it below.
>>>
>>> On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 8:53:49 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 8/18/23 5:25 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 6:50:34 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> On 8/18/23 1:40 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 8:06:40 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???
>
> This would have been a perfect time to say what I suggested above just now.
> And it would not have caused you any loss of face, only a trifling bit of embarrassment.
> But your hubris wouldn't let you do it.
>
>
> Your curt two-line response to everything in this post is typical of another
> destructive aspect to your overall behavior.
>
> You are like a one-ton shark at the end of a five-pound-test line. If I pull too hard,
> as I apparently did at the end, the line breaks and you swim away, free to be equally perverse another day.
> But if I pull too gently lest the line break, you try to lord it over me like you did with
> your first response, and in the majority of replies you do to me.
>
> You just ran out of ideas to get the upper hand this third time around.

I have no interest in getting the upper hand or in lording it over you.
Are we done yet?

> PS I left in the whole documentation below, so that anyone who thinks I
> am being unfair to you can check for themselves how the whole thing unfolded.
>
>
>>>>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
>>>>>>>>> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
>>>>>>>>> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
>>>>>>>>> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
>>>>>>>>> comparison were apt.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
>>>>>>>>> attention. It's called "drumming".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make such
>>>>>>>> faulty conclusions?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It would be a lot harder, if not impossible, if you had not deleted
>>>>>>> a really stupid comment by Harshman, which I have restored.
>>>>>>> Notice how he completely changed the subject and then
>>>>>>> said something that indirectly revealed that what he had claimed earlier
>>>>>>> was indeed an abysmally stupid comment.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat various
>>>>>>>> food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions that birds
>>>>>>>> in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and had various
>>>>>>>> behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Instead of nailing Harshman on his stupidity and his attempt to wiggle out of it,
>>>>>>> you say something that doesn't fit anything he had said earlier.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Maybe you wouldn't make such mistakes if you slowed down to about
>>>>>>> half as many posts per day as you do now, and spread out over
>>>>>>> more than one thread. Next week I'll be starting a thread on pterosaurs,
>>>>>>> so if you are interested in them, you can talk about them on the same days
>>>>>>> you talk about birds.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Of course the first bird
>>>>>>>> occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had only one
>>>>>>>> type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>>>>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations, in the
>>>>>>>> beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I mean,
>>>>>>>> bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches that
>>>>>>>> today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish, and
>>>>>>>> didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
>>>>>>>> mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
>>>>>>>> to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
>>>>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are they
>>>>>>>> drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you get, the
>>>>>>>> crazier you are.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If you had not hurried so much through this paragraph, you might
>>>>>>> have realized that you aren't referring to anything Harshman explicitly wrote.
>>>>>>> Just think of how you could have been even more critical
>>>>>>> of what he actually did write!
>>>>>
>>>>>> I get tired of posts where you say I'm saying something stupid but don't
>>>>>> manage to explain just what's stupid about it.
>>>
>>> You will get them all the time if you continue to say abysmally
>>> stupid things and then lie about what you said, like you do below.
>>>
>>>>> You are indulging in the moral equivalent of a frivolous lawsuit.
>>>
>>>> Am I? But you don't say how. Again, you say I've done something bad
>>>> without managing to explain what's bad about it.
>>>
>>> You are just adding to your frivolous lawsuit equivalent. Read on.
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> I'm not even sure what
>>>>>> comment you're talking about.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> As if it weren't obvious:
>>>>>
>>>>> "It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark."
>>>>>
>>>>> So tell me, turkey, what DOES let them dig into bark,
>>>>> now that you have eliminated their beaks?
>>>
>>>> You misunderstand the comment, though perhaps I wasn't sufficiently
>>>> clear.
>>>
>>> There is no other way to read the comment, liar.
>>>
>>> (And why the gratuitous "turkey"?)
>>>
>>> Poor baby. You once gaslighted me with an accusation of megalomania,
>>> a clinical form of insanity, when I was only a wee bit melodramatic.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
>>>
>>> [I wrote "Poor baby" instead of "Hypocrite" because you are used to having
>>> that word go like water off a duck's back.]
>>>
>>>
>>>> As I said,
>>>
>>> You are just filibustering below and making no attempt to clarify the abysmally stupid thing you wrote.
>>>
>>>> all birds have
>>>> beaks but only woodpeckers hammer trees with them. Therefore, having
>>>> beaks is not sufficient for hammering trees, and we can't claim that
>>>> early birds did so just because they had beaks. Further, since early
>>>> birds lacked the skeletal adaptations that enable woodpeckers to hammer
>>>> trees, the evidence suggests that they did not. And beaks therefore did
>>>> not evolve for the purpose of hammering trees.
>>>>
>>>> (It occurs to me, however, that advanced alvarezsaurs like Mononykus
>>>> might conceivably have done some tree-hammering, though not with their
>>>> noses.)
>>>
>>>>
>>>> So how much of that was stupid, and if so, why?
>>>
>>> Writing a bunch of interesting facts does not cancel out the fact that
>>> you said something abysmally stupid, then lied when confronted by what you had done.
>>>
>>>
>>> Peter Nyikos

Harshman, you've painted yourself tightly into a corner where a stupid comment
you made about woodpeckers has been the issue. I told you that your hubris
has kept you from using the lifeline I've tossed you. Now I will demonstrate,
going back to the original exchange between us, why I use the word "hubris."

But don't go away already: I have some interesting comments that
may not offend you before I get into the corner into which you've painted yourself.

On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 6:56:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 8/15/23 8:32 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >
> >>> It's great to see you posting here again, Mario. Don't be discouraged
> >>> by my corrections. That's a good way to learn, and Harshman might
> >>> have made the same points you did, because he subscribes to the
> >>> hypotheses that have been popularized about feather development.
> >>>
> >>> The popularizers refer to all kinds of things as "feathers":
> >>> hairlike growths, several such growths from the same root, hairlike growths
> >>> that are frayed like the ends of some of the longer hairs
> >>> of one of my daughters. . . . These are found on some dinosaur fossils--
> >>> only a tiny percentage even now, because these things do not fossilize easily.
> >
> >>> But I do not know of any genuine feathers on fossils that cannot
> >>> be hypothesized as secondarily flightless birds. So I call all these things
> >>> "protofeathers" and some of them just "dinofuzz."
> >
> >> Can't any fossil be hypothesized as secondarily flightless?

> > Not unless you call wild stabs in the dark (including highly
> > counterintuitive ones) "hypotheses."

> So you would need some kind of evidence in order to reasonably suppose
> that a dinosaur was secondarily flightless. What evidence are you
> thinking of here?

You will find a lot in a book you've pronounced "mostly useless" with initials
RotFD [1] on page 173. Plenty of evidence there that *Caudipteryx* was
a secondarily flightless bird, with plumaceous feathers, and evidence
of being descended from birds with flight remiges. Where is your evidence
to the contrary?

[1] No, it isn't "Rolling on the Floor Dying [of laughter]." The last two
words are "Feathered Dragons".

> >> So how is
> >> that a test? What's the scientific distinction between "genuine
> >> feathers" and "protofeathers"?
> >
> > Since you are the ornithologist here, you should be giving the
> > scientific distinction, if there is one. I doubt that there is one.

> That's right, there is none. So why are you making this distinction?

It took me a long time to remember, but there is such a word,
one undoubtedly familiar to you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennaceous_feather

good old Thomas Holtz, a frequent participant in s.b.p. in the 1990's, is featured in a link to
a webpage where he plays a prominent role:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniraptoriformes

A nice detailed phylogenetic tree of this clade is included, along with an old fashioned
character-based definition of an almost identical group by Gregory S. Paul,
the author of two Princeton Field Guides [one to dinosaurs, one to pterosaurs] that
I've been talking about here in s.b.p.

> >>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:00:19 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Dinosaurs had feathers before that (probably because feathers are good
> >>>> for water, unlike fur).
> >>>
> >>> And unlike down. A mother ostrich always shelters her babies in the midst
> >>> of a downpour, to protect them from hypothermia.
> >
> >> Then again, downy ducklings do just find in the water. There must be
> >> some way to make down work in an aquatic bird.
> >
> > It's called "oils," isn't it?
> >
> > I'm reminded of a delightful children's book by Vladimir Suteyev [Cyrillic: CYTEEB]
> > in which the first story shows a chick imitating a duckling digging, catching a worm,...
> > until it jumps in the water after the duckling and starts to drown. Heeding its cries for help,
> > the duckling pulls the chick out of the water. The last picture shows the chick out on solid ground
> > with water pouring off it and the duckling telling the chick that he is returning to the water,
> > with the chick responding, "But not I!"

> Don't know that one, but it sounds reasonable (the drowning, not the
> rest of it). And presumably this has something to do with differences in
> grooming habits and use of the preen gland secretions.

Like I said, "oils."

> >>> Down would be an advanced kind of protofeather, as would the feathers of kiwis,
> >>> which lack barbules and hooks, IF they or down had ever been found
> >>> as Mesozoic fossils predating birds with genuine feathers.
> >>> But I don't know of any examples.

Don't you know either, John? I mean, of fossils of down, or of "feathers" like the ones
of kwis, predating the first birds with pennaceous feathers.
> >>>
> >>>> Some small dinosaurs ate insects. At that time
> >>>> there was more oxygen in the air,
> >
> > This is controversial, according to the book,
> > _The Princeton Field Guide to Pterosaurs_.
> > I now have my own copy, and I'll be starting a new thread for an in-depth review this week.
> >
> >
> >>>> insects were bigger. So, some
> >>>> dinosaurs were trying to reach insects that were living in tree barks,
> >>>> so they hardened their muzzles into beaks, like woodpeckers.
> >>>
> >>> Very plausible. Did you read this somewhere, or did you figure
> >>> it out for yourself?

OK, here comes the corner:

> >> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
> >
> > So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???

Note the word "just". You ignored it in your answer, yet it is the logical
outgrowth of the way your stupid sentence is worded.

> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
> comparison were apt.
>
> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
> attention. It's called "drumming".

If my use of "just" didn't register, a red flag should have gone up in your mind
after reading this:

> > You really ought to consider your audience when you give
> > comments that are likely to induce double-takes.

But all you wrote was:

> It's hard to be sure how much the audience knows.

This is either stupefying cluelessness or *hubris* at work.

Believe it or not, I am such an astute audience member
that I thought you *might* have some arcane distinction in mind.
For instance, that you distinguish between the beak,
which you define as the bony part of the bill, and the horny sheath that covers it,
and that you think it is the latter that really lets woodpeckers dig into the bark.

That's why I put three question marks into my immediate response,
and why I made that remark about "double-takes." But your bland
response made me strongly suspect that you had no
arcane distinction in mind, and I was right: you didn't.

The rest is history that is still unfolding between us.

Concluded in next reply, to be done soon after I see that this one has posted.

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

On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 6:56:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:

> >> And the average
> >> maniraptoran doesn't have a beak. Nor is there any evidence I'm aware of
> >> that insects were in general bigger in the Mesozoic.
> >
> > Nor I.

But then, Mario posted something that indicates that there is evidence.
The Mesozoic average size was greater than the Cenozoic, even though
there were ups and downs in both eras. But the Paleozoic records were
unsurpassed.

> > The real biggies were during the Paleozoic. Also, at one point
> > there were millipedes two meters long and the better part of a meter wide.
> > I saw a model of one in a museum about a decade ago.

> So did I, and the fossil it was based on. Always thought it would have
> made a good bench.

Or a good corrugated sidewalk, or a hammock for a person who prefers
to "rough it" without a cloth hammock.

But the Eurypterids were the largest arthropods known. They were
confined to the Paleozoic, and may have survived until the greatest
mass extinction of which we know, the Permian-Triassic one.

Here's another misnomer for Mario: eurypterids are popularly
called "sea scorpions," but many were fresh water species and
may even have made forays out of the water. I don't know whether
the greatest giants, almost 9 feet long, were among these.
One could make a good horror/science fiction flick out of
such material.

> >> On 8/15/23 8:32 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:00:19 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:

> >>>> Since they
> >>>> were eating from tree bark, they had to climb tree (like squirrels).
> >>>> Weight is deteriorating force for climbing, so those animals became
> >>>> lightweight. And, at the end, they stopped to go down to the ground to
> >>>> reach the other tree, but started to behave like flying squirrels.
> >>>
> >>> So far, so good.
> >>>
> >>>> Simple as that. Everything logical, everything gradual, and for
> >>>> everything we have examples in nature (maybe only not for beaks, but for
> >>>> flying sure we do have).
> >>>
> >>> But NOT for feathers. Have you ever studied the intricate structure of
> >>> a contour feather, a flight feather [they are very asymmetrical -- do you know why?]
> >>> or a tail feather? Can you figure out a gradual evolution for them?

IIRC Mario never addressed this question.

> > You obviously have some strange ideas for what the word "gradual" meant
> > to Darwin; that's the default meaning of the word in these contexts, isn't it?
> >
> >> See Prum & Brush 2001. I presume you have read that already.
> >
> > Yes, but all it shows are a few isolated stages. Since they don't believe in hopeful monsters,
> > they are leaving out dozens if not hundreds of finely graded steps between
> > hairlike growths and feathers that are complete with calamus, central shaft, barbs, barbules and hooks.

> Hundreds are probably not necessary. A few incipient structures that can
> then be refined by selection, more likely.

Selection needing mere dozens of finely graded steps? Why didn't you
help me out when I was trying to persuade Kleinman ON HIS OWN MATHEMATICAL TERMS
how "reptiles could grow feathers" in 40 million years? I might have
been able to cut that number in half.

> > PS On the whole, I prefer JTEM's post to yours. But there is a very recent exception
> > to what he says, and I'll tell him about it.

> On the whole, I think you have quite bad judgment on matters like that,
> possibly due to personal bias.

I think it is YOUR personal bias that makes you write such things. And now you
know the reason why I said what I did -- see my first reply to this post of yours, John.

You aren't getting off the hook until you admit that I was NOT biased towards JTEM in
*this* particular instance. [keywords: beak, digging].

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

On 26.8.2023. 0:29, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>> Simple as that. Everything logical, everything gradual, and for
>>>>>> everything we have examples in nature (maybe only not for beaks, but for
>>>>>> flying sure we do have).
>>>>>
>>>>> But NOT for feathers. Have you ever studied the intricate structure of
>>>>> a contour feather, a flight feather [they are very asymmetrical -- do you know why?]
>>>>> or a tail feather? Can you figure out a gradual evolution for them?
>
> IIRC Mario never addressed this question.

The question was about evolution of feathers, I just said that in my
view feathers evolved because of water. But that's just superficial, I
have no deeper knowledge.

On 8/25/23 2:53 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> Harshman, you've painted yourself tightly into a corner where a stupid comment
> you made about woodpeckers has been the issue. I told you that your hubris
> has kept you from using the lifeline I've tossed you. Now I will demonstrate,
> going back to the original exchange between us, why I use the word "hubris."

The fact is that you're very bad at understanding what people are
saying. Part of this is due to your strong desire to place the least
charitable possible interpretation on anything said by people you don't
like. And in the process you ignore any clues from context.

> But don't go away already: I have some interesting comments that
> may not offend you before I get into the corner into which you've painted yourself.

We'll see.

> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 6:56:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 8/15/23 8:32 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>
>>>>> It's great to see you posting here again, Mario. Don't be discouraged
>>>>> by my corrections. That's a good way to learn, and Harshman might
>>>>> have made the same points you did, because he subscribes to the
>>>>> hypotheses that have been popularized about feather development.
>>>>>
>>>>> The popularizers refer to all kinds of things as "feathers":
>>>>> hairlike growths, several such growths from the same root, hairlike growths
>>>>> that are frayed like the ends of some of the longer hairs
>>>>> of one of my daughters. . . . These are found on some dinosaur fossils--
>>>>> only a tiny percentage even now, because these things do not fossilize easily.
>>>
>>>>> But I do not know of any genuine feathers on fossils that cannot
>>>>> be hypothesized as secondarily flightless birds. So I call all these things
>>>>> "protofeathers" and some of them just "dinofuzz."
>>>
>>>> Can't any fossil be hypothesized as secondarily flightless?
>
>>> Not unless you call wild stabs in the dark (including highly
>>> counterintuitive ones) "hypotheses."
>
>> So you would need some kind of evidence in order to reasonably suppose
>> that a dinosaur was secondarily flightless. What evidence are you
>> thinking of here?
>
> You will find a lot in a book you've pronounced "mostly useless" with initials
> RotFD [1] on page 173. Plenty of evidence there that *Caudipteryx* was
> a secondarily flightless bird, with plumaceous feathers, and evidence
> of being descended from birds with flight remiges. Where is your evidence
> to the contrary?

I don't currently have access to that book. Could you mention some of
that evidence? Caudipteryx of course does have feathers with barbs
arranged in parallel. Not at this point sure that it had barbules or
that they were interlocking. But of course if that were the evidence,
the claim would be circular. What does Feduccia mention?

> [1] No, it isn't "Rolling on the Floor Dying [of laughter]." The last two
> words are "Feathered Dragons".
>
>
>
>>>> So how is
>>>> that a test? What's the scientific distinction between "genuine
>>>> feathers" and "protofeathers"?
>>>
>>> Since you are the ornithologist here, you should be giving the
>>> scientific distinction, if there is one. I doubt that there is one.
>
>> That's right, there is none. So why are you making this distinction?
>
> It took me a long time to remember, but there is such a word,
> one undoubtedly familiar to you:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennaceous_feather
>
> good old Thomas Holtz, a frequent participant in s.b.p. in the 1990's, is featured in a link to
> a webpage where he plays a prominent role:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniraptoriformes
>
> A nice detailed phylogenetic tree of this clade is included, along with an old fashioned
> character-based definition of an almost identical group by Gregory S. Paul,
> the author of two Princeton Field Guides [one to dinosaurs, one to pterosaurs] that
> I've been talking about here in s.b.p.

If I can decipher this, you mean to use "pennaceous" rather than
"genuine" in the future. Is that it?

>>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:00:19 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dinosaurs had feathers before that (probably because feathers are good
>>>>>> for water, unlike fur).
>>>>>
>>>>> And unlike down. A mother ostrich always shelters her babies in the midst
>>>>> of a downpour, to protect them from hypothermia.
>>>
>>>> Then again, downy ducklings do just find in the water. There must be
>>>> some way to make down work in an aquatic bird.
>>>
>>> It's called "oils," isn't it?
>>>
>>> I'm reminded of a delightful children's book by Vladimir Suteyev [Cyrillic: CYTEEB]
>>> in which the first story shows a chick imitating a duckling digging, catching a worm,...
>>> until it jumps in the water after the duckling and starts to drown. Heeding its cries for help,
>>> the duckling pulls the chick out of the water. The last picture shows the chick out on solid ground
>>> with water pouring off it and the duckling telling the chick that he is returning to the water,
>>> with the chick responding, "But not I!"
>
>> Don't know that one, but it sounds reasonable (the drowning, not the
>> rest of it). And presumably this has something to do with differences in
>> grooming habits and use of the preen gland secretions.
>
> Like I said, "oils."

Variously called oils and waxes, sure.

>>>>> Down would be an advanced kind of protofeather, as would the feathers of kiwis,
>>>>> which lack barbules and hooks, IF they or down had ever been found
>>>>> as Mesozoic fossils predating birds with genuine feathers.
>>>>> But I don't know of any examples.
>
> Don't you know either, John? I mean, of fossils of down, or of "feathers" like the ones
> of kwis, predating the first birds with pennaceous feathers.

Given the nature of the fossil record, it's too much to expect a simple
temporal sequence. You would be better to ask if there is such a
sequence in the reconstructed phylogeny. Many maniraptorans have
branched feathers lacking interlocking barbules. Even Sinosauropteryx
appears to have bundles of fibers growing from a central point, though
the fibers themselves are not branched.

>>>>>> Some small dinosaurs ate insects. At that time
>>>>>> there was more oxygen in the air,
>>>
>>> This is controversial, according to the book,
>>> _The Princeton Field Guide to Pterosaurs_.
>>> I now have my own copy, and I'll be starting a new thread for an in-depth review this week.
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> insects were bigger. So, some
>>>>>> dinosaurs were trying to reach insects that were living in tree barks,
>>>>>> so they hardened their muzzles into beaks, like woodpeckers.
>>>>>
>>>>> Very plausible. Did you read this somewhere, or did you figure
>>>>> it out for yourself?
>
>
> OK, here comes the corner:
>
>>>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
>>>
>>> So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???
>
> Note the word "just". You ignored it in your answer, yet it is the logical
> outgrowth of the way your stupid sentence is worded.

In fact it has nothing to do with the way my stupid sentence is worded.
And you entirely ignore the context.

>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
>> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
>> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
>> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
>> comparison were apt.
>>
>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
>> attention. It's called "drumming".
>
> If my use of "just" didn't register, a red flag should have gone up in your mind
> after reading this:
>
>>> You really ought to consider your audience when you give
>>> comments that are likely to induce double-takes.
>
> But all you wrote was:
>
>> It's hard to be sure how much the audience knows.
>
> This is either stupefying cluelessness or *hubris* at work.
>
> Believe it or not, I am such an astute audience member
> that I thought you *might* have some arcane distinction in mind.
> For instance, that you distinguish between the beak,
> which you define as the bony part of the bill, and the horny sheath that covers it,
> and that you think it is the latter that really lets woodpeckers dig into the bark.