QUIZ: Are You Ted Holden?

From a USENET post by John Brothers (brothers@bnr.ca)

March 14th, 1995

Article: 109624 of talk.origins
From: johnbr@bnr.ca (John Brothers)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Quiz for T.O. readers
Date: 14 Mar 1995 13:22:27 GMT
Organization: Bell Northern Research, Inc., Norcross, GA
Message-ID: <3k45aj$o05@batph8.bnr.ca>

Ted Holden, and everyone else.

But if you're not clear about whether or not you are Ted Holden, the following quiz should help you figure out your orientation...

---
John Brothers | Do you have a right not to be offended?
me.opinion != bnr.opinion

			Quiz:  Are you Ted Holden?

10) When concluding that dinosaurs couldn't stand in 1 g, you decide:
   a)  Your assumptions about mass, weight and structure are wrong.
   b)  Saturn must have hung above the Earth's north pole, reducing the
       felt effect of gravity to 6% of what it is now.

9) You would rather believe:
   a)  The law of conservation of energy.
   b)  Pterodons carried ancient australian aborigines up north to see
       the Saturn/Mars/Venus conjunction.

8) When someone says that the ancient people were avid sky watchers, you
   respond:
   a)  Yeah, they probably were.
   b)  No way.  Things are the same now as they were then. 
       No one today watches the sky, so no one back then watched
       the sky either, except when Venus or Mars did a close fly by.

7) You note that bats are almost blind, and use their sonar to locate
   prey. You decide:

   a) Must have evolved that way, early bats with ok hearing catching the 
      slower moving insects, which created a cycle of natural selection.
   b) Since things back then are the same as they are now, insects are 
      very fast moving now and therefore insects have always been fast
      moving, and primitive bat sonar couldn't catch them.
  
6) You observe that chickens do not fly.  You decide:
   a) Chickens, penguins, ostriches, etc, have adapted to living on the
      ground, so they don't need to fly.
   b) They must have flown in the past, so Saturn must have hung above the
      north pole, reducing the felt effect of gravity to 6% of what it is now.

5) If someone says that lowered gravity wouldn't help flying animals fly, you 
   respond:
   a)  Hmm.  Must not have happened that way, after all.
   b)  Things must have been different back then.

4) You set up a call for votes, for a moderated newsgroup that will cater 
   to your personal beliefs.  It loses.  Do you:
   a) Accept that maybe you could have done some things better.
   b) Rage on everyone associated in the voting process as being
      "ossified", "biased", "stupid", "abducted" and "incompetent."

3) Someone discusses the existence of transitional fossils.  You respond with:
   a) Yep, they exist all right.  And in fairly large numbers.
   b) Expert scientists have been looking diligently for a hundred years, 
      and have found few, if any.

2) Someone points out that trees should be very large in a reduced-gravity
   environment.  You respond:
   a) Yep, they should have been.  guess that idea is wrong.
   b) I have no confidence in the ability of ignorant, lazy, pathetic, so-called
      "scientists" to find fossilized tree remains.

1) Someone at IBM working on OS/2 (which you use at work) tells you that 
   bananas have become sentient and are plotting to take over the world.  
   You respond by:
   a) scoffing and telling the dude to get a life.
   b) grabbing your shotgun, and heading towards the nearest supermarket to
      kick some banana ass.


Score:
   If you have a preponderance of A's, you are not Ted Holden.
   If you have to look up the word 'preponderance', your best friend is a 
      bat named 'splifford' or you are referred to as a 'net.loon', you are 
      Ted Holden.  A large number of 'b' answers will also suffice.