Talk.origins

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talk.origins (often capitalised to Talk.Origins or abbreviated as t.o.) is a Usenet discussion forum concerning the origins of life, and evolution. It remains a major venue for debate in the so-called creation-evolution controversy, and its official purpose is to draw such debates out of the science newsgroups, such as sci.bio.evolution.

The first post to talk.origins was a starter post by Mark Horton, dated 5th September 1986 [1].

In the early 1990s, a number of FAQs on various topics were being periodically posted to the newsgroup. In 1994, Brett J. Vickers established an anonymous FTP site to host the collected FAQs of the newsgroup. In 1995, Vickers started the TalkOrigins Archive web site as another means of hosting the talk.origins FAQs. It maintains an extensive FAQ on topics in evolutionary biology, geology and astronomy, with the aim of representing the views of mainstream science. It has spawned other websites, notably TalkDesign "a response to the intelligent design movement", Evowiki, and the Panda's Thumb weblog.

See also

• Evolution
• TalkOrigins Archive
• National Center for Science Education (NCSE)

External links

• Google groups view of talk.origins
• The Talk.Origins Archive
• Talk.Origins Foundation
• Talk Design
• Evowiki
• Panda's Thumb weblog
• True Origins — A site critical of evolution and the Talk Origins archive.

Some important posts

• Starter message for talk.origins by Mark Horton, dated 5th September 1986
• First cross-post of discussion to talk.origins, by Karl Kluge dated 8th September 1986
• First replied-to post to talk.origins by Wayne Throop, dated 10th Sepember 1986