The Antichristian Phenomenon

It turns out, All-Access Customer really did run away, only to be replaced by another. This turns out to be Aelnathan, who had been in and out sporadically during the All-Access affair. I mentioned him in my last article by the name he posts under, but he requested I use Aelnathan as a pseudonym so I have edited that, and will continue to refer to him under the pseudonym. A LOT has transpired in the debate since then and it may potentially continue, though Aelnathan claims to be getting too busy to continue to reply (right…), so instead of posting a single entry with all the comments, I’ll make small weekly installments until we catch up to the end, and then I’ll only post as 2-5 replies accumulate.

This article records everything from Aelnathan’s first comment up to the time All-Access left for good and Aelnathan got serious and stopped waiting a month between posts.

This first comment needs a little context. This is Aelnathan’s first comment on the Expelled review (starting on page 26 for those who want to read all surrounding comments for themselves). Around this time, a lot of people are discussing Nazis and “Darwinism” and Hitler and how it appeared Stein was giving a biased opinion. Don’t worry, the subject changes quickly.

Aelnathan said
Ben Stein was showing the demoralizing effect of Darwinism. Hitler may or may not have been an atheist, but his practices were certainly ‘logical’ (such a horribly adept adjective) progressions of Darwin’s theories. If the perfection of biological life is the goal of existence, than Hitler would be completely justified in his atrocities. If this truly is the case, Hitler (and Stalin, too) should be praised as benefactors of humanity.
I find this ‘Northern Man’ to have given a pseudo-educated comment. Ah, he has researched Mein Kampf, perhaps, yet I question the reasoning that would provide us with such a comparison as the one he gave. It is obvious that Hitler believed that animals mate only with their kind. It is obvious that Creationists believe that animals mate only with their kind. It is obvious that animals mate only with their kind. It is not ‘creationist innuendo’; it is a fact of the natural world.
Oh, and for Cleric’s knowledge, Stein was not blaming Darwin for the holocaust; he was showing the correllation of the ideals of Evolution and Nazism. Also, I sometimes wonder if this reviewer was watching this film as carefully as it would at first seem. Ben Stein interviewed those responsible for the expellation of persons like Sternberg and Gonzales, to hear their (rather fabricated excuses for) explanations. He interviewed those like Richard Dawkins, to gain an understanding of their support for Evolution and their stand against Intelligent Design. I do not see this as poor hosting. I may be an idiot to think this (highly doubtful), but does it not seem fitting to question those who are expert in their field? Those that fired Sternberg would be those most fit to answer for their actions. Richard Dawkins is the one to ask concerning the views in his book.
In addition to my above remarks, I would like to address the reviewer’s assumption that ‘Intelligent Design cannot provide something observable that can be repeated in a laboratory, that’s a fact, not a belief.’ He is correct. Yet I would like to see Evolution repeated in a laboratory. Someone had better invent an immortality drug, time machine, or something, to observe the mutations over millions of years. Stanley Miller tried to prove it in a laboratory, but ultimately created a simulated environment that made life impossible (If you do not believe me go to wikipedia) . Or, you could work on that time machine, and ask Stan himself). Both theories require faith. Creation requires less faith than Evolution, in fact. I mean, either DaVinci painted the Mona Lisa, or some three-year-old scribbled with crayons long enough. It would be some unfathomable miracle for the ordered universe to arise from random mistakes, constantly leading to greater order and sophistication (entropy and Thermodynamics notwithstanding).

*headdesk* Prove it in a laboratory? Seriously… but we get to that. Though I’d like to mention, I didn’t think of it at the time, that actually “either DaVinci painted the Mona Lisa, or some three-year-old scribbled with crayons long enough” is surprisingly accurate, but not in the way he intends. DaVinci WAS once a three year old scribbling with “crayons” (Though they were conte crayons and charcoal, not the waxy Crayolas we use), and he scribbled long enough and consistently enough, that he… got good at it. His style evolved until he was good enough to paint the Mona Lisa. But I digress.

Also observe how he linked the Talk page about the experiment and not the ACTUAL page which can be found here. Also notice the content, and link to AiG. Seriously. And people wonder why Wikipedia is often not considered a ‘credible’ source.

At this point, All-Access says he’s fed up for the first time, Cleric indicates his frustration, and Aelnathan makes another post.

Aelnathan said:
Just one more thing before you go. I understand the frustration of debate, when you are shouting, “Can’t you see? It is so obvious!”, and nobody sees your point. But this is no mere matter of debate. It hurts my heart to see how hopeless Evolution can make people. But it is not that it just makes people hopeless. Sometimes, the arguments for Evolution just do not make sense. For instance, how come all species on the planet are becoming less and less genetically diverse? If Evolution is true, at least the general trend would be that creatures were becoming more diverse with each coming generation. But here is the funny part. Every ‘mutation’, or whatever title one wants to give the variations in a breed (such as Wolf and Dog [both canines], Lion and Cat [both felines]), signifies a decrease in genetic diversity, even if the breed ‘improves’ in its characteristics. The earliest ancestors of the species contained all of the genetic information necessary for posterity. As time wears on, when subspecies branch off into different sizes and colors, part of their parents’ diversity leaves them. It would at first not seem this way, but for lack of a better analogy, I will compare this to the separation of the colors in white light. When all of the rainbow’s colors are combined, we have white light. This represents complete genetic diversity. When, however, separate the light with a triangular prism, we see Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. If we look at the Red section, we can at once see that it is more striking in appearance than the white light, and might even think it to be more complex. But the truth is it is but a simpler component of white light. Thus, the colors represent the branching off of a species, resulting in reduced genetic diversity.
This is what frustrates me most about some Evolutionists. They act as if their theory has been proven as fact, when in truth it has not. I am a Christian, and take the Bible literally when it says that God created the earth in six days. I do not expect this to fit inside a test tube. Evolution does not fit there either. And what theory remains more persistent? The Bible, after thousands of years, still says that the earth was created in six days. Evolutionists, on the other hand, change the dates assigned to the geologic collumn, still bicker about whether mankind descended from apes, and remain perplexed by the prospect of the organic rising from the inorganic. Creationism says that God created life out of nothing. That may sound impossible, and ‘un-scientific’, but to me, it sounds more probable than the amoeba arising from ‘soup’ that came from rocks that came from an ity-bity little cube of matter before the Big Bang. And, wait a minute—-where did you say that cube of matter came from? Oh, yes, I am still waiting for an answer.
For those who actually believe Evolution (and are not just using it as a tool for power and/or fame), I do not feel anger. I just hope they take a look at some of the things that point to a Creator.

Cleric comes back exasperated.

Cleric said:
Aelnathan , I must apologize if the following sounds somewhat harsh in response. Maybe I am weary of the debate at hand. I think I’m mostly just tired of explaining my point of view and people very rarely understanding what I’m getting at. I think I am just a poor communicator in this regard, but for what it’s worth, here it goes…

All of the colors combined make Black, not white. So your analogy was incredibly hard to follow for me. White is caused by the absence of color.

Secondly, I’m not saying that a creator is not possible, so I’m not sure where the discussion of “hopelessness” comes from. I also believe a creator is highly likely, so I am not even remotely arguing from that perspective. And species are getting diverse as well, they discovered 70 some odd new species in 2007, if I remember the article date correctly. So if things weren’t still evolving, or are becoming less divergent as you claim, then we wouldn’t discover anything new. We’d see constant extinction with nothing being created.

My issue with the creation story is that it is incredibly contradictory from what people explain to me about the nature of “god” in the Bible. Aside from the fact that the story is just illogical to me, the fact that people say “god” is eternal and everywhere and then in the first paragraph the Bible states there was a void makes no sense. If you’re presence is eternal and everywhere then a void is impossible and your statements aren’t reconciliable to your own book. Therefore there can be limitations to “god’s” presence and existence.

Personally I’ve moved on from evolution, because there is more evidence to support evolution than most other “beliefs” out there. Such as the Theory of Gravity, humans still don’t really understand that much about this. Plus the “it’s just a theory” argument when discussing evolution is a pretty moot point. When you use 2 + 3 = 3 + 2 (commutative property of addition) in mathematics to solve problems the process you go about using these properties is called the Theory of Equations. So if it’s logical that evolution should be dismissed based on the fact that it is called the “Theory of Evolution” then we should very likely dismiss other theories as improbable like the theory of gravity or the theory of equations, regardless of the observations we make and the mathematical models we develop with them.

I guess that’s the major area I come from when I argue against the creationist theory. There is no real physical evidence of anything presented in the creation story from Genesis (and yes I have read the Bible). However, on a philosophical note, beliefs are stronger than facts or anything else depending on how strong your belief is. I could be presenting this wrong, but what I’m trying to say is that if you truly believe it then it’s obviously true for you and nothing science or anything else will change your mind on this if you believe it hard enough. This is essentially what the Bible teaches, so those with a lot of faith in it will not change their minds.

The only reason the Bible hasn’t had a “noticeable” change is because of the development of the printing press. Euclid’s “Thirteen Elements” hasn’t really changed much either and that’s older than any “New Testament” you’ll find written even before the printing press. So you’re statement about how it hasn’t changed is also kind of irrelevant as there are many other documents from ancient times that also haven’t changed much since we’ve printed them and mass produced them. I guess I just don’t understand where your’e coming from on that point. Not to mention at the end of “revelations” it flat out says “you can’t add anything else to this book” or else it will be considered heresy or something along those lines. (I don’t have a Bible with me at work, sorry).

It is actually immediately following this post that my first Smackdown article begins, but Aelnathan disappears for quite some time so he took the back seat. He comes back, pointing out that he was misunderstood with his confusing light=biodiversity analogy and actually meant LIGHT and not PIGMENT, and adds more headdesks. For those interested in reading the original posts, this returns on page 28.

Aelnathan said:
I am sorry, sir, but I was not talking about colors in the sense of pigments (paint, ink, etc.) I was talking about the colors of LIGHT. White LIGHT is a combination of the Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Inidigo, Violet wavelengths of LIGHT. Black (True black, like the black of a Black Hole) comes from the absence of LIGHT. I hope my analogy has taken on somewhat greater meaning.
Concerning man’s never-ending discoveries of ‘new’ animal species, I have this question to ask: When did humans become omniscient? Just because we have never seen a certain species before does not mean it has not existed for millennia. And my point about decreasing GENETIC diversity is precisely what I said. I am not saying that the species themselves are not becoming more diverse, but that their genetic code is becoming less diverse. If you have ever heard about the Global Seed Vault (GSV), you will know what I mean. It is an effort to retain the biodiversity of various strains of seeds, by storing them in seedbanks across the globe (go to Wikipedia again for more info). Take Indian Corn, for instance. It contains more genetic diversity than the modern strains used in agriculture today. It more readily adapts to differing environments. All of our modern breeds come from Indian Corn. This is but one illustration for my point on decreasing genetic diversity.
Concerning your comment on the ‘void’, I could not say it any better than All-access Customer said it. ‘”And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2). It was the earth that was void–not void of God, but rather nonexistent before He created it.’
Concerning gravity and such, I say this. These theories contribute to the capabilities of man today. ‘Something’ makes apples fall from trees, and at an observable rate of increasing speed. Three marbles plus two marbles equals two marbles plus three marbles. These observations have been put to good use in engineering. What good has evolution done for us?
And I was just using the Bible’s unchanging stand as an illustration of the rather dynamic nature of the Theory of Evolution.

Some of the responses on the first article are edited to remove the points I addressed to Aelnathan in order to focus on All-Access. What I am posting here is the Aelnathan version of these posts.

Anath said:
While the taxonomic tree and the spreading of light coming out of a prism are visually strikingly similar, the deep layer of analogy is entirely misplaced. The spread of “feline ancestor white light” to “lion/tiger/jaguar/serval/fishing cat/cheetah colors” or “canid ancestor white light” to “jackal/wolf/fox/coyote colors” is not representative of what actually occurs. Species are not a simplification of their ancestors. Let me break this down further to illuminate the true lay of the land. Forget your White Light analogy entirely, for it will only serve to confuse the issue for you.

I will use the family canidae, but the specifics of this example are irrelevant as any ancestor at any level or branch of the taxonomic tree can be substituted and the core concept will not change, so I will avoid scientific names and irrelevant details and keep this example in generic terms.

40 million years ago, we see the first common ancestor of canidae. This “ancient wolf” had a specific genetic structure with a specific phenotype and specific alleles that it had inherited from previous ancestors to help it survive in its Eocene environment. This genetic structure varied slightly from individual to individual in order to maintain genetic diversity, and was combined in near infinite combinations during sexual reproduction. These animals were all located in one local area of the globe at first, and began to wander. Geological events and natural disasters occurred over time and gradually isolated various parts of the population for a variety of reasons. This variable recombination occasionally produced individuals with particular alleles that were able to achieve great reproductive success, but since there were pockets of population, these changes were generally unable to spread much farther than their local groups. Now fast forward to the Miocene epoch and we see a split into the genera Canis (wolves, jackals, coyotes), Urocyon (grey foxes), Vulpes (True Foxes) (there is no need to take it all the way to species, the concept still applies on a more local level). This is 30 million years later, and 9-10 million years from the common era. Canids have a litter of pups about every year so we are looking at about 30 million generations from the common ancestor to the genera split, give or take. Now we can analyze the question, did we lose or gain genetic diversity in the split?

How do we define “genetic diversity”? The National Biological Information Infrastructure website says:
>>Genetic diversity refers to the variation at the level of individual genes (polymorphism), and provides a mechanism for populations to adapt to their ever-changing environment.<<

So redefining the question with the definition. At the time of the split, we have 30,000,000 generations of pups, litter size of 1-16 (sometimes more), which is about of 240,000,000 surviving pups assuming we start the family Canidae with one single animal, assuming an average litter of 8 pups that survive to reproduce, and ignoring all potential unusual population variations due to feast-or-famine. (It is more likely that there were anywhere from 5-100+ mated couples that made up the early Canids, and there can be a large number of pups that live to reproductive maturity so you can see my figures are quite conservative. ) This is WELL over 240 million unique arrangements of the original genome. With genetic diversity defined as "variation at the level of individual genes", do you think that 240 million+ variations of the original genome is indicating a DECREASE in diversity? Even as the family "splits" into three genera here, each individual creature still contains a unique set of genes inherited by blending their parent's genes. The genera and subsequent species do not indicate a decline in genetic diversity; they are simply variations on a theme.

A more fitting analogy is that of any standard musical scale. The common ancestor for Canidae is... let's say a C Concert Scale, and the three genera could be an arpeggio, a third, and a minor scale. Same notes, different variation. Think of three different ways to play "Hot Cross Buns" or "Mary had a Little Lamb". Same thing.

>>Take Indian Corn, for instance. It contains more genetic diversity than the modern strains used in agriculture today. <<

You are using a very, very misleading example. Corn is a domesticated plant that has been artificially selected by humans for very specific traits, not producing its own variations in nature. We don't want corn to change because it possesses certain traits, so WE are taking steps to keep it from changing (to the point of genetically engineering and cloning it in laboratories). Left on its own, there would be greater variation, but when a farmer sees a "bad" (read as: different) plant, he removes it from the garden and destroys its possibility of reproduction.

Also your terminology here is also misleading. ALL corn is "Indian Corn". Every single species of corn on the market today derives from maize domesticated in 16th century Mesoamerica. So essentially you are saying there is more genetic diversity in a species as a whole than in an artificially selected, domesticated, modified, and even cloned strain of the species. This is true, but not actually relevant to your point. Its like saying there is a greater genetic diversity in all Amur tigers than just the Amur tigers in the Pittsburgh Zoo.

>>What good has evolution done for us?<<

If you can't think of a single thing knowledge of evolution has done for modern biology, this is incredulity on your part, nothing more. Evolution has entirely restructured the field of biology, to the point where you can not understand biology without it. Natural selection has changed how we view ecosystems as a whole, as well as revealed incredible insights about our own species, from our deep psyche to why our anatomy is structured the way it is. For me there are three outstanding examples of evolution's mark.

The first is the field of genetics. While Darwin knew nothing of genetics when he penned his theory for the first time, its a well-known secret that the theory has grown and been modified as the world of genetics unraveled. HOW does the randomness, and mutation, and natural selection and adaptation work? Genetics. Sexual reproduction. Mutations. Even if we knew what DNA was and how it was composed, even if we had the human genome entirely mapped out, we would be completely unable to utilize any of that information without the knowledge of evolution and its inner workings. We now know how heritability works, among other things, which leads me to my second example...

Medicine. As the knowledge of evolution, genetics, microbiology, and so on grew, we were able to advance our medicine to keep up. We learned about bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms and how to combat them, and more importantly, we learned that they adapt to our antibiotics and other medications, so that we could combat them more effectively. If you have ever had an extremely severe case of the flu, pneumonia, bronchitis, tetanus, rabies (or been potentially exposed to rabies) the common cold, or a dozen other previously life-threatening illnesses, and took any sort of medicine or a preventative shot for it, you may owe your very life to our knowledge of evolution. We also have been able to pinpoint the causes of genetic diseases and we have been able to determine who is more susceptible to other health issues such as high blood pressure or breast cancer based on family history. The benefits of evolution on medicine go on and on, as genetic engineering becomes increasingly integral part... and I haven't even touched on neuroscience.

Also we have integrated the idea of natural selection in computer science and artificial intelligence, creating programs that mimic evolution to optimize programs and solve complex problems. You probably have several devices in your house that are a direct or indirect result of this method. This is a fascinating field but I don't know much about it to be honest, so if you are interested there is lots of information all over the web if you Google it. Wikipedia has an introductory article with lots of links to start you off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm

Hope that helped to clarify some of your misunderstandings.

After this, Aelnathan took some more time off (about a month) and jumped back in when he thought he could smack some morals around.

Aelnathan
Abortion and euthanasia ARE related to this topic. They both are related to the “survival of the fittest mentality”. These items require further questioning—-where does this selective deduction of life end? The unborn are killed “for the health of the mother”, or because it will be a burden to its parents, etc. The old and terminally ill are killed so that medical funds will not be “wasted” on them. Remember, slavery was an accepted institution for thousands of years (and still is in some regions), and that does not mean it was ethical. Just because abortion and euthanasia are accepted by many today does not mean it is right. Perhaps someday more will come to see its evil.

–Aelnathan

P.S.—Evolution (Macroevolution) is NOT FACT. It is a theory. Why are people so afraid to say that? We have mathematical theorems that we follow, and nobody is scared to call them theorems. Why not just call Evolution the “Theory of Evolution”?

Oh classic, “Why not just call Evolution the “Theory of Evolution”?” I don’t know where he gets it, but this had me dying of laughter. Fortunately I didn’t, and lived to read his next response, which he posted immediately after, addressing me.

Aelnathan said:
I am sorry for my late response. I do not very competently keep track of my comments on other people’s reviews.

The “decrease in genetic diversity”, as I put it, does not just relate to artificial selection. Case in point; try getting a sun bear cub from breeding polar bears. It is not going to happen (not by natural breeding means, anyway) However, these two bear species descended from some original bear ancestor. They both are better adapted to their respective environments than their ancestors, but they will not be able to produce the range of breeds that their ancenstors produced. That is my point.

Concerning the “what good has evolution done for us?”, you make some interesting points. In the case of medicine, however, is not the study of family history called Heredity? Perhaps I am merely splitting hairs here. With Evolution’s effects on computers and such, one could argue that the Evolutionary Algorithm is merely an attempt to mimic human reasoning faculties, despite its inspiration.

Due to the fact that I so poorly keep track of my comments, I may not be seen posting here again. Sorry for the inconvenience, but if one wishes to question me, they could comment on my own review of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”. I will attempt to stay current on my posts here, but that has so far been achieved with wildly varying results. I close here, wishing that all of us find the Truth.

–Aelnathan

P.S.—-Just one last question for Anath, in response to the argument with All-Access Customer. Did man descend from apes??? I have noticed that Evolutionists are so…….not unified on that point.

Needless to say, we didn’t scare him off that quickly, and he plays a very, very long game of “I’m leaving!” *post* “I’m leaving for REALS” *post* “REALLY I’M LEAVING!” *post*… which I promoted by pushing his buttons, writing responses, and moving to HIS Expelled review like he recommended! He just can’t STAND not to have the last word, but I’ll give it to him here, since we’ve gone slightly past the end of All-Access.

Tune in next week sometime for a short series of responses! This post will be the the longest installation in the series, since it really is just a parallel catch-up.

Continue the debate:
Part 1
Part 2

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