Sounds to me like he is saying what the scientific community has been saying all along about "kinds"--it is a useless term when used to classify organisms. There would be no branching resulting in a new "kind" if they were individually created to begin with. If one "kind" branched off into another "kind", then at what levels are these "created kinds"? At what point is the "weasel kind" differentiated from the "otter kind" and the "ermine kind" and the "fisher kind" and the "ferret kind"? Or all these all "kind members" of the "mustelid kind"? Or "kind members" of the "carnivore kind"? Where does the classification "kind" end?
Also, if I can be indulged to literally look at the Holy Bible (sorry, but the NRSV version is the only one I have on hand), it seems that the "creator" (or creators, if you look at Gen 1:26--Let us make humankind in
our image, according to
our likeness) set things a little ambiguously with the whole "living creatures of every kind". Why are we splitting hairs trying to delimit an openly ambiguous term such as "kind"?
Another tidbit, apparently the only plant "kinds" the "creator" created were the seed plants. What about the Bryophytes and the seedless vascular plants? Of what "kind" are they? They are significantly different enough from the "seed bearing kind" to merit a "kind" of their own worth mentioning. Same for the bacteria, archaebacteria, and protists that aren't specifically mentioned!?!
With what we can gather from the Holy Bible, wouldn't it make more sense to say that whoever wrote this section only had a limited knowledge of the flora and fauna constricted to the immediate surroundings of the authors' locale? So, the record here is incomplete, and although I applaud the time and effort, wouldn't it make more sense to follow the apparent evidence and not try to restrict what we see in nature to such a narrow view? Take care.
™ Version 4.2
