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Author | Topic: Biological classification vs 'Kind' | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: The creationist idea of "kinds" has little support in the Biblical text, so "not conflicting with the Biblical text" is not a good criterion. Interbreeding IS proposed as a reliable test to see if two species belong within a "kind" by many creationists. I don't think that it would be lightly thrown out.
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BobTHJ Member (Idle past 5028 days) Posts: 119 Joined: |
quote: Of course they all could - we agree with that. Any of those is a possible solution to the origin of life in a darwinian framework. You'll notice that I didn't say abiogenesis was the only option. My point was: apart from ID theories - only abiogenesis remains (unless you want to count your 'heck if I know' option E).
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BobTHJ Member (Idle past 5028 days) Posts: 119 Joined: |
quote: Which is exactly what I said - apart from ID (of which OEC is a part) there is no option but abiogenesis.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Progressive Creationists aren't evolutionists either. Can you provide evidence that any Old Earth Creationists aren't creationists, as you claim ?
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BobTHJ Member (Idle past 5028 days) Posts: 119 Joined: |
quote: Agree....it wouldn't be lightly thrown out. But if it were YEC would still survive as a reasonable theory.
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BobTHJ Member (Idle past 5028 days) Posts: 119 Joined: |
quote: I suppose not - I think what I'm looking for here is theistic evolutionists - I'm mixing terms. My apologies.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: In scientific terms YEC is neither reasonable nor a theory. And losing the only commonly accepted biological test for determining if two species are definitely in the same kind would be a further step backwards.
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Otto Tellick Member (Idle past 2361 days) Posts: 288 From: PA, USA Joined:
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I'm happy to add my own welcoming reply, BobTHJ. Your posts so far have been quite refreshing. I'd like to get down to some topical details, but first, I'll indulge in a few snarky knee-jerk reactions that, alas, tend to be all too common in a forum like this one.
BobTHJ writes: As BlueJay pointed out earlier how life is classified into kinds is far from an exact science - Indeed. Many who are familiar with the study of "baraminology" have concluded that its distance from "an exact science" is so great that it turns out not to be any kind of science at all. A major factor in this conclusion is the admission made by all baraminologists that they start from a "foundational truth" based on a particular interpretation of scripture, and their goal is to figure out how to get physical evidence to be consistent with that "truth". This simply is not science.
and there is some disagreement on the issue (just as there is in the classification of life under a darwinian model). It would be worthwhile to look at some particular cases of disagreement among baraminologists about how things group into "baramins", and compare these with contemporary cases of disagreement among evolutionary biologists and taxonomists about how things group into clades and lines of descent. On identifying a few representative disagreements within each field, it would also be instructive to see how disputes are debated, and how (or whether) they get resolved. But here I have to admit that, like you, I'm not a credentialed scientist (nor a baraminologist), and it would be a stretch for me to try pursuing this in detail -- too much information to find, and too many other things I have to do instead. But you have already provided a useful reference, for which I am sincerely grateful. (More on that below.)
But that doesn't make the definition of "kind" any less valid, it only means the implementation hasn't been fully fleshed out yet. I think it's fair to draw analogies here, like: discovering general relativity didn't make Newtonian physics any less valid; or: discovering that planetary orbits were elliptical didn't make the Copernican theory of perfectly circular orbits any less valid; or: discovering that the Earth's circumference around the poles is not really a circle didn't make the concept of a spherical Earth any less valid. In each case the latter (supplanted) notion simply "hasn't been fully fleshed out" -- actually, it is less accurate, which means more error-prone -- when compared to the notion that supplanted it. Now the question becomes: where will our time and effort be better spent? Going back to flesh out those supplanted notions, or coming to grips with, understanding, and building on the notions that replaced them? Bear in mind that in trying to make those older notions more accurate, it's a safe bet that you'll be retracing the steps that led to our current notions on these matters (which still have some margin of error, but this has been measurably reduced). So it is with baraminology (based on scripture) vs. cladistics (based on physical evidence). The vast majority of people who have pursued advanced degrees in biology, archaeology, zoology and geology over the last 150 years or so have made this transition, if they ever gave any credence to the scriptural account in the first place. But now to the interesting part (finally):
Humans are of course a different animal entirely (no pun intended). The YEC model only works if humans are a distinct kind from other life. Though recent research by creation scientists seems to support this. The second sentence there takes us to the crux of the matter. I think you have misstated it, but I can see how you arrived at this misstatement. I would paraphrase: The only purpose for having a YEC model is to have humans be a distinct kind from other life. The essential and driving motive for YEC is the need to consider humans to be the result of a special, divine creation. It's the astonishing hubris, common to all religions but emphasized in Judaism and amplified in Christianity and Islam, that some supernatural entity created the entire universe just to be the home for mankind, and that God's particular and special interest in us is the whole reason for everything else in existence. If you disagree with that, I'll be interested in your counter-argument. Now as for the cited reference, to a paper by Todd C. Wood: it begins by briefly reviewing a range of incompatible divisions of the fossil record, according to "baramin-oriented" creationists, into "human" vs. "non-human", and then employs a variety of statistical techniques to collections of data extracted from various descriptions of hominid and ape-like fossils, coming up with yet another distinct division of the fossils into the obligatory pair of immutable groups (with one fossil category in particular being perniciously ambiguous -- some would say "intermediate" -- as to its affiliation). You might want to look at a review of Wood's paper by a biologist (at the Panda's Thumb web site). The main point is: if you abandon the dogmatic notion of having to divide these fossils into just two distinct groups, and instead allow a taxonomy that reflects a series of gradual transitions, it becomes a lot easier to make sense of the physical evidence. It's a lot like giving up the idea of perfect circles in astronomy. Edited by Otto Tellick, : (broke up an over-long paragraph, and added emphasis) autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Yes. Hurrah!
Try this one. Creationists do not believe that macroevolution is defined by whether it happened or not. If universal common descent were true, it WOULD involve macroevolution. Do you agree with that? Absolutely. But creos deny common descent exactly because they consider macro-evolution to be un-evidenced and impossible. Are we still in agreement?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Yes. Now which makes more sense from a creationist perspective ? 1) "If common descent is true it would require macroevolution - but we have no evidence of macroevolution". 2) "If common descent is true it only requires microevolution, which we accept as possible."
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Now which makes more sense from a creationist perspective ? 1) "If common descent is true it would require macroevolution - but we have no evidence of macroevolution". 2) "If common descent is true it only requires microevolution, which we accept as possible." The Creo position as I understand it is 1) all the way. Kinds is their way of allowing for micro-evolution (i.e. evolution within a kind) whilst denying that any new kinds can arise by means of macro-evolution. Do you still agree?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Good.
quote: Yes. Now do you accept that if "kinds" are defined as separate creations and if all descendants of the original created populations are in the same single kind as their ancestors, ALL evolution is within the same kind, no matter how extreme the change ? Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Now do you accept that if "kinds" are defined as separate creations and if all descendants of the original created populations are in the same single kind as their ancestors, ALL evolution is within the same kind, no matter how extreme the change? Yes - That is indeed my understanding. "NO NEW KINDS" is the creo mantra. The question then becomes how many kinds there are and how diversely these kinds have evolved. Right?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: I want to be really clear on this one. Do you understand that the definitions entail that all evolution is microevolution ? That there is no evolutionary change so extreme that it can be labelled macroevolution on that count - or at all ?
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
I want to be really clear on this one. Do you understand that the definitions entail that all evolution is microevolution ? That there is no evolutionary change so extreme that it can be labelled macroevolution on that count - or at all? Yes. No new kinds. No macro-evolution. The only evolution that is possible is micro-evolution within the existing created kinds. That is my understanding.
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