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Author Topic:   The Creationist Challenge - Can You Identify Kinds?
ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 1 of 18 (621836)
06-28-2011 2:03 PM


I originally posted this as Message 382 in the Why are there no human apes alive today? thread as a response the following definition of "kinds," as presented by Mazzy:
quote:
A kind is the initial creation of God and it's decending progeny.
That seems to be fairly representative of the creationist position. I thus presented Mazzy with the following quiz, to see how one can use this definition to differentiate one kind from another. So far Mazzy hasn't replied, so I throw the question open to any and all creationists.
Can you tell me which of the following are different kinds and which are the same?
1. A dog and a wolf.
2. A macaw and a cockatoo.
3. Vibrio cholerae and E. coli
4. A termite and a cockroach
5. A tiger and a cheetah
Just to be clear, the question isn't just which pair belong to the same kind and which don't. I also want to know the standard or method being used to make that determination.
Go!
ABE: No help (yet) from anyone who actually knows the taxonomy.
Edited by ZenMonkey, : Corrected for using "is" when I meant "isn't."
Edited by ZenMonkey, : No reason given.

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Message 2 of 18 (621838)
06-29-2011 8:54 AM


Thread Copied from Proposed New Topics Forum
Thread copied here from the The Creationist Challenge - Can You Identify Kinds? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
Chuck77
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 18 (622030)
06-30-2011 7:08 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by ZenMonkey
06-28-2011 2:03 PM


Hey Zen! I'll give your quiz a try and then try to explain what a "kind" is since no one else wants to.
1) Dog kind
2) Bird kind
3) germ kind? Bacteria kind?
4) Insect kind
5) Cat kind
I guess the definition I would use to describe a "kind" would be a group of living organisms having descended from the same ancestral gene pool.
The original definition of a kind is as follows : the ability to produce offspring, i.e. to breed with one another.
The former is the updated version There is no "fixity of species" that we adhere to anymore. There is no clear cut definition. It's a complicated issue. Too many possibilities to consider. I don't get involved in debates concerning "kinds" but saw your post had no comments yet so thought I would add my 1cent to the discussion. Hopefully someone else will do better than I did.
Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.
Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

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 Message 6 by DWIII, posted 06-30-2011 8:33 AM Chuck77 has not replied
 Message 7 by Coragyps, posted 06-30-2011 8:49 AM Chuck77 has not replied
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 4 of 18 (622031)
06-30-2011 7:28 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Chuck77
06-30-2011 7:08 AM


Chuck77 writes:
I guess the definition I would use to describe a "kind" would be a group of living organisms having descended from the same ancestral gene pool.
By this definition there's only one kind: life.
The original definition of a kind is as follows : the ability to produce offspring, i.e. to breed with one another.
I think you've got this wrong since this is pretty much the same as species. The creationist need to insist on the Biblical term "kind" is that the mere concept of species is contrary to literal interpretations of Genesis because there are far, far too many species on Earth for two of each to have fit on the ark.
Hopefully someone else will do better than I did.
Hasn't happened yet.
--Percy

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PaulK
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Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
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Message 5 of 18 (622032)
06-30-2011 7:47 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Chuck77
06-30-2011 7:08 AM


The question was how do you tell whether they are the same kind or not, and you didn't answer that.
quote:
I guess the definition I would use to describe a "kind" would be a group of living organisms having descended from the same ancestral gene pool.
That definition has two big problems. The first is that the scientific tests for common ancestry indicate that there is only one "kind". The second is that the usual creationist definition of "macroevolution" ("evolution between kinds") becomes self-contradictory. All evolution would be "microevolution".

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DWIII
Member (Idle past 1752 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


Message 6 of 18 (622037)
06-30-2011 8:33 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Chuck77
06-30-2011 7:08 AM


2) Bird kind
Please elaborate: does this mean all birds (Class Aves) constitute one kind?
3) germ kind? Bacteria kind?
Same here; are all bacteria one (and only one) kind?
4) Insect kind
Only one insect kind, too?(!)

DWIII

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 7 of 18 (622038)
06-30-2011 8:49 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Chuck77
06-30-2011 7:08 AM


Hi, Chuck! I think I've found a small problem with your "bird kind." The main textbook on "kinds" has this passage:
13 And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, 14 And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; 15Every raven after his kind; 16And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, 17And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, 18And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle, 19And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. - Leviticus 11
All except maybe one of those are feathered and bipedal, so they are birds. But there are "kinds" within the hawks, kites, and herons, and the implication is that swans or lapwings are also "kinds."
And you say, "
I guess the definition I would use to describe a "kind" would be a group of living organisms having descended from the same ancestral gene pool."
So, contrary to Mazzy's assertions, all of Hominidae are one kind, correct? Humans, bonobos, gorillas.....?

"The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails." H L Mencken

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bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4189 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 8 of 18 (622043)
06-30-2011 10:04 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Chuck77
06-30-2011 7:08 AM


1) Dog kind
2) Bird kind
3) germ kind? Bacteria kind?
4) Insect kind
5) Cat kind
Hmmm. Family, Class, Domain, Class, Family
That sure helps.
If a domain is a kind that all Archaea are one kind
and all Eukaryota are one kind.
So then all animals, plants & fungi are of one kind, since they are all Eukaryota. But you put the dog family as one kind, The bird class as one kind, the Insect class as one kind & the cat family as one kind. Makes no sense.

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002
Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

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Replies to this message:
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 9 of 18 (622048)
06-30-2011 10:15 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by bluescat48
06-30-2011 10:04 AM


If a domain is a kind that all Archaea are one kind
and all Eukaryota are one kind.
So then all animals, plants & fungi are of one kind, since they are all Eukaryota. But you put the dog family as one kind, The bird class as one kind, the Insect class as one kind & the cat family as one kind. Makes no sense.
None of this is of any relevance, though. Domain, class, family and all the other taxanomic levels are purely arbitrary human inventions. They have no existence in the external world. They are far less clearly defined than the concept of 'kind'.
Imagine that some geneticists sit down somewhere and do a detailed analysis of Canid genomes. They conclude that Canids share a common ancestor 6 million years ago.
Would it make sense from this to conclude that Felids all share a common ancestor 6 million years ago, as do Ursids, as do Discoglossid frogs? After all, Canids are a family, and if it's true of one family, mustn't it be true of all families?
No, of course it mustn't. This reasoning is obviously nonsense. Determining that one particular x is y doesn't determine that all x's are y. This is even more so when 'x' is a vague and wishy-washy invented concept. If there really were such a thing as biblical kinds, and Canidae was equivalent to a kind, there's absolutely no reason to expect that 'kind' should therefore correspond to the invented category 'family'.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 10 of 18 (622114)
06-30-2011 5:53 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Chuck77
06-30-2011 7:08 AM


I guess the definition I would use to describe a "kind" would be a group of living organisms having descended from the same ancestral gene pool.
So what criteria do Creationists use to determine if two species are derived from the same ancestral pool? Do they use morphological criteria? Genetic?

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DWIII
Member (Idle past 1752 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


Message 11 of 18 (622126)
06-30-2011 9:17 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Taq
06-30-2011 5:53 PM


Taq wrote:
[Chuck77 wrote:]
I guess the definition I would use to describe a "kind" would be a group of living organisms having descended from the same ancestral gene pool.
So what criteria do Creationists use to determine if two species are derived from the same ancestral pool? Do they use morphological criteria? Genetic?
Even more important: by what objective tests would a creationist determine that any two given species must have absolutely no ancestor in common? This particular claim (i.e., the existence of historically-disconnected pools of ancestry) is the very core of their problem; shedding light on it would go a long way towards building an actual theory of kinds.

DWIII

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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 12 of 18 (622127)
06-30-2011 9:37 PM


Created kinds and other nonsense
In an effort to pretend they are doing science, creation "scientists" have conjured up the "science" of baraminology. This is simply a fraudulent attempt to fool people into thinking created "kinds" have some scientific basis.
A major article in their attempt is "Baraminology—Classification of Created Organisms," by Wayne Frair, which appeared in the Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 82-91 (2000), which has been retitled and posted online as What are the Genesis kinds?: Baraminologyclassification of created organisms.
And what is this "baraminology" based on?
Guidelines
In accomplishing the goal of separating parts of polybaramins, partitioning apobaramins, building monobaramins and characterizing holobaramins, a taxonomist needs guidelines for deciding what belongs to a particular monobaraminic branch. These standards will vary depending upon the groups being considered, but general guidelines which have been utilized include:
1. Scripture claims (used in baraminology but not in discontinuity systematics). This has priority over all other considerations. For example humans are a separate holobaramin because they separately were created (Genesis 1 and 2). ...
Snip
You can read the 'baraminology" article yourself at the above link (if you have a high tolerance for nonsense), or an evisceration of it at the following link:
A Look at Creation "Science" -- Part II

  
ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 13 of 18 (622128)
06-30-2011 10:22 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by caffeine
06-30-2011 10:15 AM


caffeine writes:
None of this is of any relevance, though. Domain, class, family and all the other taxanomic levels are purely arbitrary human inventions. They have no existence in the external world. They are far less clearly defined than the concept of 'kind'.
I don't know about that. I think that the current version of the Linnean taxonomy system is possibly arbitrary in an absolute sense. There's debate all the time about whether two populations have speciated, or whether a cluster of genuses currently in one family would be better described as belonging to two different families. (Please, someone with a better understanding of biology should step in if I'm saying something particularly stupid.) But, I think that the system is still highly useful in illustrating relationships among populations. There's no doubt in my mind that the grouping of populations of organisms into a nested hierarchy is accurate as far as the big picture goes, and a strong demonstration of the truth of common ancestry. Probably cladistics does an even better job of showing relationships over time, but I don't know enough to say.
One question occurred to me as I was putting this little quiz together. Can we say that the degree of difference between members of subgroups in one larger group is the same as the degree of difference among the members of subgroups in a larger group at the same level? An example will probably make my question clearer.
Start with the class Mammalia. Pick two orders within that class, say rodents and primates. Do all the families within one order (e.g. the mouse family and the mole rat family in the rodent order) show the same degree of difference as all the families within the other order (e.g. the great ape family and and the lesser ape, i.e. gibbon family in the primate order)? Would that imply an absolute classification system?
I hope that this makes some amount of sense.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

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bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4189 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 14 of 18 (622132)
07-01-2011 12:20 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by caffeine
06-30-2011 10:15 AM


caffeine writes:
None of this is of any relevance, though. Domain, class, family and all the other taxanomic levels are purely arbitrary human inventions. They have no existence in the external world. They are far less clearly defined than the concept of 'kind'.
But at least it is defined by relationship.
My point is that how can all bacteria be one kind, their relationships are avast as the differences between a human and an oak tree.
ZenMonkey writes:
One question occurred to me as I was putting this little quiz together. Can we say that the degree of difference between members of subgroups in one larger group is the same as the degree of difference among the members of subgroups in a larger group at the same level? An example will probably make my question clearer.
The actual level, probably not, much would depend uopn the number of related species ie. The insect order Coleoptera has over 250,000 species (probably over 300,000, there were 250,000 descibed species when I was in high school biology, 1963) which is much more than the entire mammal class, or for that matter all vertebrates and their lower chordate cousins together the entire echinoderm phylum.
Edited by bluescat48, : [qs] goof

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002
Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 15 of 18 (622137)
07-01-2011 1:32 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by bluescat48
07-01-2011 12:20 AM


Part of my earliest orientation in this "creation/evolution" morass was a speech given by Fred Edwords circa 1984. He mentioned that the most rapid rate of evolution offered by the most radical "evolutionists" was one speciation event every 50,000 years. Indeed, in my subsequent research in that decade, I read from Le Baron Georges de Cuvier's "Treatise sur La Terre" in which he pointed out the ludicrousness of "LaMarckian" evolution since the oldest Egyptian mummies show no evolutionary change in those thousands of years.
And yet, creationists want to invoke such a horrendously rapid rate of evolution that one "insect kind" is able to produce 250,000 different species in less than a century? I would never have imagined that creationists were such extraordinarily radical evolutionists!
Edited by dwise1, : "rapid rate", not "rapid rapid"

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