CodeMason

One thing that upsets me about arguing with creationists is that they never seem to define "kind" properly. For example, when faced with evidence of microscopic organisms unequivocally evolving in lab experiments, the creationist will often say something along the lines of, "But those are simply variation of the same fundamental kind of organism, never is an organism seen changing into another kind. Bacteria is bacteria." <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />
Obviously this claim is flawed because of the circular definition and many other falsehoods, but I want to focus on a particular one; DNA. The question I pose to the creationists is this:

After how much genetic change on the original DNA of the "kind" does it change into a fundamentally different "kind"? What is the point of cutoff, and how is this determined?

Of course, the creationist will never be able to answer this, because their idea of a "kind" is based on a taxonomic order of sorts. "A cat will never evolve into a dog", they will say. This is of course true, yet extremely misleading. The families of cat and dog are only defined after they have been observed. There is no predeterminded taxonomic order, that animals must fit into. It is devised by the similarities between already existing populations. Thus, there is nothing to evolve "into".

Sorry if my point has been articulated like this before.

Kevin Dorner

The only reason that they use "kind" is the same reason that they use... everything else: it's what's in the bible.

Yes, the same source that said bats are a bird when laying out the "kinds" of birds. It's a meaningless word.

[ January 05, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]</p>

Undercurrent

The only effective definition of "kind" is "Category of organism I knew about when I was three." That's why there are the horsey, moo-cow, doggie, and kitty kinds, and all species of fish are the "fishy" kind and all protists, bateria, and viruses are in the "germ" kind.

There are no "prion" or "capybara" kinds because these organisms are unknown to three-year-olds.

I think it's about time people started calling creationists out on "kinds". The reason "kinds" exist is so that creationists can deny evolution in spite of the fact that evolution is observed to occur. The reason kinds are never defined properly is because creationists are used to having any definite claims they make contradicted by real science in short order so they no longer have the intellectual integrity to make definitive claims. They are intellectual cowards, and there's no need for any further explanation than that.

m.

Kevin Dorner

Michael: Thanks. Almost fell off my chair laughing at that first paragraph.

pug846

Just curious, where does it say this?

Dr Rick

Leviticus 11, verses 13-19:`These are the birds you are to detest and not eat because they are detestable: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture...the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

Daggah

Leviticus 11:13 - "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,"

In between these two verses, the Bible lists these birds: vulture, kite, raven, owl, night hawk, cuckow, hawk, little owl, cormorant, great owl, swan, pelican, and gier eagle.

11:19 - "And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat."

ex-robot

They were laying out the "kinds" of birds???? It seems that they were listing birds you shouldn't eat. Anybody know hebrew? Birds fly and so do bats? I'm pretty sure they were not giving a taxonomy lesson.

xr

Daggah

And pray tell, what do you think is implied when the Bible lists the birds you can't eat and then, without making any note of the fact that a bat is not a bird, lists the bat as a kind of bird to not eat?

[ January 05, 2002: Message edited by: Daggah ]</p>

scigirl

hey ex-robot,

noticed it was your first post--care to introduce yourself <a href="http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=43" target="_blank">here</a>?

One question--how do you know what parts of the Bible should be interpreted due to what people believed at the time (such as bats being birds), and what parts are still literally true today?

scigirl