MrDarwin

Creationists make much of "kinds" as being clearly defined but the reality of taxonomic classification is very much otherwise. The seemingly clear-cut boundaries in taxonomic classification are largely an artifact of a classification system that was invented in Europe several centuries ago, based on organisms that were known at the time; it has become increasingly clunky with (1) the discovery of numerous living organisms outside of Europe, and (2) the discovery of numerous extinct organisms. Many (I would venture most) taxonomic groupings have had organisms shoehorned into them that do not share some of the characteristics of the group, and/or have characteristics of related groups. Creationist often ask where are all the intermediates between groups--in reality they are all around us, but often hidden in imperfect classifications.

Herea are 3 articles about the same story regarding the discovery of a new order of insects:

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A839-2002Apr17.html" target="_blank">Scientists Discover New Insects</a>

<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/03/0328_0328_TVstickinsect.html" target="_blank">New Insect Order Found in Southern Africa</a>

<a href="http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=9451" target="_blank">New Insect Order Found in Southern Africa</a>

The new order, Mantophasmatodea, is clearly a member of the orthopteroid orders, sharing characteristics with several but not quite fitting into any of the existing ones--exactly what we would expect if all these orders shared a common ancestor. Evolution is messy, and classification is correspondingly messy even though it can look very neat to an outsider.

[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

Writer@Large

Fascinating, but ...

"Just because mankind is only now 'classifying' this Kind, doesn't mean that God didn't make them their own Kind from the beginning. Man's knowledge of God's creation is very limited, and imperfect."

--Buford T. Cretinist, PhD (Diploma Mill University)

Sometime's it seems like it would be so much easier to be a cretinist: years of research to discover, but only seconds to explain it all away as God's will ...

--W@L