Bible and "kind"

Hey Wiz, Crashfrog wanted me to respond to his post over here, I'm not trying to steal your debate. Crashfrog said: You are correct, "kind" is an unscientific term. It is a historical term, having to deal with things in the past which we cannot observe. I agree, that is not science, it is history. This is where I disagree. Since the changes we have now (whether changes within a "kind" or changes from microorganisms to human) occured in the past, sometimes historical terms are necessary.Paulk said: It is from this verse (and others like it in genesis) that creationists get the term "kind." I believe that when God created life, he created different types of life, with each type having a ton of variation possible. For example, potatoes. I am not sure how many species of potatoes there are, but I know that the common species has an incredible amount of variance. There are tiny purple potatoes, speckled potatoes, and huge, white potatoes; the list goes on and on. Those difference are not from mutations, however. The possibility of those difference were in the genetic code of the first potato, by means of dominant versus recessive genes. Maybe the first potatoe's dominant genes for size had it growing a foot long. But the reccesive size genes could have been able to make it grow only as big as a pea, only they were recessive, so they didn't do anything. But the next generation, maybe one of the seeds revieced only the reccesive size genes, and would grow a potatoe the size of a pea. The pea-sized potato would have lost the ability to have an ancestor be larger than a pea.
Does that make more clear what a kind is?

What paper are you reffering to? Could you give us a link or something? It sounds interesting. What I mean is that (to the best of my knowledge), we do not have a "key"(to quote crashfrog) to discern whether or not two species are in a kind. I do believe that "kind" can be used in a scientific context to come to valid conclusions. The reason I seperated the word out in commas is to make clear that I was talking about the concept. For example,Spiders are a kind of animal.
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Spiders are a kind.mean different things. (the second is wrong, by the way) The commas are just to make it clear what I am talking about, they are not meant to denigrate the concept of a "kind."By the way, I am a YEC and believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis, so I think we're on the same side. Anyway, I am open to correction. If you disagree with the content in my post, please give me more details about it. Thanks

I disagree. Scientitic is to make an observation, formulate a hypothesis, then do an experiment and come to a conclusion. We can use scientific principles to examine evidence of the past, such as observation, prediction, and conclusion. However, we are missing the experiment part. Merriam-webster online defines an experiment as: Evolution is two things; a series of events that allegedly occured in the past, and a set of mechanisms which could have been responsible for those changes. The existence of such mechanisms can be tested under controlled conditions in a lab. The historical aspect cannot be tested in a lab, however. The historical event and the mechanisms are intertwined; without the mechanisms, the event couldn't have happened. It does not follow that by experimenting on the means you are experimenting on the event. Pure science cannot look backward, but it does provide a means of determining whether things were possible in the past. When we are dealing with the distant past (6,000 years to 4.3 billion years), there are some things we cannot prove or disprove. I accept that the idea of a "kind" is not falsifiable, but neither are the ideas of abiogenesis, or the big bang. Biological data can corroborate the "kind" model. Not prove or disprove, but agree with. You are right, all that information could not fit into a single potato. But I checked, and there are more than 2,400 potato species in existence, and they could easily have come from different kinds. The "kind" model is an idea about what happened in the past, and cannot be proven. There is no such definition, but that should not be expected based on the nature of a "kind."I have to catch a bus in about a minute, I'll get to the other posts when I get home.

Paulk says: Could you elaborate on how the verse doesn't give the meaning? I think it is pretty clear.Crashfrog says: For us to be able to use science to study an event, the event must be in a controlled environment. The past is not a controlled environment, so we cannot use pure scientific method to analyze it. Fortunately, events in the past commonly leave evidence. We can do an experiment in controlled envorinment similar to the environment in the past. If the results of the experiment are similar to the evidence left by the past event, we can conclude that the past event was similar to the event which occured in the experiment. How? That would be interpreted as meaning that the universe had gone through the big bang and expanded, and had begun to collapse into itself. If two animals share an ancestor, they are in the same kind. The difficulty comes sometimes, when it is not clear if they share an ancestor. When that is not clear, it comes down to a judgement call. That is not as strong a definition as I would like, but it works. You are correct, it does not explain anything. YECs believe that God created a number of "kinds" of life, and all of the life we have now is descended from those original kinds. It is a word we use when describing the creation model, and when we can conclusively determine when two animals are a kind.Lam says: First, I do not claim that all spiders are a single kind. We refuse to say that apes and humans are the same kind because of the incredible amount of differences between apes and humans.Brad, I can understand little of your post. I am not nearly well read enough to understand the numerous references to scientists and their ideas. Do you think you could, when possible, try to make it more clear for people who haven't read as much as you seem to have? I'd appreciate your humoring me in that aspect.

Which apes, specifically? Are you talking about fossilized transitionals or currently living apes?

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Mandelbrot is not a type of wine.

Here are two images from http://wnt.utexas.edu/~eskeletons/ Betcha can't tell which one's the ape!
There are a number of easily visible differences. The arms on the ape are nearly twice as long as the legs, the ape has a drastically different skull, different type of ribcage, etc. Humans and apes are very different.

I guess I'll point out some specific major differences.Here is the skull of a gorilla: And here is the skull of a human: Notice how the human forehead has practically nonexistent brow ridges and is very smooth and rounded? The gorilla skull has massive brow ridges and no forehead. Also notice the "fin" coming out of the skull of the gorilla. There is not even a trace of this on the human skull.The widest part of the gorilla skull is the face, the skull narrows towards the back of the head. The human skull is wider towards the back, allowing for a much larger cranial capacity.The front of the human skull is almost flat; the jawbone barely protrudes forward past the eye sockets. The gorilla has a prominent jutting forward of the jaw.The jaw is another difference. Look at the teeth of the human skeleton versus the teeth of the gorilla. In addition to extremely obvious size differences between the teeth of the two skulls, notice that the human teeth meet straight together, but the teeth of the gorilla are significantly bowed out.Also with the jawbone, notice how "robust" the ape jaw is compared to the human jaw. The gorilla has a massive bone connecting the lower jaw to the rest of the skull; the human has only a small, thin bone.Do you see what I mean by significant differences?

Nature is an uncontrolled environment; that is why scientists collect as much data as possible over as long a period as possible. With so much data it is possible to quite accurately calculate what "normal" is.Also, even though nature is uncontrolled, scientists know exactly what is happening that affects their study, and are able to take those factors into account. I agree that the processing of the evidence uses pure, controlled, lab science. But the past is not controlled and repeatable. When there are alternate explanations for the evidence, there is no sure way to tell which actually happened. But if a wormhole opened up on earth, and was spitting out amino acids, and there was a temporary breakdown of the space-time fabric, and...Try proving that wrong! I disagree that all organisms could have come from a common ancestor, but this is a topic for another debate. "Kind" is a word we use to describe the creation model. It has limited ability to describe organisms today, but I don't think I have ever claimed an ability that it doesn't have (and after this debate, I won't for sure ).When two animals can breed, I maintain that they are a kind. If two animals cannot breed, I will not claim anything about them, but if they are similar enough, I will allow the possibility that they are the same "kind." I do not know how many kinds there are, nor what they are (aside of birds, fish, and land animals). I wish I did, but I don't. If Genesis wasn't in the bible, I doubt I would even think about creation/evolution. If I did, though, I would have a problem with evolution. The mechanisms are not sufficient to let a group of single celled organisms evolve into the diverse forms of life we have today. Again, that is a seperate debate I am willing to have.Ned says: Here is a picture of a domestic dog skull vs. three wolf skulls( I couldn't for the life of me find a picture of a corgi skull)There are only noticable differences in size, not structure. Dogs are extremely similar. I am applying the "interbeedability" part of the definition. Apes and humans, to the best of my knowledge, cannot interbreed. Thus, they are not necessarily the same kind (and I do not think they are) Corgis and great danes, on the other hand, can breed, so they are the same kind.

Ants are impressivve little insects, aren't they? Oh, wait, you were talking about bees. THOSE are really impressive.Wait, bees don't use tools, you must have been still been talking about apes. My bad. This message has been edited by JT, 05-05-2004 02:05 PM

I'm not almeyda, but I can answer this one.Bible Search and Study Tools - Blue Letter Bible has a feature where you can find the greek word actually used in the bible, and the translation. Here is the definition of the greek word translated as "spirit." As you can see, it can mean way more than the english meaning of the word "spirit."

Men have a mind towards higher things, beasts have a mind for lower things. That is how I interpret the verse, but I am not a greek scholar. This is the subject of debate for the Faith/Belief forum.By the way, Almeyda, a spirit is a supernatural thing, which we cannot observe by science. If we could prove that men have spirits and animals don't, that would show they are different kinds, but we can't, so it doesn't.I think we got OT.

In response to Ned's post... "Similar enough" is a subjective term. It is not "hard and fast." Try defining "transitional" in a way that is hard and fast. For animals to be from the same kind, they have to share a common ancestor. "Similar enough" means that it is plausible that they share an ancestor.That is where things get fuzzy. You guys alledge that NS + RM would allow all life to have descended from one ancestor, I disagree. Once I answer crashfrog in the transitionals thread (I'm working on it), I'll have time to debate about it. Can you back up your claims that corgi has a drastically different skull and that the ribcages are different?About the differences between the dog skull and the wolf skulls, can you point some out? I see very little difference. About the lengthening and shortening of bones, here is a picture of several different dog breeds. In order of size, the are the legbones of a saluki, german shepperd, english bulldog, and bassethound This clearly shows that limb size can, and has, changed in a group of organisms. That is not something I deny. However, these dog legs use the same structure, and are for the same purpose, in all four groups.Gorillas use their arms primarily for walking. The body of a gorilla is structured differently than that of a human because of this. Both corgis and great danes have different limb sizes. But the limbs have not changed functions. How much change has there been to organisms since the flood? Dogs are a good example. Here is a link that talks about different dog breeds.Anyway, in a short period of time, wild dogs (wolves/jackels) were domesticated into the huge variety we have now. The animals that came off the ark had a huge amount of genetic material, and as they spread through the world, NS worked on the existing material.For an animal to evolve that much would have taken a large amount of time to account for the necessity of randomly creating all of the necessary genetic material.I am not postulating "hyper-evolution," I am postulating natural selection acting on existent genetic material. This would take far less time, and would have easily occured in the time since the flood.In response to Crashfrog's post... Because we have little evidence about the past, and that evidence is nowhere near as good as being able to watch a live organism, and examine the live organism's corpse, etc.Fossilization events are, the vast majority of the time, cataclysmic events. Cataclysmic does not represent normal. The thing is that if there are two explanations for an event in the present, for them to be scientific, they need to be falsifiable. If two explanations of an event in the past are possible, they are not falsifiable. Non-falsifiable means not science. My point was that it is not falsifiable. The the event I was speaking of was abiogenesis, not evolution. In which case the wormhole, etc. would not effect the model, they are the model. But you are right, it was irrelevant. I am not taking the definition of a "kind" over anything. I still accept the current taxanomic system. Wow there. Here is the part of what I said that you quoted: Here is the rest of what I said: What I was saying was that if the bible didn't say anything about creation, I would not have spent much(if any) time learning about a minor theory about something insignificant.If, for some reason, my interest was sparked, I would have had problems with evolution. What I was saying was that it would have been unlikely that my interest would have been sparked. I disagree that these processes are capable, but this is another debate. I believe what you are talking about is genetic programming? I have actually did a geneticly programmed AI system for a simple game for a programming assignment(I got bored). This is very different from evolution. It uses random changes (analogous to mutations) and selects the algorithm which gives the best result (ditto to natural selection). The biggest difference is that creation of the algorithms is carefully guided.It is impossible to make a program that would randomly generate a single algorithm to design an airplane. Seperate genetically programmed algorithms would be needed to design the wing, fuselage, control systems, etc. Each of those algorithms would need sub-algorithms. For the wing, it would be like structural systems, fuel system, control surfaces, etc.They can design jet planes using genetic programming, but it is under extreme supervision and direction. These programs do not "evolve" on their own, the are built of many carefully subprogrammed algorithms, each with their own subprogrammed algorithms, etc.In addition, the first algorithms are terrible. It is necessary to put these algorithms through litterally millions of generations before they even begin to work.There is only a rough analogy between GP and evolution. Yes, it is pretty useless and yes, it is one sided. I have not claimed that it is useful for classification or anything.I just looked at my watch, and I have one minute before math. I'll be back probably tommorrow.

Math class got out early Yes, one pair of dogs could have a huge amount of genetic material. According to New Scientist, we share 50% of our dna with bananas(New Scientist, 1 July 2000, pp4-5). The 50% dna that makes us human, as compared to banana, is massive.A human, in theory, could have dominant human genes and recessive banana genes. If that person had a child with another person who had reccesive banana genes, they could, in theory, give birth to a mass genetically identical to a banana. That is how much information reccesive genes can store.A pair of dogs, each with a different set of reccesive genes, could easily have the required genetic information to spawn all the different types of dogs we have now.

Things are not that simple. Rarely (if ever) do you see someone with pure blue eyes or pure green eyes. It is much more common to see shades of colors. For example, my mom has brown eyes, and my dad has light blue eyes. I have eyes that are a slightly darker brown than my mom's eyes. Are there hundreds of alleles for eye color, one for each shade? If there was only one gene that controlled eye color, that would be necessary.However, genetics is not that simple. Genes do more than just turn switches. A single trait can be controlled by more than one gene, such a trait is called a polygenic trait. What this means is that five genes could control eye color. Assuming that each gene was made up of two unique alleles, that would allow for 2⁵=32 shades of color. Square that because there are two dogs on the ark, and you get 1024 different shades of eye color. That is a massive amount of genetic material. If it is not our dna that makes us human, what is it? I understand that dna in a human is coded for human protiens, while the dna of a banana is coded for banana protiens, but it is the dna which makes the protiens anyway. I understand that a human could not give birth to a banana, but if two humans had the proper reccesive genes, their offspring would have the same code as banana, even though the code would be interpreted differently and likely would not live.This message has been edited by JT, 05-06-2004 01:20 AM

Did you mean that many traits are dominant/recessive?I think we can agree that all traits are controlled by epigenic factors (correct me if you disagree). That means that even if a trait is purely dominant/recessive, there can be a huge amount of variance in that trait. That variance would be controlled by the genes controlling the polygenic factors. This is one form of pleiotropy, where one gene can affect other genes, and consequently, other traits. You are right. I had no clue.Anyway, do you agree that a single pair of dogs could have stored enough genetic material to have been ancestors to all of todays dogs without evolution? It wasn't clear in you post.