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Author Topic:   Define "Kind"
NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 31 of 300 (289119)
02-21-2006 11:21 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by Faith
02-21-2006 11:09 AM


Humans and monkeys
Humans are definitely one and only one Kind unto themselves.
I might not that I said Chimps and not "monkeys" and there is a big difference but that is a nitpick right now.
That is the problem. If you want to make the above statement then you have to make the definition of kind very "ungeneral" and we then see it arising or have very good evidence for the boundary being crossed. Specifically we see the arising of humans from not-so-humans.
It appears that the only way out of this connundrum is to NOT have a "good" -- that is a general, "operational definition" (google that ) of "kind". Your are proving the point with your above comment.
There is not and never will be a useful defition of "kind". It is equivalent to the whole "ID" thing being raised to just hide creationism. It is one of a number of attempts to appear to be scientific and therefore hope to wedge into science classes. It is not an actual, honest attempt to be really scientific in any way.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 32 of 300 (289120)
02-21-2006 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by crashfrog
02-21-2006 11:15 AM


Re: Further clarification
Yeah, I know. I'm just surprised that your intuition doesn't flag bears and raccoons as separated by a boundary. Intuitively they're nothing alike.
I once raised a raccoon from infancy that had been abandoned by its mother and its bearness was so striking I called her "Little Bear." The fat lumbering body, the general shape of the face, the "hands" that wash its food, its way of standing on its hind legs at times. A little bear.

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macaroniandcheese 
Suspended Member (Idle past 3928 days)
Posts: 4258
Joined: 05-24-2004


Message 33 of 300 (289122)
02-21-2006 11:26 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by nator
02-21-2006 8:20 AM


i would think that kind means mammal, reptile, bird, fish. but since mammals are reptiles with tits and hair and birds and reptiles used to be interchangable, then i guess it's just land stuff and water stuff. and that sounds pretty biblical to me

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 34 of 300 (289125)
02-21-2006 11:35 AM
Reply to: Message 15 by Wounded King
02-21-2006 10:34 AM


So do you consider there to be any scientific use for the concept of Kind currently?
Scientific use? Not really, no. It's something that needs thinking about, how to establish it, and that involves scientific questions, but in order to use it scientifically, there's nothing defined enough to use. Creationists just have to bow out of those discussions.
All you seem to be saying is that if a barrier is ever found to the variation genetic mutation can generate which would prevent evolution above a certain unsepcified 'level' then the related organisms on one side of that barrier would be a 'kind'.
That's my own idea of how it will work out, but I suppose it could instead be defined genetically, through the study of the genome.
Creationists seem to have simply made up a term for something which has no evidence to support its existence, and seem to think that refering to such a term has some value in debate.
Our source is the Bible, and the Bible has absolute authority. We know there were discrete Kinds because it says so. But it doesn't define them. That's for science to do.
Edited by Faith, : discreet to discrete

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FliesOnly
Member (Idle past 4145 days)
Posts: 797
From: Michigan
Joined: 12-01-2003


Message 35 of 300 (289126)
02-21-2006 11:42 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Faith
02-21-2006 9:24 AM


Faith in message 4 writes:
All anyone has at the moment is the hypothesis that such a classification exists, but how to define and identify it for sure is not yet known.
Not really. A hypothesis is a scientific term used to pose a researched, well thought out, potential answer to a stated question or problem. You must design experiments to test your idea, and see if the data support or reject the hypothesis. Creationists have done none of this.
Faith writes:
It's quite legitimate to work from a hypothesis.
I disagree. While I guess it is true that you can work from a hypothesis...the work being done is called 'experimentation" and is designed such that the validity of your hypothesis can be determined. You can't just say "we have a hypothesis" and then go on as if you have conducted copious tests and arrived at some conclusion.
Just out of curiosity...what is this supposed hypothesis? You say "you" have one, so let’s see it.

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 Message 8 by Faith, posted 02-21-2006 9:24 AM Faith has replied

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 36 of 300 (289127)
02-21-2006 11:45 AM
Reply to: Message 34 by Faith
02-21-2006 11:35 AM


Luckily, your request has been answered.
Our source is the Bible, and the Bible has absolute authority. We know there were discreet Kinds because it says so. But it doesn't define them. That's for science to do.
Science has been able to define Kinds.
There are three Kinds:
  • living things
  • things that are not alive
  • and things that we can't quite tell if they are alive or not
Now you may not like that, but it's FACT.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 37 of 300 (289131)
02-21-2006 11:54 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by jar
02-21-2006 11:45 AM


Re: Luckily, your request has been answered.
I don't know if that would satisfy a biblical notion of kinds. After all there are hypothesese that living things have evolved from things that we can't quite tell if they are alive or not, which in turn developed from things that are not alive.
TTFN,
WK

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 38 of 300 (289132)
02-21-2006 12:01 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Wounded King
02-21-2006 11:54 AM


Re: Luckily, your request has been answered.
That shouldn't be a problem. According to the Bible the living Kind was made from the Not Living Kind anyway.
11And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
So we have non-living kind, the earth, producing the living kind. Fruit trees, Living Kind, produce Living Kind. Ever since then the Living Kind produce Living Kind.
Seems pretty clear and Biblical.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 39 of 300 (289134)
02-21-2006 12:05 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by FliesOnly
02-21-2006 11:42 AM


. . . While I guess it is true that you can work from a hypothesis...the work being done is called 'experimentation" and is designed such that the validity of your hypothesis can be determined. You can't just say "we have a hypothesis" and then go on as if you have conducted copious tests and arrived at some conclusion.
Depends on what the hypothesis is, and whether the person who has it is a scientist or not who is equipped to test it. I have a hypothesis but I'm not a scientist. There are creationists who probably are working on it as in this case I know it's not my own idea.
Just out of curiosity...what is this supposed hypothesis? You say "you" have one, so let’s see it.
I've argued it here many times, don't really want to get deeply into it again. It's that the mechanisms of evolution that are described in population genetics tend generally to the reduction of genetic potential. When natural selection or bottleneck or any other event splits one population from another, either by geographic isolation or by the death of one part of the population, the new population(s) exhibit smaller genetic diversity than the parent population. If this trend continues with more population splits then ultimately you can get to a very much reduced genetic potential even in something that is clearly a new highly adapted "species." Thus the very process of speciation is bought at the cost of a loss of genetic diversity. The only thing that counters this overall trend is mutation, and it has to be frequent enough and beneficial enough to counter a LOT of reduction. I don't know if experiments are the way to tackle this or thinking through known facts about these processes by somebody who has lots of experience with them, which I don't.
I understand that an increase in genetic diversity is in fact supposedly observed, but I haven't been able to grasp the arguments involved, and I doubt that it answers this other observation. There are processes that do increase diversity, but only temporarily, while overall the trend is to decrease.
The other way I think Kinds might eventually be established is through study of the genome, and I don't know if anybody is working in that direction.
This message has been edited by Faith, 02-21-2006 12:24 PM

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nator
Member (Idle past 2170 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 40 of 300 (289150)
02-21-2006 12:36 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Faith
02-21-2006 10:45 AM


Re: Further clarification
Modulous writes:
However, this doesn't discount macroevolution since that could easily be the case if the created kinds are extraordinarily general (cow, dog, monkey, bird, serpent, fish, crab etc). It does obviously discount universal common descent.
quote:
Yes, well, that's the point at issue. I would expect that the Kinds are as general as those you list. And I don't see how macroevolution applies there, since if there are built-in limits, those ARE the limits that define the boundary between micro and macroevolution.
But what do you do with humans, which appear to very much belong in the "primate" kind?
Most Creationists do not believe that humans are primates and share a common ancestor with other primates.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 41 of 300 (289152)
02-21-2006 12:43 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by nator
02-21-2006 12:36 PM


Re: Further clarification
But what do you do with humans, which appear to very much belong in the "primate" kind?
Most Creationists do not believe that humans are primates and share a common ancestor with other primates.
Of course not, and intuitively I don't see all that much similarity either, the way I do between bears and raccoons.

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 45 by nator, posted 02-21-2006 12:50 PM Faith has replied

nator
Member (Idle past 2170 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 42 of 300 (289153)
02-21-2006 12:43 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Faith
02-21-2006 11:09 AM


Re: Very general kinds
quote:
If I overlooked the grouping of humans with monkeys, please allow me to correct that. Humans are definitely one and only one Kind unto themselves.
But this contradicts all known genetic evidence utterly.
This means that within the Creationist model shared genes and using genetics to determine relatedness at any level are rejected.

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sidelined
Member (Idle past 5908 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 43 of 300 (289155)
02-21-2006 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by Faith
02-21-2006 12:43 PM


Re: Further clarification
Faith
Of course not, and intuitively I don't see all that much similarity either, the way I do between bears and raccoons.
What is the similarity you intuitively see between bears and racoons Faith?
This message has been edited by sidelined, Tue, 2006-02-21 10:48 AM

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 44 of 300 (289156)
02-21-2006 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by sidelined
02-21-2006 12:48 PM


Re: Further clarification
What is the similarity you intuitively see between bears and racoons Faith?
Answered this in Message 32

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nator
Member (Idle past 2170 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 45 of 300 (289157)
02-21-2006 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by Faith
02-21-2006 12:43 PM


Re: Further clarification
quote:
Of course not, and intuitively I don't see all that much similarity either, the way I do between bears and raccoons.
Well, I certainly do see a great similarity between pimates and humans.
However, the most powerful evidence that humans are primates is genetic.
That's why the discovery of DNA and it's role in heredity was such a enormous confirmation of the ToE 60 or so years ago.

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