Nested Biological Hierarchies

I would probably answer "yes," but you can really only take this argument so far. There are probably far more potential species than the number represented in the history of life on earth, maybe even infinitely many more, unless there is some inherent restriction on this. If God created a "random" assortment of kinds, then, it would seem very unlikely that any two kinds would share any apparent similarity whatsoever. Then again, the different species need to be able to "work together" to form a stable ecosystem, so there might be a limit to this "randomness."Of course, another way for there to be multiple species with shared characteristics is common descent, without even requiring any macroevolution. Speciation can occur in multiple ways that in no way contradict creationism, including geographical isolation, changes in mating seasons, sexual preference, and mutations that prevent production of fertile offspring, as is the case with the horse and donkey, for instance. None of these require the addition of new genes or alleles, only the "sifting" or loss of some within a population by natural selection.So again, in answer to your question, yes, we would expect certain species to look more alike than others, giving an apparent nested hierarchy. But you mustn't forget that there are other ways for there to exist similar species than for God to just happen to create them that way initially.

All I meant is that assuming the Creator wanted His creation to be understood by man, then it seems logical that He would create such a pattern. If God commanded Adam to name every living creature, a pattern would make this task far easier, allowing him to keep track of each animal by mentally grouping similar kinds. I know from experience that classifying things can make them easier to remember, especially when dealing with large groups.If Adam actually did name every animal in less than one day, as the Bible implies, he would have needed to be able to group them together somehow, unless, of course, he was a genius.A possible alternative is that the entire pattern in taxonomy is only perceived and that we only see the pattern we do for the same reason we see patterns in cloud formations. I personally don't think this is true, but I just thought I should mention this possibility.Another point. Historically, creationist thinking seems to have often led to the assumption that the universe is ordered and even comprehensible. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was Galileo who said that "Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe." Great scientists like Galileo and Linnaeus seemed to assume from their belief in one God that the universe ought to have an order to it, and I tend to agree with their logic. If we can reasonably assume that, if there is a Creator, He would want us to understand the world, then creationism does in fact predict some sort of pattern among species. A nested heirarchy might only be the pattern we choose to see, though in principle we could find other methods of classification.

The Bible says that Adam named the animals, not that he classified them. Names like "dog" and "cat" aren't grouped by similar "kinds".As far as I know, in most languages the common names of animals are not in any kind of nested heirarchy, so I don't see any reason for God to have made them that way unless it was by evolution.
(It certainly seems like overkill to fake the nested heirarchy just as an aid to Adam's memory. )

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That won't do as an answer because it would only explains why there is a hierarchical pattern, but gives no reasonable explanation to why that same pattern can be obtained by differet methods, such as taxonomy, and genetic analysis (or did god expect Adam to do some genetic analysis before naming the animals?).For instance: why would god choose to have man and chimp share a similar set of broken genes? That one is really hard to explain away with some just-so explanation.

Sorry I haven't answered sooner. I started a new job and late days are expected of me. Anyway, lets get down to it: The fossil record is determined on superficial traits and not on DNA because we are hard pressed to find any flesh that have survived decay . And whenever flesh is present and red blood cells can be viewed underneath the microscope, it brings ToE into disrepute. (Take for example the two cases of T-Rex having soft tissue still attached to bone). So most biologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists use bone structure (skeltal frame) as a determinant in lineage. It isn't inconcievable that if Dolphins were currently extinct that some evolutionist might suppose that the Dolphin was a fish that 'experimented' with breathing air. In other words, they might have been inclined to simply believe that the Dolphin was a fish in transition from aquatic to land dwelling.This is the type of speculation that comes from looking at bone structures as a basis for determining lineage. Its little more than guesswork, and bad guesswork at that, given the fact that most fossils are partial remains. The rest is left up to the imagination. That's fine. We couldn't "see" such great transitions outright with our eyes. I understand that principle. But it should be overwhelmingly obvious by looking at the fossil record. But alas, that isn't the case. If it was, TalkOrigins would have more than '29 evidences' of a macroevolutionary process. There is no way to get around the fact that the fossil record simply does not support the assertion when it severly lacks any gradations. Take for example the alleged evolution of the elephant. The elephant has such stark features with its huge protruding tusks and pronounced proboscis. What did it evolve from? What is it evolving into? Evolutionists say that it evolved from Mastodons and Mammoths. I happen to agree that Mastodons and Mammoths are in the same family. There differences are so nominal that they are clearly elephants. But what did the Mammoth branch from? The closest they can guesstimate still has huge links missing. They've attempted to marry Sirenians, such as manatees, to modern elephants based on something as trivial as a molar. You're still making an inference that one goes into the other based on superficiality. "Prankster God"? What prank are alluding to?

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“Always be ready to give a defense to
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hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15

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The fossil record is determined on superficial traits and not on DNA because we are hard pressed to find any flesh that have survived decay. And whenever flesh is present and red blood cells can be viewed underneath the microscope, it brings ToE into disrepute. (Take for example the two cases of T-Rex having soft tissue still attached to bone).

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And just how does finding soft tissue in a large bone bring the ToE into disrepute? At worst it makes us re-evaluate our understanding of the fossilization process. Although it seems scientists predicted we'd find soft tissue before the event.Schweitzer makes a point that a possible reason more soft tissue has not been found is because people are reluctant to saw open large fossils to look for it. The first bone had to be broken to fit it on a helicopter; but since then soft tissue has been found in two other T-rex bones and in a hadrasaur bone.Or are you suggesting that T-rex DNA was somehow extracted? So far the only thing I know of is a superficial comparison with de-mineralized bone tissue of an ostrich. I'm sure there's more but I haven't had a chance to read it.Edited by AdminNosy, : No reason given.

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

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Take for example the alleged evolution of the elephant. The elephant has such stark features with its huge protruding tusks and pronounced proboscis. What did it evolve from? What is it evolving into? Evolutionists say that it evolved from Mastodons and Mammoths

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Would they ? On what do you base this ?Just doing a google search on the keywords "elephant" and "evolution" came up with this page:
http://elephant.elehost.com/...ries/Evolution/evolution.html
The diagram clearly shows mastodons and mammoths as related species, but not ancestors of modern elephants. So where did your idea come from ?

Another wonder of the nested hierarchy. The fossilized dolphin would post a major problem if it was thought to be a experimenting fish. Since it would have to have also experimented with a radically different body plan from a fish. Fish spines move side-to-side, rather than the mammalian manner (which all cetaceans follow). Fish don't have fingers or a whole plethora of other features we'd find in a dolphin. It has a whole bunch of characteristics which would mark it as a unique entity from all other fish. Indeed it is only certain 'base' characteristics that it shares: It is alive, an animal and a vertebrate.Nobody would classify them as similar based on any traits other than 'aquatic', which is about as useful as 'land dwelling' as classification goes. We need a classification scheme which is based on unique characteristics. If you want we can list all the characteristics unique to mammals (basic body plan only if you'd like to think in terms of fossils) and all the characteristics unique to fish.Then we can see how to classify our hypothetical dolphin fossil.We can skip this if you''d like though. I can guarantee it will be impossible to classify a dolphin as something other than an animal and a vertebrate and a mammal and a cetacean. The proof is in the pudding if you want to try it out.If you want to try defining 'fish' as 'lives in water' we run into classification problems since somethings live slightly in water, some live mostly in water. Indeed, dolphins live in water, but breathe out of it...indeed, classifying animals based on subjective things such as behaviour is frought with danger. We should look to more objective things such as body form, genetics etc.Its like classifying a library. Is the Italian cookbook written in French something we should classify as an Italian culture book, a recipe book or a book written in French?That's why we look for distinguishing characters. Books don't fall into a unique nested hierarchy, but life does.

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But here is the great thing - we can do the nested hierarchy thing with absolutely no fossils whatsoever! We can do it with extant lifeforms and get the same result. And still we'd find ourselves amazed by it.

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Edit: The actual title of the piece is '29+ Evidences for Macroevolution', and is not intended to be exhaustive. It also doesn't count each tiny piece of evidence towards that total, but general evidences. For example, it doesn't mention every single type of atavism, just some of the more common/obvious ones. Just a random AbE really, an fyi you might say. No need to worry too much about it.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

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If God commanded Adam to name every living creature, a pattern would make this task far easier, allowing him to keep track of each animal by mentally grouping similar kinds.

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Other people have already commented on this; I will just add another point. Patterns of this sort can often be seen in any group of objects. Species are often grouped together in different categories by many different societies; this is a natural tendency to see "patterns". However, different societies place different species in different categories than other societies, based on what each individual society feels is an important distinction (sometimes including what use the society makes of the particular species).So this objective nested hierarchy would be unnecessary to Adam; if he needed to, he could have easily categorized the species based on superficial similarity, clean/unclean, and so forth. Bats could be birds, for all Adam cared, and dolphins could be fish. Certainly there is no indication in Genesis that Adam dissected a representative of each species and carefully examined the finer details of anatomy to discover the true classification (and, seeing how there was no death at this time, the thought of doing so would be rather gruesome).So, creating each kind to fit an objective, real nested hierarchical pattern would be unnecessary even for the simple classification that Adam would have to do (assuming that he would have to do one), and the discovery of this objective pattern would not be within his means anyway.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

It is a good point. We could make hierarchies from any collection of things and it would be entirely subjective. The thing that makes the biological hierarchy so compelling is that it is (in Theobald's words) 'a unique, consistent, well-supported tree that displays nested hierarchies.', he goes on to say Which I think sums it up. Right after this he goes on to discuss statistical methods for calculating the subjectivity or objectivity of a given hierarchy. Sure enough - biological hierarchy gives a high result (objective) whereas arbitrary hierarchies give low results (subjective). It discusses one method in the potential falsification section.So the maths has to be addressed. Maybe you think the maths is bogus, which would mean explaning why, or perhaps you agree with the maths but disagree with what it means...once again stating why.Another interesting thing about nested hierarchies is that we don't find new species which don't fit neatly in one place within it. There are times when classification is difficult, where both phylogenies are equally well supported. That said, these difficulties are generally about more closely related species and not about wider ranging things; we don't find a species where we're not sure if it is a mammal or a fish for example.The final difficulty I've not seen you really address is that morphological studies can be used to create a unique hierarchy and so can genetic traits (even traits that do not dictate morphology). The two unique hierarchies generated are very very similar, sometimes identical.The statistical probability of this happening is vanishingly small. So eithera) DNA structures that do not affect an organisms physical traits are somehow and in some significant manner related to its physical traits. For example - great apes are morphologically close. But they share very very similar genetic sequences for cytochrome c. Cytochrome c is not related to the organisms morphology. Indeed human cytochrome c functions in yeast, as do many other types of cytochrome c.b) This kind of congruence was the result of intentional intervention by some unknown entity.c) A gigantic coincidence.The first answer, a) raises a question (What's the connection?), the answer is heredity which has been observed (organisms do replicate). The second answer b) raises another question (what are this being's motivations for doing this?), which is often theologically difficult for those inclined to insert their deity of choice here. c) is absurd.

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But it should be overwhelmingly obvious by looking at the fossil record.

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And it is!-

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f it was, TalkOrigins would have more than '29 evidences' of a macroevolutionary process.

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Actually, the transitional lineages attested in the fossil record is one of the 29 evidences.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

This attitude is just laughable. I bet if there were 117 evidences you would have said "But alas, that isn't the case. If it was, TalkOrigins would have more than '117 evidences' ".29 different lines of evidence for a theory is much better the most theories will ever have. For many theories a single solid line of evidence is all they are aiming at. Off course that begs the question: How many lines of evidence would convince you? I think it's very clear to any unbiased reader how prejudicious you are towards that theory. I wonder why would that be?

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The family Elephantidae is the root from which the mammoth, Asian elephant, and African elephant came from. Interestingly, the Asian elephant is more closely related to the extinct mammoth than to the African elephant.

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Why do evolutionists think everything evolved from the Hyrax?

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Interestingly, based on both morphological and biochemical evidence, it is agreed that the manatees, dugongs, and hyraxes are the closest living relatives of the today's elephants. It is incredible to believe given the vastly different sizes, external appearance and the fact that they occupy completely different habitats.

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Yup, that's incredible.

For as many similarities that any organism shares with its supposed closest ancestor, there are hundreds of more disimilarities. That's as asinine as saying, "Look, the Manatee has eyes and we have eyes, therefore, we're related." That's an interesting deduction, but it would be just likely, if not more so, that a Creator made both organisms with eyes fo which to see. Period. Its almost as if the concept is so simplistic that we feel compelled to over complicate something even to the point of absurdity in the interest of amusing our egos.

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“Always be ready to give a defense to
everyone who asks you a reason for the
hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15

You also forgot cartiledge in fish that isn't present in Dolphins. I'm not suggesting that we reclassify what a Dolphin is. But you're acting as if some of the alleged transitions aren't based on some pretty fanciful conclusions. For as much as a Hyrax has in common with a Manatee, how much more does it not share? So the large, lumbering sea cow inexplicably took to land evolving into a Hyrax, which is small and furry. It concievably must have had thousands of transitions, which had to have had some biological success in order to be the progeny of another, and another, and another, etc; none of which can be verified with any veracity. Then, the Hyrax evolved over millions of years of time to become quite large, developing very large molars and an extremely long proboscis. Again, thousands of gradations must assuredly have existed, unless of course we were to somehow explain how a Hyrax inexplicably birthed a Mastodon (i.e. Hopeful Monster).Your post makes it seem as if I'm being silly in positing that had Dolphins gone extinct, that somone might have come up with a terrible conclusion, however reasonably they might have worded it.

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“Always be ready to give a defense to
everyone who asks you a reason for the
hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15