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Author Topic:   Creationists Cannot Define "Kind".
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 16 of 69 (36913)
04-13-2003 7:44 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Brian
04-13-2003 3:09 PM


These people, the Hovinds and the Wyatts, are psychologically unsound, there's no other conclusion to make.
I disagree - there's a much worse conclusion to be drawn. Creationist figureheads are on a specific political and religious agenda driven by biblical literalism to institute religious control over society. To this end they strike against the major obstacle to biblical literalism; scientific historicity as regards to the origin of life, and enlist unwitting christians as pawns to further this agenda.
There's really no other explanation for the continued, knowing falsehoods spread by these figures. Phillip Johnson even calls it the "Wedge" movement.
I realize I sound kind of paranoid, I'm not - I don't really think they represent a danger because their position is just too logically untenable. But if I were a christian I should be very resentful of how I was being used.
Perhaps a thread could be started to further speculate on creationist's ulterior motives.
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 45 of 69 (37511)
04-22-2003 1:46 AM
Reply to: Message 43 by booboocruise
04-22-2003 12:21 AM


Re: Cats and?
Then the smaller ones (terriers and poodles) adapted and bred from a different pair of dogs found on the ark, but certainly the chua'a and the st. bernard are not of common descent, as indicated by evolution theory.
Are you aware that, given reprductive "help" (artifical insemination techniques) those two dogs are interfertile? I think somewhere you may have asserted that "kinds" can't reproduce with each other. (Forgive me if you made no such statement, but it's a common definition of kinds which I would be suprised if you disagreed with. Please tell me if you do.)
So let me ask you, with what evidence do you suggest they are not of common decent?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 43 by booboocruise, posted 04-22-2003 12:21 AM booboocruise has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 46 by NosyNed, posted 04-22-2003 11:28 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 49 of 69 (37570)
04-22-2003 1:04 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by NosyNed
04-22-2003 11:28 AM


Re: Cats and?
Really?!! Please provide a good reference. I can hardly contain my glee if this is true. It seems to me it would be a case of speciation (based on the creationists favorite definition) in an example they like to use. I would however be surprised if it is true.
Actually I believe it was salty himself that first made that assertion. I confess I took him at his word. Sorry if that's not the reference you were looking for.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 51 of 69 (37573)
04-22-2003 1:20 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by booboocruise
04-22-2003 11:49 AM


Re: Cats and?
but larger and smaller dogs being able to reproduce together does not support the evolution theory.
Sure it does. It's evidence that all dogs share a common ancestor. And it certainly disproves your "two kinds of dogs" theory, at least if interfertility is your basis for "kinds", as you seem to suggest.
Besides, the larger and smaller animals still need "help" with their breeding. You can't expect me to believe that, thousands of years ago, a st. bernard ancestor and a terrier ancestor made the first 'batch' of a modern species of dog on their own.
I'm not sure why you state this. It's more accurate to say that both the St. Bernard and the terrier share as an ancestor one domestic "breed" of dog, whose more distant ancestor was also the ancestor of modern wolves, coyotes, and foxes. Given the power that selective breeding has on influencing morphology, I don't find it unreasonable to assume that a "medium"-size, wolflike dog couldn't have given rise to both large and small dogs which we see today.
Also, 'kind' is defined as whether or not they can reproduce. if they can bring forth offspring on their own, without any 'help' then they are the same kind of animal.
Ok, this is a crucial distinction - can reproduce, or do reproduce? For instance, tigers and lions do not, as a general rule, mate with each other in the wild, because due to behavioral and chemical differences they just don't recognize each other as mates. But if forced to mate, they do produce viable offspring.
The point is that reproductive isolation happens for a number of reasons beyond geographical separation and genetic incompatability. Sometimes isolation is as simple as behavioral differences that cause the organisms to not recognize potential mates. Or coleration differences with the same effect. Or even pheremone differences. Sometimes it's structural isolation - the first organism's Tab A won't fit into a potential mate's Slot B.
If you're going to draw the "kinds" line at genetic interfertility, then you admit there's still some 80,000,000 "kinds" or so. (This has a reprcussion to Ark arguments, but since you haven't raised that argument, we won't go there.) And you have to be aware that we've observed populations of species diverge to the point where they were totally, genetically incompatible with a species that they used to be interfertile with. By your definition, new "kinds" are appearing all over the place. This would appear to contradict your "original, created kinds" argument.

This message is a reply to:
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