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Author Topic:   Species/Kinds (for Peg...and others)
Rahvin
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Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 206 of 425 (540919)
12-30-2009 1:08 AM
Reply to: Message 204 by Peg
12-29-2009 11:08 PM


Hi Peg,
The bacteria experiment being discussed is one that is repeated multiple times yearly at biology labs around the world. The phenomenon is extremely well understood.
We can also analyze the genetic code of the bacteria involved. This means that we can literally compare the genetic code of the original parent bacterium with the code of the resistant versions that arise during the experiment, and we can actually directly observe the differences - even though the bacteria reproduce simply by making copies of themselves.
So let's use an example. Let's represent the genetic code of a bacterium with a sentence, and let each word represent a gene.
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
This sentence bacteria reproduces by making exact copies of itself. We know the process of cell division quite well, and the process can be demonstrated at will.
This means that all subsequent offspring of our single bacterium will be identical to the original. There are no other parents to provide genetic information (as in sexual reproduction).
But sometimes the copying mechanism makes an error. The result is an offspring like this:
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy god."
Obviously, this change was minor - "dog" became "god." The copying process simply switched the places of two base pairs in our imaginary gene.
This small change indisputably represents genetic information not possessed by the parent. THis is what we call a mutation - a peice of the genetic code in an organism that did not come from a parent.
Now, this particular mutation happened to create a meaningful word - it actually changed the meaning of the sentence. This is like the mutation observed in the bacterium that produces its resistance to the phage.
Consider, Peg, that we can directly observe the full genetic code of both the parent and the eventual descendant bacterium in the experiment. We know from direct observation that bacteria reproduce only from copying, that the experiment begins with only a single bacterium and is kept isolated from any other life, with only nutrients to continue to replicate. We directly observe that the genetic code of the parent and the descendants are different, without any way for such changes to have been added.
This isn't something that can rationally be argued, because we can directly see and observe it, and do so regularly a part of the standard education of biology students. The experiment is reproduced reliably around the world by independent groups in independent labs.
every new generation, whether they had been exposed to the toxin or not, had a number that were naturally resistant
Mutations are not reactive. New traits do not form in response to stimuli - they only become more common in response to selective pressure. A pre-existing trait that may have held no benefit or even caused harm now provides a benefit that allows those individuals who possess the trait to be more likely to reproduce than their peers, and so the trait is represented in a larger percentage of the total population.
Mutations are random. You don;t mutate because of selective pressure. You mutate anyway - you, as a person, have several hundred mutations yourself, bits and pieces of genetic information that your ancestors did not have, caused by simply copying errors when the egg and sperm that began your life were spawned. Additional mutations exist in individual cells of your body as your cells make their own copying errors.
the conclusion of the experiment wasnt mutation, it was hereditary that was causing some to have immunity.
False. That is your conclusion, not the conclusion of the scientists who actually performed the experiment.
Much like traits that show up in a family line, one person may have blonde hair, but it doesnt show up in the decendents until some stage down the track...then every now and then the someone gets the blonde hair.
As has been stated, this cannot be compared to human hair or eye color. Those traits are determined by dominant and recessive genes because we have chromosomal pairs; we inherit half of our genes from each of our parents, and the dominant/recessive mechansim determines which gene will actually be expressed. A person can therefore carry a recessive, unexpressed gene and pass it to their offspring. If the offspring receives the same recessive gene from their other parent, the recessive trait will be expressed, even generations after the last expression on either side of the family.
Bacteria do not have chromosome pairs. They do not have two parents. They reproduce by making copies of themselves. There is no dominant or recessive trait to allow for "skipping a generation." The mechanism simply doesn't exist.
But hey, if you want to call it mutation, i'll call it mutation for the sake of it.
The descendant bacteria demonstrably possess genetic information that is not possessed by their parents. There is no inheritance of duplicate recessive genes allowing for an already-present feature to be expressed. The altered gene was not inherited - it is unique to the offspring, and is not present in the parent.
The very definition of a mutation is a gene that was not inherited.
Is there a part of this that you do not understand, or dispute?

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 Message 204 by Peg, posted 12-29-2009 11:08 PM Peg has not replied

  
Rahvin
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Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 291 of 425 (541266)
01-01-2010 11:34 PM
Reply to: Message 287 by Coyote
01-01-2010 8:58 PM


"Kinds" do exist...
I think this thread has shown that the concept of "kinds" is a religious one, and that it doesn't necessarily apply to the findings made by science.
Well, that's not entirely true.
The concept of "kinds," types of living things that can be distinguished from other types, is certainly not unscientific.
The problem is simply that there is more than one level of classification.
Scientific "kinds" are Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. In science, we call it "taxonomy." The classification is done according to morphology.
In fact, its even true that "kinds" do not turn into other "kinds." A vertibrate will never give birth to an invertebrate, for example - evolution specifically predicts that this just won;t happen. What will happen is that existing "kinds" will give rise to new subdivisions. The result is the nested hierarchy of known life represented by modern taxonomy:
For example, all plants are part of the plant "kind," or Kingdom. No descendant of the plant kingdom will ever be anything other than a plant - but there are separate phylum, classes, species, etc of plants, divided and subdivided according to their morphology as divergent populations form from common ancestors.
A common Creationist misconception is that we should expect organisms from one classification to cross over into another, pre-existing classification - that is, that dogs will turn into cats, or snakes will become plants. Evolution predicts no such thing - but it does predict that within existing populations, subgroups will diversify and become distinct from their common ancestors. THis is exactly what we see when we examine modern life and the fossil record.
For example - the earliest known vertebrates formed around 525 million years ago. All modern vertebrates can be traced back to these originals - including humans, dogs, cats, snakes, birds, and everything else with a backbone. No vertebrate has ever produced invertebrate offspring.
After the rise of vertebrates, they subdivided into new classifications - cartilaginous versus bony, different types of jaw, and so on. New "kinds" were created as populations of vertibrates diversified from each other and became distinct "kinds" of their own.
Human beings are of the "human" kind. We are also of the "ape" kind - because we are hominids. We are also of the "monkey" kind because all apes are monkeys. We are also of the "mammal" kind because all monkeys are mammals. You see how this goes - it's simply a hierarchical model of classification determined by the morphology of a given organism. No "kind" turns into another "kind" - all new "kinds" remain forever members of the classification that gave rise to them, and are simply distinct from other members of the same class.
The direct observation of morphology and the way it easily (not just easily, but perfectly) fits into a hierarchical model by which new subdivisions arise from the diversification of existing populations as well as the fact that the fossil record and all manner of dating methods show that indeed new subdivisions always arise in order (for example, in the fossil record eukaryote precede vertebrates which precede mammals which precede monkeys which precede apes which precede homo sapiens) is perhaps the best evidence supporting the modern Theory of Evolution.
The issue with Creationism is more one of an incorrect usage of terminology and simply misunderstandings as to what the Theory of Evolution actually predicts, as well as the layman's typical ignorance of how taxonomic classifications actually work.
ICANT is somewhat correct. All "dogd" will be of the "dog" kind. No dog will ever become anything other than a dog.
But dogs are classified into finer subdivisions according to their morphology - chihuahuas, retrievers, etc. And all dogs are in fact wolves:
quote:
The domestic dog was originally classified as Canis familiaris and Canis familiarus domesticus by Carolus Linnaeus in 1758,[14][15] and was reclassified in 1993 as Canis lupus familiaris, a subspecies of the gray wolf Canis lupus, by the Smithsonian Institution and the American Society of Mammalogists. Overwhelming evidence from behavior, vocalizations, morphology, and molecular biology led to the contemporary scientific understanding that a single species, the gray wolf, is the common ancestor for all breeds of domestic dogs;[3][16]

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 318 of 425 (541362)
01-02-2010 7:31 PM
Reply to: Message 315 by Peg
01-02-2010 6:33 PM


Re: "Kinds" do exist...
the old testament talks about dogs, but not in the domestic sense....if you read any of the mentions in the Ot about 'dogs' you'll see that back then they were spoken of as wild scavangers, not family pets....isrealites didnt even keep them as working dogs for this reason.
So its all well and good trying to define the animals we have today, but we cant assume that the animals in ancient times were the same as we have today.
The Bible is not even remotely useful as a guide to taxonomy, full stop. It incorrectly identifies bats as birds, for example.
If dogs have come from wolves, then it is in perfect harmony with the bibles description of them as being wild scavanger animals.
And if they did come from wolves (which they likely did) then Noah needed only take two wolves on the ark and as those two wolves bred, they could have produced the great variety we now have.
Everything came from something else, Peg. It all depends on how far back you go. If you take your line of thought to the extreme, "Noah" could have brought just a pair of the earliest mammals (like Eozostrondon, which lived around 210 million years ago). Or he could go back further, and grab some Pelycosaurs (the first synapsids, which eventually gave rise to mammals). If he grabbed a pair of the first Tetrapods, he could in one fell swoop have the "kind" that eventually diversified into reptiles, amphibians, and mammals in just one mating pair.
The question of "how many "kinds" did Noah take on the ark" is foolish from the beginning. The term "kind" applies equally well at the level of species, family, genus, and even kingdom, and is arbitrarily shifted (as you just did with wolves and dogs) to make the case for sufficient space on a large boat.
But please, Peg, please understand that the classification of "kinds" is something that science does very very well. We do it based on morphology, the physical characteristics that are easily observable in an organism. Vertebrates, for example, are any animal whose spinal cord is surrounded by a backbone. This includes birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals, each of which are defined by their own individual features that make them distinct from other subgroups of vertebrates, but each subgroup (and each of the subgroups that arise from them, and so on) is still and will always be vertebrates.
Understand also that the Theory of Evolution predicts not just change over time, but that any given population will continue to diversify until subgroups can be identified as distinct from other subgroups in the larger population; and that each of these subgroups will eventually also diversify and contain distinct sub-populations of their own. Much like how humans have artificially diversified wolves into the many breeds of domesticated dogs we see today.
New "kinds"a re being "created" all the time as existing populations diversify into distinct sub-populations through the slow change of features over time by mutations guided by natural (or human, as with domesticated species) selection.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 315 by Peg, posted 01-02-2010 6:33 PM Peg has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 319 by Peg, posted 01-02-2010 8:45 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 334 of 425 (541561)
01-04-2010 1:32 PM
Reply to: Message 333 by ICANT
01-04-2010 12:56 PM


Re: Kind
Hi ICANT,
What, to you, distinguishes one "kind" from another?
Personally, I would say that you are of the human (homo sapiens sapiens) kind. But I would also say you are of the ape kind. And the monkey kind. And the mammal kind. And the vertebrate kind. And the animal kind. And the eukaryote kind.
I say this because, according to both genetics and morphology, all humans are apes are monkeys are mammals are vertebrates are animals are eukaryotes.
Would you disagree with any of those assessments? If so, why?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 333 by ICANT, posted 01-04-2010 12:56 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 337 by ICANT, posted 01-05-2010 12:22 AM Rahvin has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 336 of 425 (541571)
01-04-2010 2:49 PM
Reply to: Message 319 by Peg
01-02-2010 8:45 PM


Re: "Kinds" do exist...
quote:
Rahvin writes:
Vertebrates, for example, are any animal whose spinal cord is surrounded by a backbone. This includes birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals, each of which are defined by their own individual features that make them distinct from other subgroups of vertebrates, but each subgroup (and each of the subgroups that arise from them, and so on) is still and will always be vertebrates.
Ok great, so because science defines all creatures with a spinal cord surrounded by a backbone as a vertebre, it has to mean that all vertebres are related and decended from each other.
Why should that be the case? If God decided to create fish, they would all need to be able to breath underwater, but it doesnt imply that they must all be related for that reason. Same with land animals, just because they all breath air and walk on land does not have to mean they are all related.
Under your definition of "God," we're talking about an omnipotent being. He can do whatever he wants.
Science, however, "calls it like it sees it." Observation is all that drives science. And there's a bit more to it than "everything with a backbone is a vertebrate, ergo all vertebrates are related." The presence or absence of a backbone is simply the morphological distinction that qualifies an organism as a vertebrate or an invertebrate. Alone, you're quite correct - it doesn't suggest common ancestry and more than it suggests "re-used templates" or somesuch from a "designer."
But taken into the greater context of all observed extant and fossilized life, a different picture appears. We're not jsut talkign about vertebrates here - we're talking about all of taxonomy.
The morphological distinctions that differentiate one "kind" of organism from another very clearly becomes a hierarchial tree. The farther back in time we go, the less variance within individual "kinds" we see.
Lets use human beigns as an example. According to our morphology, we can be classified not only as human, but also as apes, primates, mammals, vertebrates, animals, and eukaryotes. There are a lotmore classifications we fit into, but let's keep the list short for brevity's sake.
Human beings are apes - we belong, morphologically, in the family "Hominidae." Apes are primates, but are a distinct subgroup of primates due to a few morphological differences:
quote:
Both great apes and lesser apes fall within Catarrhini, which also includes the Old World monkeys of Africa and Eurasia. Within this group, both families of apes can be distinguished from these monkeys by the number of cusps on their molars (apes have fivethe "Y-5" molar pattern, Old World monkeys have only four in a bilophodont pattern). Apes have more mobile shoulder joints and arms due to the dorsal position of the scapula, broad ribcages that are flatter front-to-back, and a shorter, less mobile spine compared to Old World monkeys (with caudal vertebrae greatly reduced, resulting in tail loss in some species). These are all anatomical adaptations to vertical hanging and swinging locomotion (brachiation) in the apes, as well as better balance in a bipedal pose. All living members of the Hylobatidae and Hominidae are tailless, and humans can therefore accurately be referred to as bipedal apes.
All apes are primates, but not all primates are apes. The above quote lists some of the distinctions that mark a given primate as an ape or another type of primate - the presence/absence of a tail, their tooth structure, skeletal structure, etc.
Similarly, all primates are mammals, but not all mammals are primates (obviously). The distinction is morphological - primates are typically classified as mammals that use hands, have varied locomotion (not entirely quadropedal - tree-swinging, bibedal, knuckle-walking, etc), and establish social groups.
All mammals are vertebrates, but not all vertebrates are mammals. Mammals are vertebrates who (among other things) give birth to live young, possess mammary glands to feed their young with milk, and possess hair follicles. Reptiles and birds are examples of vertebrates that are not mammals.
All vertebrates are animals:
quote:
Animals are a major group of mostly multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently. All animals are also heterotrophs, meaning they must ingest other organisms for sustenance.
But not all animals are vertebrates. Worms, slugs, snails, insects, arachnids, and many other organisms are animals that do not have a backbone and so are not vertebrates.
You see how this hierarchial classification works? We can point to a given feature on an organism, and link it to other organism that share that feature.
But again, the simple commonality of features is only suggestive of common descent.
It becomes more clear as we look at dates and the fossil record. There were no humans before there were other apes. There were no apes before there were other primates. There were no primates before there were other mammals, and so on. Even more specifically, the feature set that distinguishes a group appears at a specific point n teh fossil record, and then diversifies over time. There were very few vertebrates at first, for example, but then the population diversified in teh extreme into many, many sub-populations, each with their own distinct morphology.
It's not simply that the classification system results in a tree where diversity increases over time - the fossil record shows the exact same thing. Populations, over time, diversify until thre are multiple distinct subgroups of the parent populations. Then, each of those subgroups diversifies into its own set of distinct subroups. Over time, some branches stop as species die out, and others continue to diversify.
The hierarchial classification of modern taxonomy perfectly fits the fossil record...and both fit perfectly with the Theory of Evolution, which predicts that existing features will be slightly modified to create distinct new groups from their parent populations. It all fits without even trying.
the Special Theory of Evolution states that while limited
change within groups can be observed, such change always remains within phylogenetic boundaries. It was coined by Dr Kerkut in this way
quote:
There is a theory which states that many living animals can be observed over the course of time to undergo changes so that new species are formed. This can be called the Special Theory of Evolution and can be demonstrated
in certain cases by experiments
We know and understand that change occurs...anyone who liks dogs can see how new breeds can be developed. But the real question is do the changes that occur cross phylogenetic boundaries?
They don't - but evolution does not predict that they should.
We don't predict that a mammal will produce an invertebrate. We don;t predict that an ape will produce a reptile. What we do predict is that within a given population, existing features will undergo small incremental changes and the population will diversify into subgroups that are morphologically distinct from each other. Vertebrates, for example, will diversify into fish, reptiles, birds and mammals. Mammals will diversify into Prototheriates (monotremes like the platypus, mammals that do not give birth to live young but have the other features of mammals) and Theriates (mammals that give birth to live young); Theriates will diversify into Metatherids (marsupials) and Eutherids (placental mammals); Eutherids will diversify into Afrotherids (elephants, manatees), Xenarthrids (armadillos, anteaters), Laurasiatherids (cattle, whales, bats, cats), and Euachontoglires (monkeys, rats, bats); Euarchontoglires will diversify into Glires (rodents, rabbits) and Euarchontids, which includes Primates, which includes apes, which includes you and me.
I dont think that just because a whole range of species have a spinal cord surrounded by a backbone proves that these all developed from long unbroken chain.
Not by itself, it doesn't. But when you look at the full variety of life, the "big picture," and see the timelines of the developments of new features and classifications, it all starts to fit together. Each individual population, regardless of the scale at which you look at from the entire Kingdom of Animalia to the Class Mammalia all the way down to even just the Order Primates or the Family Hominidae, diversifies over time into multiple sub-populations that are morphologically and genetically distinct from each other but are still members of the older, higher classification.
The easily observable diversification over time from the rise of a basic feature, the progression from very few very similar organisms to ever more diverse variations of the same class and the development of new sub-categories, is what shows common ancestry most clearly.
Note - all sources were Wiki, I'm afraid I don't know all of my taxonomic classifications off the top of my head. Sue me

This message is a reply to:
 Message 319 by Peg, posted 01-02-2010 8:45 PM Peg has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 339 of 425 (541665)
01-05-2010 2:16 AM
Reply to: Message 337 by ICANT
01-05-2010 12:22 AM


Re: Kind
Rahvin writes:
quote:
Would you disagree with any of those assessments? If so, why?
Sure I would and do.
Let's recall the comments you're disagreeing with:
I misspoke when I said monkey - I meant primate. My apologies.
I'm sure you agree that you're human.
Do you disagree that you're a eukaryote? because eukaryotes are any organism whose cells include a nucleus. I'm pretty certain your cells (except the red blood cells) have nuclei.
Do you disagree that you're an animal? Animals are members of the Kingdom Animalia - eukaryotes that are multicellular, and digest food internally. You are a eukaryote, you are multicellular, and you digest food internally (as opposed to metabolizing through photosynthesis). You're neither a plant nor bacteria - you don;t fit other classifications, so you must be an animal.
Do you disagree that you're a vertebrate? This one's easy - if you have a backbone, you're a vertebrate. You must have a backbone - I've never met a person who didn't (well, in the literal sense anyway).
Do you disagree that you're a mammal? Mammals are warm-blooded animals that have sweat glands, (which includes mammary glands, which are just adapted sweat glands), and have a double occipital condyle - two bulges at the base of the skull where it meets the backbone (non-mammals only have one bulge). I'm willing to bet a large sum of money that I don't have that you have sweat glands, that you're warm blooded, and that your skull has that double-bulge. You are not a reptile, or a bird, or a fish, or any other class, so you must be a mammal.
Do you disagree that you're a primate? Primates have several distinguishing characteristics that separate them from other mammals. They have five digits on all four limbs; they have two pectoral mammary glands; the penis in males hangs freely with testes in a scrotum (other animals tend to have a penis bound to the rest of the body - see your local dog for an example). I'm dead certain that all of these characteristics describe you. By those features, you must be a primate.
Do you disagree that you're an ape? Apes technically include the families Hylobatidae and Hominidae; Hominids are distinguished from other primates by their lack of tails, their formation of social groups, and they are able to use their forelegs as hands, often able to manipulate tools. Do you have a tail, ICANT? Are you a social animal? The fact that we are having a discussion points to the fact that you are. You're typing, so you must have hands. I;m pretty sure you meet the requirements of being an ape.
So which of those classifications do you disagree with? Why? Please be specific. Do you actually have a tail? Do you lack a backbone? Do your cells lack a nucleus? Are you actually cold-blooded? Do you not have sweat glands?
If I am not mistaken you believe life started from whatever by whatever means it came to exist and that life form has evolved into all life forms on the earth today and all those that has become extinct.
This isn;t about what I believe; this is about whether you agree with the above classifications. Do you agree or disagree? Why? be specific. Are you not a vertebrate? Not a mammal? Not a primate? Not an ape? Not a human? Not an animal? Not a eukaryote?
I believe that in the beginning God created all living creatures on the face of the earth.
Even if he did, those classifications still seem to work just fine. Since, you know, modern biology seems to function using such classifications. I mean, do you disagree that we can group all of the creatures that have backbones together and identify them as vertebrates?
And don't you find it odd that all mammals, all reptiles, all birds are vertebrates? That all primates, all rodents, are mammals? That everything fits directly into groups and subgroups?
An extinction event took place about 10,000 years ago
Evidence or retract, ICANT. These are the science forums.
after which God called certain creatures and plants into existence after their kind. These creatures being called forth after their kind which had already existed is the reason for the kinds of the Bible. None of those animals had to be pure breds. They could have been as well as hybrids. The Bible only says they came forth after their kind.
So...magic? God just said "Poof!" and all the extant species came back?
More relevantly, what distinguishes in your mind a "kind" from a "hybrid?" If I take any organism at all, how can I tell if that organism is a "hybrid" or an actual "kind?" Why do the classifications based on morphology used by modern taxonomy not work?
Please, be specific.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 337 by ICANT, posted 01-05-2010 12:22 AM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 340 by ICANT, posted 01-06-2010 12:36 PM Rahvin has replied
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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 346 of 425 (541848)
01-06-2010 2:37 PM
Reply to: Message 340 by ICANT
01-06-2010 12:36 PM


Re: Kind
I would not agree that I am the kind of human you are talking about.
I was created in the image/likeness of God. I have a mind, a body and a spirit. I can think, reason, and make decisions and draw conclusions based on that thinking and reasoning. I can then sit in front of my monitor and type these things so you and others can read them.
That makes my kind of creature different from any other kind of creature on the face of the earth.
It makes you identical to any and all other humans on the planet, ICANT. How, precisely, are you not the kind of human I'm talking about?
I never said that humans do not possess features that distinguish them from other, even similar, organisms. We possess a greater ability to reason, use language, use abstract concepts, use tools, etc than any other species on the planet.
Human beings are apes. That doesn't mean we're identical to other apes - it just means we share certain morphological characteristics.
Let's look at known-created objects to put this into a context that may be more acceptable to you.
I can form various classifications for human-made objects. Let's say I can classify a "vehicle" as "any man-made tool characeterized by locomotion and a passenger compartment." This means that cars, airplanes, boats, bicycles, etc. would all qualify as "vehicles," but buildings, hammers, and cats would not.
I can then sub-divide the class "vehicles" into sub-classes. "Cars" can be classified as "any vehicle characterized by four or more wheels and an internal engine." "Boats" can be classified as "any vehicle capable of traveling in an aquatic environment and incapable of locomotion in air or on land."
I can then sub-divide the "Cars" class by additional characteristics - those with internal combustion engines vs. electrics, those with anti-lock brakes vs. those without, those with manual vs. automatic transmissions, etc.
Classification schemes based on morphology work regardless of origin. It's just the way we distinguish one thing from other things; science, of necessity, does this to a very specific degree, particularly with biological organisms because of their great variety. If I discover a new organism, I can easily use modern taxonomy to classify it.
Do you disagree? Again, I'm not talking at all about origins at this point. I;m not talking about anything religious or non-religious - I'm talking about very easily observed physical features, like the number of limbs you possess, whether you are warm-blooded, whether you display bilateral symmetry, whether you possess a backbone, etc. Simple stuff. Nobody, Creationist or otherwise, should disagree that you possess a backbone and thus qualify as a vertebrate, don't you think? I'm not talking about evolution or origins or anything else. I'm only talking about classification according to observable physical characteristics - the way we distinguish one "kind" from other "kinds."
After you ask the above question you go on to ask several which has nothing to do with the discussion of kinds. I refuse the bait.
Quite to the contrary - I'm simply showing that the concept of "kinds" is already well-defined in science - we simply needed more than one level of classification because there is so much variety found in living organisms. Since we couldn;t jsut use the word "Kind" and instantly understand what each other are talking about, we classified major features first, then classified each sub-population, etc until we have the basic Domain > Kingdom > Phylum > Class > Order > Family > Genus > Species system in use today.
This isn't a trick, ICANT. There's no bait. I'm just demonstrating that "kinds" are just a bit more complicated than "a horse is a horse, of course of course."
Now back to kinds.
A male and female human breeding will produce a human.
Do you agree or disagree?
A male and female ape breeding will produce an ape.
Do you agree or disagree?
A male and female dog breeding will produce dog pups.
Do you agree or disagree?
The list could go on until you had every creature on earth included that reproduces by mating.
And neither I nor modern taxonomy or the Theory of Evolution say different, ICANT.
But it goes further. Two apes will always produce an ape. But "apes" includes many species, including gorillas and humans.
It all relates to the simple fact that "all A are B, but not all B are A." All ducks are birds, but not all burds are ducks. All birds are vertebrates, but not all vertebrates are birds.
Existing "kinds" do not produce different "kinds." All of the offsprinf of a given "kind" will always be of the same "kind" as all of its ancestors...but the end result can be more diverse than the original ancestor population, and distinct enough to sub-divide them.
Very much like we do with dog breeds. All chihuahuas are dogs, but not all dogs are chihuahuas. Collies don't stop being dogs just because they are morphologically distinct from golden retrievers. If I breed a new "kind" of dog, it will still be a dog.
Human beings don't stop being apes just because we're distinct from gorillas. We share the morphological features that classify us as the ape "kind." Just as we share the morphological features that classify us as the "primate" kind, and as the "mammal" kind, and the "vertebrate" kind, etc.
The word "kind" just isn't descriptive enough, that's all. It can simultaneously mean (and has variously been used to mean) species, genus, families, even entire orders or higher on the taxonomic tree. That's why science doesn't use it, and why these "kind" discussions get so tangled.
If you limit the definition of "kind" to "any population of organisms that can breed to create viable offspring," then you're defining "kinds" as "species." At that point you still get to run into the gray area of rong species, where A + B can interbreed, and B + C can interbreed, but A + C cannot.
The same Kind of male and female will produce the same kind that they are and will never produce any other kind of a creature.
Do you agree or disagree?
I agree. Canines will always produce canines.
But new types of canines can arise from their ancestors that are distinct from other canines. As you've obviously seen in your experience on a farm with breeding.
It has never been documented otherwise. It has been postulated that millions of little changes over a long period of time will produce all the different kinds we have today.
Do you have such documentation?
Let's try to agree on classifications of kinds before we get into evolution and drive this thread off topic, shall we?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 340 by ICANT, posted 01-06-2010 12:36 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 350 by ICANT, posted 01-06-2010 3:56 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 355 of 425 (541906)
01-06-2010 6:36 PM
Reply to: Message 350 by ICANT
01-06-2010 3:56 PM


Re: Kind
quote:
Rahvin writes:
It makes you identical to any and all other humans on the planet, ICANT. How, precisely, are you not the kind of human I'm talking about?
The kind of human you are talking about does not have a spirit.
It does? Why?
ICANT, I'm only talking about classification by morphology here. I'm not debating whether "spirits" exist, or whether humans have them. Can't I talk about the physical distinctions between organisms alone without talking about supernatural classifications we know we can;t agree on and aren't really relevant anyway?
I can talk about the human body, in that we have brains, hearts, lungs, kidneys, a skeleton, etc without mentioning a spirit; whether such a thing exists or not, you still have four limbs, two eyes, and no tail.
Again ICANT, this isn;t a trick. I'm not laying bait. I have no intention of trying to convince you that you are the result of evolution; I'm well aware that that is a hopeless battle, and I think it would remain so even if I could magically show you a video of the evolution of life straight from whatever the beginning was and you still wouldn;t change your mind, so I'm not bothering.
I'm only talking about the classification of "kinds" here. I don't care about the Ark. I don't care how many "kinds" there are. If you tell me that a "kind" is just "any population of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing viable offspring," I'll say "Oh, you mean a species! Now I know what you're talking about!" At that point maybe we can start discussing the "gray areas" of such a classification, like ring species...but for now, I'm just trying to bridge the gap between your "kinds" and modern taxonomy. They're really the same thing, after all - taxonomy is just more detailed.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
I can form various classifications for human-made objects. Let's say I can classify a "vehicle" as "any man-made tool characeterized by locomotion and a passenger compartment." This means that cars, airplanes, boats, bicycles, etc. would all qualify as "vehicles," but buildings, hammers, and cats would not.
You can classifiy anything, anyway you desire. But if you tell me that bicycle grew up over a billion years to be a 747 jet aircraft I won't pay much attention to what you say.
Well, that would be a pretty silly claim for me to make. It's fortunate that I;m making no such claim.
And in this thread, I'm not talking about evolution. If you want to say that multiple organisms are vertebrates because a designer liked the utility of a backbone and so used it often like the way we use anti-lock brakes on cars, that's fine. I don't care. We can't even begin to discuss how taxonomy does or doesn't support evolution or design until we agree that classification by morphology is useful and consistent. Let's stick, then, to just talking about what "kinds" are.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
I'm not talking at all about origins at this point. I;m not talking about anything religious or non-religious - I'm talking about very easily observed physical features, like the number of limbs you possess, whether you are warm-blooded, whether you display bilateral symmetry, whether you possess a backbone, etc. Simple stuff. Nobody, Creationist or otherwise, should disagree that you possess a backbone and thus qualify as a vertebrate, don't you think? I'm not talking about evolution or origins or anything else.
If all creatures was created by one designer wouldn't He use the same designs where possible in different creatures.
Very possibly, even probably, if the design feature can function well in another creation.
That is what man does.
That is what science teaches. As per your above comparisons.
But because two things look alike does not mean they are the same thing or had the same origin.
Agreed. A Toyota and a Honda might look similar, but they came from different factories and were designed by different people, even though they can have many of the same design features.
Common classification alone does not prove common origins. That's actually why I'm somewhat confused at your reluctance to agree that you are, in fact, a human, and an ape, and a primate, and a mammal, and a vertebrate, and an animal. You can be all those things and still have a "spirit," can still have been created fully-formed through magic, or whatever. Your taxonomic classification has to do with your body's morphology, and nothing else.
Cocaine looks like a White crystalline powder but they are two competely different substances.
Well, cocaine is a white crystalline powder. As is powdered sugar. And yet cocaine is not powdered sugar; they don't come from the same plants, and they do different things to us when we consume them.
Once again, classification by common features alone does very little. It doesn't say anything about evolution, or origins, or souls, or gods, or the price of tea in China.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
I'm only talking about classification according to observable physical characteristics - the way we distinguish one "kind" from other "kinds."
So you agree there are different kinds. You just want to classify them different than the Bible. So as to support your belief.
This isn't a conspiracy, ICANT. Noting that "hey, lizards, snakes, mammals, and birds all have backbones, but snails, slugs, worms, insects, arachnids, and bacteria do not" has nothing to do with supporting a belief. It's simply the recognition of a common characteristic. Taxonomy seeks to group organisms by theur equivalent of the lowest common denominator - the feature they have in common. Thus all creatures with backbones are vertebrates, even if vertebrates have widely diverse sub-populations of their own.
There are different kinds. We agree. Science agrees. We should be jumping with joy, ICANT, because you and I agree on something.
All I'm saying is that the word "kind" itself isn't very descriptive, and the way it's been used (not necessarily by you, mind) could equally make all animals a single "kind," or all vertebrates a single "kind," or all dogs a single "kind," or all labrador retrievers a single "kind." That's wht taxonomy uses different words to describe the level of classification. That's all. And because of the way the classification works, you are simultaneously a human, an ape, a primate, a mammal, a vertebrate, and an animal, in much the same way an Accord is simultaneously a Honda, a Japanese car, a car, a vehicle, and a man-made tool.
Whether you or the car are designed and built or have evolved gradually from your descendants has no relevance to those facts, because the physical features that define those classifications still apply one way or the other.
Isn;t that somethign we can agree on?
quote:
Rahvin writes:
This isn't a trick, ICANT. There's no bait. I'm just demonstrating that "kinds" are just a bit more complicated than "a horse is a horse, of course of course."
A line from Mr Ed the talking horse. I didn't know you was that old.
I'm not, but I did watch Nick at Night when I was a kid
But why can't a horse just be a horse?
He is nothing else. Even if he does have four legs, two eyes, a backbone, a long tail, a head, ears, or mouth like an elephant, cow, dog, wolf or etc. None of those make a horse a elephant, cow, dog, wolf or whatever might have all those features.
And nobody is saying that a horse is any of those things.
Horses and elephants are both mammals, but horses are not elephants. Hondas and Toyotas are both cars, but Hondas are not Toyotas. Humans and Gorillas are both apes, but humans are not gorillas.
You and a bacterium are both living things, but you are not a bacterium.
How do we tell the difference between two "kinds," ICANT? Do you "just know?"
I think you distinguish between "kinds" in exactly the same way I do - by common characteristics. You can tell that a dog is not a horse because they each have distinct physical characteristics that set them apart. Their foot structure is different, their teeth are different, their skulls are different, etc. They also share some characteristics in common - they tend to congregate in groups rather than being solitary; they are both warm-blooded; they are both quadropeds; they both give birth to live young. Couldn't we say that the horse and the dog belong to the same "super-kind," a larger group that shares those common characteristics, while at the same time being distinctly different from each other because of the features they do not share?
That's all taxonomy does. It organises the classification of life according to common characteristics; some characteristics, like having a backbone, are shared by many, widely varied organisms. Others, like bipedal locomotion, are not so common. We identify "kinds" according to their physical features, and classify their common and different features.
Didn't God tell Adam to name all of the things He had created? Taxonomy is just continuing that effort. Nothing more.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
But new types of canines can arise from their ancestors that are distinct from other canines. As you've obviously seen in your experience on a farm with breeding.
At present we have over 500 hybrid dog breeds that we have created by cross breeding. We have even got to the point we claim many of those hybrids are purebreds. They are all mixed breeds.
And you know from your experience breding that "purebred" doesn't mean you can't still select for a given feature. If you take a bunch of purebred black labradors and breed only the shortest pair, gradually you'll tend to get shorter and shorter black labs. They won't stop being dogs, and nobody is suggesting otherwise.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
Let's try to agree on classifications of kinds before we get into evolution and drive this thread off topic, shall we?
We can never agree on the classifications of kinds.
I believe in Biblical kinds.
They were created fully grown and functional and those creatures produce creatures like themselves.
You believe in one kind which has produced all living creatures and plants on planet earth. Everything being classified under that kind according to what is believed happened in the theory of evolution of the species.
How is there any way we could ever agree?
Because I'm not talkign about how the various "kinds" came to be. For the moment, I'm not talking about whether all vertebrates share a common ancestor. I'm not talking about abiogenesis, or pansperima, or special creation, or intelligent design, or a cosmic sneeze. I'm just talking about recognizing that what you call a "kind," the science of taxonomy further separates into Domains, Kingdoms, Phylum, Classes, Orders, Families, Genus, and Species. The higher up in that hierarchy you go, the more you'll see common features like cell walls or membranes, bony or cartilagenous skeletons. The farther down the hierarchy you go, the more specific each "kind" becomes, finally resolving to specific species that, despite sharing common features with some other organisms, are each individually distinct from other species.
I don't see how we could not agree on that, honestly. It's the same concept of a "kind" used in the Bible, but expanded to classify in detail all of the numerous species we have found, extant or extinct, on Earth. The Bible, after all, wasn't meant to be a biology textbook. It doesn't list all of the varied organisms on Earth and define what "kind" they each belong to. It just says "God created lots of things, each according to their kind." Modern taxonomic classification, by itself, is not incompatible with that statement.
Do you agree?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 350 by ICANT, posted 01-06-2010 3:56 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 360 by ICANT, posted 01-07-2010 3:51 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 363 of 425 (542102)
01-07-2010 4:20 PM
Reply to: Message 360 by ICANT
01-07-2010 3:51 PM


Re: Kind
This is disappointing, ICANT.
Your entire response can be boiled down to simply:
Modern taxonomic classification is incompatible with Bible "kinds" because it assumes all life forms evolved from a single cell life form "kind".
This statement is wholly false. Modern taxonomy does not prove evolution - at least, not by itself. It lends supporting evidence if you include genetics and the fossil record (among other things), but alone the classification of life forms by their similar morphological characteristics says absolutely nothing more than "look, all these critters have a backbone, and all these other critters are unicellular."
Taxonomy does not presume evolution. Taxonomy predates the Theory of Evolution by many years. Carl Linneaus, the father of modern taxonomy, died before Darwin was even born. And before him, the ancient Greek Aristotle was classifying organisms (well, everything actually, not just life) according to their common features. Obviously the classification of living things by their physical characteristics could not possibly be intended to prove a theory that didn't yet exist.
If evolution is disproved completely tomorrow, the classification of living organisms by their morphological characteristics would still be valid.
If the Bible is literally true and all living things were Created, not evolved, individually by God, the classification of thsoe living things by their morphological characteristics would still be valid.
Whether 2 kinds of animals have backbones or not has nothing to do with whether they have a "soul," whether they were created by God, or whether all live sprung from a single common ancestor. Regardless of whether any of those things is true or false, you can directly observe whether the organisms possess backbones.
You have a backbone. This, by definition, makes you a vertebrate. Cats, dogs, lizards, snakes, birds, whales, and fish are also all vertebrates, because they have backbones. This is undeniably self-evident, ICANT, because right now at this very moment you can look at any dog, any cat, any human being, any bird, and see that they do, in fact, have backbones and so are in fact by definition vertebrates.
That you disagree that you fit into the vertebrate classification means only that you are so determined to disagree with me that you will deny self-evident indisputable fact, and that is disappointing.
We create cars, each after their kind. A Durango is not a Civic is not a Taurus. But we can say that they all have four wheels, and they all have internal combustion engines, and they alll have passenger compartments.
Why can't we agree that it's possible to do the same with living things, ICANT? Whether life was magically Created by a deity, or evolved from common ancestors, isn;t it possible to classify them all by their common characteristics? Regardless of whether God simply re-used design features He thought worked well, or if features evolved through descent with modification, those similar features still objectively and self-evidently exist, don't they? Dogs and cats still have fur? You and I both have backbones, as do snakes and lizards and birds?
Taxonomy is in no way incompatible with the Biblical usage of the word "kind." Both the Bible and taxonomy agree that all dogs are of the "dog" kind. Taxonomy jsut uses different words to say the same thing, and goes into more specific detail.
So I'm going to ask again, ICANT. Let's imagine that you discover an animal, and you need to determine whether it belongs to an existing kind, or if it's a kind nobody's ever seen before. How would you make such a determination? Wouldn't you compare the creature's physical characteristics with those of other animals, and see if it belongs to an existing kind? Perhaps you just discovered a new "hybrid" version of a bear, and so it would be of the "bear" kind. Wouldn't you make that determination by looking at its morphological features determining that they are similar enough to other bears that this must be a bear as well?
I honestly can't think of any other way to do it. I don;t know of any other way to determine what "kind" a given animal is other than to observe its physical characteristics and compare them to those of other animals, and see where it best fits.
And that's all that taxonomy does. It groups animals according to their common characteristics so that you can determine what kind a given organism is. That's all. And those common characteristics self-evidently exist regardless of a soul, or the existence of a deity. If you have a soul and a dog doesn't, are you not both still warm-blooded with two lungs, a heart, a brain, and a backbone?
I really cannot understand why you insist that taxonomy is unacceptable, ICANT.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 360 by ICANT, posted 01-07-2010 3:51 PM ICANT has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 368 by greyseal, posted 01-08-2010 1:35 AM Rahvin has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 374 of 425 (542552)
01-10-2010 5:33 PM
Reply to: Message 372 by ICANT
01-10-2010 4:12 PM


Re: Kind
Well I did not say the goldfish and the blue whale were the same kind. The goldfish as his name implies is a gold colored, "fish kind".
The whale would be a sea serpent kind.
To expand on bluescat's question -
If I were to give you a big list of oceanic species, how would you determine which ones were of which kind>

This message is a reply to:
 Message 372 by ICANT, posted 01-10-2010 4:12 PM ICANT has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 412 of 425 (543125)
01-15-2010 2:38 PM
Reply to: Message 411 by ICANT
01-15-2010 1:52 PM


Re: You still haven't actually defined "kind"
Hi ICANT,
All I want is a description of how you determine what kind a given creature belongs to. Nothing more. If you say "I look in the Bible and see what it says," I'll accept that, even though obviously the Bible doesn;t spend much time classifying living things.
The Bible says that God created all of the fruit-bearing plants, all of the creeping things and beasts of the Earth, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea.
Are those kinds, ICANT? Is a duck of the Duck Kind, or the Bird Kind? Both? What differentiates a bird from a creeping thing? From a fish? From a fruit-bearing plant?
We're working without definitions here, ICANT. Explain it as if you would to a 1st-grade child. How do I know that animal x is a duck, and animal [i]y[/y] is a dog?
The general sense that I get from you is that "kinds" are basically populations of animals that bred true. As you say, two dogs will always produce a dog.
But then, two birds will always produce a bird. Two fish will always produce fish offspring. Is there a Bird Kind? A Fish Kind? Or is your definition of Kinds "any population that can interbreed to produce viable offspring, but which cannot do so with other populations?" This would be more like the species level - since a duck and a finch cannot interbreed, there can be no Bird Kind, but rather there are a Duck Kind and a Finch Kind.
How do you tell the difference between a duck and a finch?
Modern taxonomy uses physical morphology. For instance:
quote:
Primates are collectively defined as any gill-less, organic RNA/DNA protein-based, metabolic, metazoic, nucleic, diploid, bilaterally-symmetrical, endothermic, digestive, tryploblast, opisthokont, deuterostome coelemate with a spinal chord and 12 cranial nerves connecting to a limbic system in an enlarged cerebrial cortex with a reduced olfactory region inside a jawed-skull with specialized teeth including canines and premolars, forward-oriented fully-enclosed optical orbits, and a single temporal fenestra, -attached to a vertebrate hind-leg dominant tetrapoidal skeleton with a sacral pelvis, clavical, and wrist & ankle bones; and having lungs, tear ducts, body-wide hair follicles, lactal mammaries, opposable thumbs, and keratinized dermis with chitinous nails on all five digits on all four extremities, in addition to an embryonic development in amniotic fluid, leading to a placental birth and highly social lifestyle.
I copied that bit directly from Aronra of Youtube, whose Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism series is a very well-made set of videos. Recommended viewing for all.
But the point is that the physical features of an organism are used to determine how we classify them in science.
Is that what you do as well? I mean, we can all (I hope) recognize a dog and a horse on sight and distinguish between the two - we learn the difference at such a young age that we find it difficult to even put into words the methodology we use to do so. But the fact is that we're observing the physical characteristics of the two animals and matching them up to what we know about dogs and horses. We know, if we think about it, that horses and dogs have the same number of limbs, for example, but completely different foot strictures. The shape of their skulls both include elongated snouts, but are very different in their specific shape, such that even if you were only presented with a picture of each animal's head you's still easily be able to distinguish between the two. Their teeth are different. Their eyes are different. Their shape is very generically similar, specifically very different and easy to distinguish.
Do we agree that the way we determine what a given organism is, is by its physical characteristics when we observe it, and how those characteristics match our definitions for named creatures? Or do you have a different methodology? If so, can you please explain it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 411 by ICANT, posted 01-15-2010 1:52 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 416 by ICANT, posted 01-15-2010 8:26 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 418 of 425 (543172)
01-15-2010 8:55 PM
Reply to: Message 416 by ICANT
01-15-2010 8:26 PM


Re: KIND
Hi ICANT,
I think we're making progress here. That's a pleasant change for you and I.
There are a lot of different bird kinds.
There are a lot of different fish kinds.
Okay. So "fish" is not a kind, but "bass" and "tuna" and "minnow" are kinds?
Is that correct?
I will try to clear this up for you.
In the beginning God created mankind, all plant life, all fowl of the air, and land creatures. There was no seas in the beginning therefore no fish were created then.
I would assume that when God cursed the earth with briars and thorns He also provided the pests.
I would also assume that God created seas and fish later because they existed at Genesis 1:21 as they were called forth after their kind. For that to happen they had to exist prior to being called forth.
These two assumptions are necessary as the Bible does not say.
Everything that exists today was called forth from a kind that existed prior to Genesis 1:2.
With the exception of modern man and whales who were created some 6,000+ years BP.
I think one of our biggest problems is that you believe the universe is only 13.7 billion years old with the earth only 4.5 billion years old.
When I believe they are infinitely old. That would put the creation of mankind, plants, animals and fowl infinitely into the past. There could have been trillions of each created in the infinite past as God did not stop creating until 6,000 years BP.
That would answer the question some have about what God was doing for eternity before he created the universe?
So If I have to sum up and try to nail down what I believe the Bible to say which really does not make one bit of difference in eternity I would say.
I;m trying to be very, very specific here ICANT, because I really think we can talk about kinds and how we identify organisms without talking about the age of the Universe, the origin of life, or any of the other things that you and I will just never agree on.
I think a tuna is a tuna whether tuna have been around for billions of years or twenty minutes, whether they evolved or were created by a deity. Don't you agree?
God created mankind. In mankind we have several different kinds.
I;m rather curious about this one. I thought you considered mankind to be one distinct kind. Now you say we have sub-kinds? Are you talking about races? If so, I'm curious as to why you'd identify human races as different kinds, but identify all dogs as one single kind.
God created animals (which includes everything in and on earth). In which there are many different kinds of animal critters.
God created fowl of the air. In which there are many different kinds.
God created water creatures. In which there are many different kinds.
Alright. I can fit this pretty easily into my unerstanding of taxonmy. "Fowl of the air" would be feathered animals, typically with hard beaks, hollow bone structure, etc. Within that very broad definition, we have individual kinds like ducks and hawks and eagles. Is that correct?
Someone asked me how I would explain a duck kind to a first grader and I will answer that here.
I would take a picture of a drake followed by a female duck (hen) followed by their brood. I would tell them what kind of a duck was in the picture. I would explain that the drake was the father duck and the hen was the mother duck and the little ducklings were their babies. I would then tell them that these baby ducklings could only be produced by a Father duck and a mother duck and that the father duck and the mother duck would never produce anything but baby ducklings just like them.
And what if the child pointed to a picture of a pellican, which looks vaguely similar to a duck? Or a swan? If the child asked you "How do I tell what's a duck and what's a pellican or a swan, if I just find one and don;t have someone to tell me," what would your response be?
My respnse would be that I distinguish between a pellican and a duck because of the easily observed physical differences. I'd tell the child "Well, these animals are similar, but they are also different. They are both birds, because they have feathers, lay eggs, fly, etc. The both swim in the water and eat fish. But ducks don't have the same type of bill that pellicans have - that big scoop-shaped part. Their bills are also of very different sizes compared to the rest of the body. Pellicans tend to be much larger than ducks, as well."
Is that something like what your respnse would be?
It takes two largemouth bass to produce largemouth bass fingerlings.
It takes two small mouth bass to produce small mouth bass fingerlings.
Of course.
So after all that I think I am defining kind as the same thing as a scientific species. Correct me if that conclusion is wrong.
Close to it.
It seems to me that you identify organisms by "just looking." You've seen so many horses and dogs, for example, that you don't need to think about it to be able to tell the difference.
The science of taxonomy just specifies what we're doing in the blink of an eye - defining the very specific physical characteristics that distinguish one "kind" from other "kinds," even ones that are very similar. You and I can both immediately tell a dog from a horse, but if we were writing a taxonomy paper, we would point out the morphological differences - hooves vs. paws, for example - that distinguish the two "kinds."
I think you do the same thing.
The reason I'm taking the time to discuss this with you in such fine detail is because I think it's the only way we can avoid the evolution/creation stuff and actually agree on some basics, and because it was always possible that you tried to use the Bible to specifically enumerate all of the "kinds" in existence. It doesn't look like you do that, fortunately.
What do you think? Are we pretty much in agreement at this point?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 416 by ICANT, posted 01-15-2010 8:26 PM ICANT has not replied

  
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