"Best" evidence for evolution.

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The idea is to identify as many recognizable points of similarity between the structures as defining the Kind into which they fit.

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You say that but we don’t see any sign of it. All we see is you classifying differences as important or unimportant depending on the conclusion you want to reach.

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Uniqueness like the owl's makes it a subkind or subspecies since it would no doubt share all the points that identify birds.

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As I have said before that applies to any taxonomic grouping. The issue is what makes a taxonomic grouping a kind rather than a sub-kind or super-kind. And on that you are silent. Yet it is a fundamental point, and one that is absolutely essential to your project.

You say you haven't seen it but you should have because I got pretty far with some of it. I don't remember anything about differences, just identifying a group by points shared by all its members. Birds for one. dogs for another. Trilobites. Such groupings have no higher groupings since they are the Kinds, but they would have lots of subgroupings.

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You say you haven't seen it but you should have because I got pretty far with some of it.

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Then why have you never talked about it?

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I don't remember anything about differences, just identifying a group by points shared by all its members.

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Which applies to all taxonomic groupings. Species, genera, families, orders, phyla, even kingdoms. All of them are identified ab points shared by all their members. How often do I have to point out this basic fact, which goes back at least as far as Linnaeus ?

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Birds for one. dogs for another. Trilobites. Such groupings have no higher groupings since they are the Kinds,

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Unfortunately for you they do. And that is in Linnaeus, let alone modern taxonomy. It’s been a point frequently mentioned here, too.

Thousands of biologists over hundreds of years have been doing exactly that. If you do it yourself, you'll arrive at the same result. It'll take you a few hundreds of thousands of woman hours. To do just some of it. I have another prophesy for you and I have a 100% success rate so far as you know.You won't do any of this. I'm almost certain that you will never even start.

No, they saw a lot of it differently. I group wolves, coyotes, foxes and forget the other one all in one Kind with dogs. All cats are one Kind, I think they split them. I group donkeys and mules with horses. Etc.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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No, they saw a lot of it differently.

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If all you were doing is grouping creatures by points shared by their members that wouldn’t be true. They’d be doing it a lot more rigorously and taking more features into account but they’d be doing the same thing.

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I group wolves, coyotes, foxes and forget the other one all in one Kind with dogs. All cats are one Kind, I think they split them. I group donkeys and mules with horses.

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Which means only that they identify sub-groups by shared features. They aren’t looking for Kinds. As I pointed out they also identify higher level groups by shared features.Which brings us back to the question of what makes one of these groups a Kind but not its sub-groups or the supergroups containing it.

Any higher grouping is going to bring together groups that do not share all the same points among themselves. I want to identify ONLY those that share THOSE points with each other. I don't think they are shared at all outside the group either but that is going to take more thought. That is, a dog's paw is unique to dogs and shared with all of them in tht Kind, and will not be found in any other grouping, but only with other members of that Kind. A cat's eye same thing. You won't find birds' wings anywhere else but on birds. Etc. As I said it will tak a lot more thought but each point or feature should belong ONLY to that Kind and not be found in any other. Similarities but not identity.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Any higher grouping is going to bring together groups that do not share all the same points among themselves.

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Which applies to all but the lowest level groupings. So it seems that you should be going for species or even subspecies.

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I want to identify ONLY those who share THOSE points with each other.

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The question is how you choose THOSE points rather than another set that gives a different grouping. Why subdivide the mammals and not the birds - for one example.

Do you have access to actual specimens like Linnaeus had?Just wondering what data you are using.Enjoy

Yes, because if you classify organisms by form, you'll get the same answer that they do. You have to because you're looking at the same things and putting them into the same boxes. Well you can do that if you like, biologists do exactly the same; they just do it in detail and give the groups different names. In your case 'kind' would be Family Canidae Ditto every other group.

But you have no evidence at all that, "evolution uses up genetic variation and eventually runs out and where it runs out is the boundary of the Kind".At first creationists say living organisms can't change, they say that different dog breeds are still dogs, so no evolution has happened. That's like saying it's impossible to walk from New York to California because you've only walked around the corner. Talk to Lewis and Clark about long journeys.Then creationists say no new species have evolved. But they have, as I mentioned EvC Forum: "Best" evidence for evolution..Then creationists say that the change involved in evolution of those new species isn't "big enough", in some sense, to make them happy. That's like saying since Rome wasn't built in day it wasn't built at all.What do you think happened? That over billions of years billions and billions of little miracles happened, bringing into existence new forms of living creatures just in time for them to lay down their bones or shells or pawprints at the right place in the fossil record? Or do you ignore the fossil record entirely and say all the creatures were created at once and what we see now is the result of trilobites and Cooksonia and dinosaurs and Archaeopteryx and sabertooth tigers etc. etc. etc. all dying out over time?

I can't make out your chart very well but I'd guess that you are right, that I'd make Canidae my Species or Kind. Everything above that is irrelevant for my purposes. I'm looking for groups that are morphologically identifiable by an unvarying list of features, and genetically related. Carnivora and Mammal certainly don't help with the kind of classification I want to do since there is no possible genetic relationship and no morphological identity that defines them.I do want groups that I think are all genetically related and that is probably the Canidae in this case. So I don't see any need for any class above that for defining the original created Kind. The groups above wouldn't be genetically tied together but also they wouldn't be morphologically related as I'm trying to put it all together. Mammals and Carnivora are way too broad. The Kind or Species should share particular features with no variation in that part of their structure. All cats have an identifiable paw. It's shared by all of them and NOT found in any other group. Yes I know some have less retractable claws than others, but they are groupable by all other factors. That's the idea.So to sketch out my list of Species or Kinds: I think Birds/Aves (including penguins, ostriches, owls), Cats/Felidae (tigers, lions, leopards, panthers, bobcats, mountain lions, domestic kittycats), Dogs/Canidae (wolves, coyotes, foxes), Cattle/Bovine (buffalo), Pigs/Swine? Apes, Deer/? (moose, gnu, reindeer etc) make Kinds by the features or characteristics that are shared among every individual member of the group AND by being genetically related, which for the most part I guess I have to suppose at this point since I probably can'[t prove it.So I think my categories aren't quite those you say I must share with the taxonomists.ABE: On second thought I think you may be right. At least "Family" in this case does define the Canidae that I would call the Kind. The classifications below it seem unnecessary though, just various subspecies. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I've got enough evidence for starters* even if I couldn't convince you with it. It makes me too tired to think of trying to make any kind of case to you at the moment. You wouldn't stick around for it anyway and I'm not thinking along those lines at the moment. You have the usual boring assumptions about how you can just keep going and going and going as if the genome didn't have built in limits. Oh well.I really don't know what "creationists" say about a lot of things, I work out my own views.What do I think happened? Well I certainly don't think there wre any billions of years. I do base it all on the Bible you know. There was no death at the original Creation, all death and diseases occurred as a result of the Fall which affected animals as well as human beings. All living things were originally created as separate Kinds with a limited but really quite large range of possible genetic variation in each genome which plays out down the generations in a beautiful array of variations on the theme of the Kind. An enormous number of such variations must have died in the Flood of Noah.I think the Fossil Record is just the collection of living things that died in the Flood and got buried in separate sedimentary strata all over the planet. Perfectly mechanical sorting event. Well the Bible said the purpose of the Flood was to kill everything and the fossils are evidence of that. The "record" is an illusion. Many creatures that had lived before the Flood died in the Flood, the dinosaurs for instance, the trilobites for instance, Archaeopteryx.*Evidence: Since as far as I know there is no genetic evidence of reduced genetic variability in the populations where I would expect it, I generally point to breeding programs where it is clear that you must lose genetic diversity to get the breed you want. Take dogs. Yyou have to eliminate all the genetic material that does not contribute to the qualities you want in your breed. Eventually this means you MUST reach genetic depletion and the evidence for THAT is that purebreds are subject to deformities and diseases. Purebreds used to be defined by many fixed loci (homozygosity) for the genes that determine the qualities of the breed. That's genetic depletion.Edited by Faith, : Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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I can't make out your chart very well but I'd guess that I'd make Canidae my Species or Kind. Everything above that is irrelevant for my purposes. I'm looking for groups that are morphologically identifiable by an unvarying list of features, and genetically related.

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That would be all of them. Any one of them would do.

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Carnivora and Mammal certainly don't help with the kind of classification I want to do since there is no possible genetic relationship and no morphological identity that defines them.

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But that is how those groups are identified. The morphological features in common define the groups. And genetic analysis confirms that. Surely you’ve heard of the twin nested hierarchies ? THAT is what we’re talking about, one defined by morphology, another by genetics and they match.And that is why you are hopelessly wrong. You can take back your claim to have read Linnaeus since you’ve clearly missed the central point. And your claims about the genetics are simply assumptions, too.So all we have is your decrees against science.

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I think the Fossil Record is just the collection of living things that died in the Flood and got buried in separate sedimentary strata.

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An idea which is simply the product of your dogmatic belief in a mythical Flood.

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Perfectly mechanical sorting event.

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That is obviously impossible. The sorting would have to be based on physical properties - and it obviously isn’t.

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The "record" is an illusion

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So is it a record of the Flood or just anillusion? (and how can it be an illusion? The existence of the fossils and the locations of their discovery are objective fact).