Message 361 of 425 (542100) 01-07-2010 4:13 PM

Reply to: Message 357 by ICANT 01-07-2010 1:16 PM

The Hebrew word dag is what is translated as "fish" in Genesis 9:22, Numbers 11:22, First Kings 4:33, Second Chronicles 33:14, Nehemiah 3:3, 12:39, and 13:16, Job 12:8 and 41:7, Psalm 8:8, Ecclesiastes 9:12, Ezekiel 38:20, Hosea 4:3, Habakkuk 1:14, Zephaniah 1:3 and 10, and of course Jonah 1:17ff. Do all these uses really mean "sea monster"?

Here's an example

and another

and another

and this one in particular is nice.

This is talking about an actual sea monster, and expressing the idea that he can't be taken with tools suitable only for mere fish (dag).

And here's Jonah of course

and here's Jesus:

The Greek word ketos "cetacean" is commonly translated whale. As for example in the "Septuagint" version of Job 7:12 and Ezekiel 32:2, representing the Hebrew tanniyn. Is a tanniyn not a kind of dag? Is the Fish Gate in Jerusalem actually a Sea Monster gate?

. . .

And there I was, defending you. I thought you were trying to be honest. Shame on me.

Message 362 of 425 (542101) 01-07-2010 4:18 PM

Reply to: Message 360 by ICANT 01-07-2010 3:51 PM

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-Carl Sagan

Message 363 of 425 (542102) 01-07-2010 4:20 PM

Reply to: Message 360 by ICANT 01-07-2010 3:51 PM

Your entire response can be boiled down to simply:

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.

Message 364 of 425 (542106) 01-07-2010 4:38 PM

Reply to: Message 360 by ICANT 01-07-2010 3:51 PM

How about we create a new word, "backboners", which is simply a way for us to describe a creature that God created that he decided to install a backbone in.

You, me, fish, birds... we are all backboners.

Do you object to this classification?

How about 'twoeyes' - creatures that have two eyes. You, me, fish, birds - all twoeyes.

I'm not saying that these words mean anything other then a descriptive to let others know something about a creature.

So I say that I've just discovered a new critter that I've decided to name a "Bobblehead" and this creature is a member of the backboner group. You would immediately know that this animal has a backbone.

Do you object to this?

Edited by Codegate, : No reason given.

Message 365 of 425 (542109) 01-07-2010 5:39 PM

Reply to: Message 341 by ICANT 01-06-2010 12:51 PM

Well then, what exactly is a hybrid? That's all I'm asking. Let me rephrase the question again, though I thought that it was clear enough.

Way back in Message 246 you said:

quote:

---

If you breed wolves and dogs you get half wolf and half dog. Then you can call it whatever you want. But it is not a dog and neither is it a wolf.

---

Then in Message 275, when presented with this thyclacine

you replied to hooah:

quote:

---

In Message 271 you reference an extinct carnivorous marsupial and ask me if it is a Dog? Wolf? Kangaroo? Tiger?

It is none of those but was a carnivorous marsupial hybrid.

---

Do you mean that the thyclacine is not of a separate kind, but is instead a hybrid? If it so, why? Why isn't it just of the thyclocine kind? If it's a hybrid, just like the offspring of a wolf and a dog is a hybrid, then what two separate kinds were its parents, or at least its ancestors? Do you believe that this is the result of breeding a dog and a kangaroo and a tiger, or some combination thereof?

Or permit me to focus on what I believe are two simple questions:

What is your definition of a kind that makes a dog and a wolf two separate kinds?

What is your definition of a hybrid that makes both the thyclacine and the wolf/dog offspring both hybrids?

Now on to your questions, which pretty much come out to the same thing.

Can a female wolf and a male wolf produce something other than wolf pups? The short answer is no. But the short answer is very misleading.

Two animals that we would both call wolves will indeed produce something that also looks like a wolf, but that will be different in some degree from its parents. That wolf - if it's lucky - will produce offspring that resemble it but will in turn also be slightly different. Each generation will be similar to but not exactly like its parents. The difference between any two generations will not be very great. But the difference between generations further and further removed from each other will grow larger and larger. At some point, some descendent of that original wolf pair will look so different that you'd look at it and say, "Yep, that's a dog all right." But there was no single generation for which you could say that the parents were wolves and the offspring were dogs.

By way of analogy, let's talk about language. Way back in 100 CE there were some folks called Romans who lived in Italy and who spoke Latin. Their fellow Romans who lived in Spain spoke Latin, as did the Romans who lived in France (using the modern names for convenience).

Come around 500 CE and they're still speaking Latin, but now it's not quite the same Latin as everyone was speaking in 100, nor is the Latin of Spain the same as the Latin of France. You have distinct dialects.

Skip ahead again to 1000 CE, and you wouldn't say that any of the common folk are speaking Latin at all. What were once dialects still resemble Latin a lot, but they're different enough that you have to call them French and Spanish and Italian.

There are quite a few important things that this analogy helps illustrate, but the one I want to focus on for the moment is this: at no point did two parents who spoke Latin produce a child who spoke French. But the cumulative changes over time did ultimately change one language into another.

Likewise, cumulative changes over time in a breeding population can be and often are significant enough that what was once one species has now become a different one.

That's all. I hope that this helps.

Edited by ZenMonkey, : Spelling.

Message 366 of 425 (542131) 01-07-2010 7:59 PM

Reply to: Message 360 by ICANT 01-07-2010 3:51 PM

So what was Linnaeus purpose when he proposed his taxonomic scheme in 1735?
He managed to put species into taxonomic groups based on morphology long before the ToE was conceived. For example humans were put into the order Anthropomorpha which included primates and sloths, and this was part of the class Mammalia.

I realise you probably think classifying species is unimportant, since the diversity you've experienced seems to be what you've seen out your back window, but scientists have discovered millions of different organisms and need some way to categorise them so we know what we are referring to.

Message 367 of 425 (542157) 01-08-2010 12:04 AM

Reply to: Message 360 by ICANT 01-07-2010 3:51 PM

Can you think of any other way to classify millions of species?

Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Message 368 of 425 (542168) 01-08-2010 1:35 AM

Reply to: Message 363 by Rahvin 01-07-2010 4:20 PM

THIS.

I could quote the whole of the post, and to be honest I should because the whole post is made of awesome and win. It is of RAZD quality in it's simplicity and signal-to-noise ratio.

I CAN'T understand why ICANT has such a problem with a system designed by creationists, FOR creationists to explain creation just a little bit better.

Surely ICANT has to agree we know more than Adam? Surely ICANT can agree that modern day man can know more about a larger world that Adam can. Surely ICANT can agree that creationists were just trying to do what mankind has always done (for whatever reason) ever since we've stood on two legs to look up into the stars - get better.

It doesn't matter if we're made of dirt or whether we evolved, the taxonomic classification system is creationist in origin and designed only to further knowledge in god's creation.

What is it about new knowledge which is so damned frightening to creationists like ICANT? Even when theistic creationists come up with it?

Message 369 of 425 (542267) 01-08-2010 2:06 PM

Now, unless I'm very much mistaken:

* peg believes that wolves and dogs are the same kind

* icant believes that wolves and dogs are different kinds

* both claim to know The Truth

* both claim to be right

* both claim that "Kinds" is a perfectly adequate and in fact superior classification system than the creationist's taxonomy

* neither agree on the status of two very basic animals

peg and icant - why are you each right and the other wrong, and more importantly can you demonstrate which of you two a non-theist should side with?

Message 370 of 425 (542352) 01-09-2010 9:16 AM

Reply to: Message 288 by ICANT 01-01-2010 9:22 PM

You are a dishonest fuck.

I am from the south and I know the "polite" smile you dishonest fucks put on to keep up your ruse.

Not only am I from the south but my extended family is from Goodland, Kansas and boy, howdy, do we know how to really fuck someone over with a smile and a nod.

You, sir, are a first class piece of bullshit. It comes over in your posts, which I have been watching (and even *shudder* responding to) for years now.

I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt because you reminded me of my Grandfather, but you are a liar. Pure and simple.

That said, please define hybrid in a Biblical context and one that advances this conversation.

Please also show how the animal in question was on the Ark and how it got to where it was (now extinct, unfortunately).

ABE:

Please also explain the difference between the Thylacine wolf and the Oppossum.

Both are Carnivores. Both are Marsupials. Both could possibly be explained as hybrids.

Which kind are they each in?

Edited by Jaderis, : No reason given.

"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

Message 371 of 425 (542448) 01-10-2010 6:10 AM

Reply to: Message 357 by ICANT 01-07-2010 1:16 PM

So a goldfish, and a blue whale according to you are one kind but wolf and a dog isn't?

How did these animals become so diverse so quick?

What about invertebrates that live in the ocean like squid or shrimp, or even Jellyfish, are they also the same kind?

Message 372 of 425 (542547) 01-10-2010 4:12 PM

Reply to: Message 371 by Chippo 01-10-2010 6:10 AM

Welcome to EvC.

I am glad you said most as you missed Message 331 as everyone else has where I said:

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.

No

God less,

Message 373 of 425 (542550) 01-10-2010 5:23 PM

Reply to: Message 372 by ICANT 01-10-2010 4:12 PM

So what else is in the sea-serpent kind?

Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Message 374 of 425 (542552) 01-10-2010 5:33 PM

Reply to: Message 372 by ICANT 01-10-2010 4:12 PM

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>

Message 375 of 425 (542554) 01-10-2010 6:31 PM

Reply to: Message 372 by ICANT 01-10-2010 4:12 PM

All we are asking for is HOW do we determine the difference between kinds?

Is this:

the same "kind" as this?:

How about this:

is it the same "kind" as this?:

Is this:

the same kind as this?:

I'll let you chew on those for a bit.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-Carl Sagan