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Author | Topic: Biological classification vs 'Kind' | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Hotjer.
There's been a lot of speciation work with the Phasmatodea.
oi/10.1371/journal.pone.0001907]-->Here is one such paper from 2008. This sounds a lot like what you are talking about. Basically, what these researchers showed is that stick insects from the same species, but with different camouflage patterns, are favored on certain host plants, and vulnerable on others. So, natural selection eventually separates the two camouflage patterns on different host plants, and they are no longer able to interbreed, because they never come in contact with each other. Edited by AdminModulous, : fixed link -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Huntard.
Huntard writes: But isn't the result of this experiment that they can no longer interbreed even if they are forced together? Or did I misread it? Actually, the study I linked to* doesn't deal with that directly. The Timema stick insects they work with have been very extensively studied because of their "brown" and "green" ecotypes that differ in a number of ways. In the linked paper, if you scroll down to the portion beneath Figure 1, you can read all about work that was previously done on the ecotypes; you can also read this:
quote: This study wasn't what I thought it was when I linked it above. In this study, they didn't actually compare ecotypes within a species, but were comparing the "brown" ecotype of one species with the "green" ecotype of another from the same genus.
*The link still makes a smiley when I write it (even when I cut-n-paste from Modulous's edits in "peek mode"), and I can't figure out how to fix that, so you'll have to go back to Message 10 to get the link. Edited by Bluejay, : Double paste -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Everybody.
I thought I would throw this out there. From the Conservapedia article on baraminology, a methodology for demarcating created kinds:
quote: Obviously, this is only going to be accepted by Old Earth Creationists and the types who allow moderate levels of evolution (i.e. not Faith); and, equally obviously, this method is utterly useless on a practical level, but they’ve at least got a conceptual system going here. Now, if only they could provide some criteria for determining which theoretical animals "cannot exist," and which animals can evolve into others... -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Dr Adequate.
Dr Adequate writes: The problem is that this is not "clearly and unambiguously defined", because different creationists will admit different things. Yes, but the term "clade" is clearly and unambiguously defined as a single species and all its evolutionary descendents; and yet, different scientists will call different groups of organisms "clades." I don't see why creationists should have to all agree on which organisms fit inside which "kinds" when scientists don't have to all agree on which organisms fit inside which "clades." I doubt you’ll ever find a creationist who disagrees that the term kind is defined as an organism that God made, and all its descendants. Even though it’s a mess in practice; conceptually, it’s as clearly defined and unambiguous as any technical terms we use in mainstream science. The trouble is, as Caffeine said, only that their clearly-defined and unambiguous term does not match reality. -----
Dr Adequate writes: Indeed, the same creationist website will insist that a whole family is a "kind" on one webpage while denying speciation on another. And, virtually every scientific periodical has also published conflicting papers, sometimes even within the same volume, and even after both conflicting papers undergo peer review. How is this any different in principle from creationist disagreements? -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Paul.
PaulK writes: The typical creationist definition of macroevolution is evolution between kinds. And for that to be meaningful the definition of kind cannot rule out evolutionary relationships. It's no use a creationist insisting that macroevolution doesn't happen if any evolution that actually does happen - even if it is "molecules to man" - is all microevolution. I'm not sure I understand what your objection is exactly. The amount of evolution that happens within a "kind" and the extent and number of "kinds" are matters of disagreement among creationists. But, all creationists will agree that each "kind" represents an archetypal organism created by God. It’s really no different in principle from all scientists agreeing that clades are monophyletic lineages, but disagreeing on whether or not birds fit inside the dinosaur clade. It’s in practice, not in clarity of definition, that the kinds concept runs into problems. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Paul.
PaulK writes: By the definition of "kind" you referred to, any two life forms related by common descent must be in the same "kind". Therefore if all evolution within a "kind" is microevolution ALL evolution is microevolution. I don’t see how this relates. It, in fact, looks like affirming the consequent to me: you went from defining microevolution in terms of kinds to defining kinds in terms of microevolution. The definition I gave---which I feel accurately represents the creationists’ position (an organism* that God made, and all its descendants)---centers on the origin of a lineage, not on the changes within the lineage over time, as the defining characteristic. Any evolution that might happen after God created His archetypal organisms is a peripheral issue to the issue of defining kinds. So, if God created 700 archetypal organisms, then there are 700 kinds, and all organisms can, in principle, be identified with one of these 700 kinds. But, if God created only 1 archetypal organism, then there is only 1 kind. In this case, it does get a bit silly to talk about this as a distinct concept from mainstream evolutionary natural history, but, so what? That doesn’t change the clarity or unambiguity of the term kind: it just makes it usless in practice, not unclearly or ambiguously defined.
*In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have singularized this word: I doubt creationists argue that God only made one organism from each kind. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Fiver.
Fiver writes: The reason why creationists need to have a strict definition is because they are the ones making the claim... To make it clear, it is my position that creationists do have a strict definition of kind. -----
Fiver writes: ... they are the ones making the claim that we have never observed one "kind" change into another... indeed, that the "kinds" are immutable, and unable to split. Also to make it clear, I’m pretty sure that---minus the loaded lingo---evolutionists will make this same claim that evolution is cumulative and not saltatory. ----- Scientists often debate the different definitions of 'species' or 'clade' because they understand this fundamental fact of biology: that all life is in a state of flux, and that the history of life is the story of one species splitting into two, so the boundaries are necessarily often subjective.
Fiver writes: But having said that, even when considering the myriad of definitions for "species", ALL of them are more strictly defined than the Creationist term "kind"... I very strongly beg to differ. All descendants of a specific archetype created by God is at least as clear as all descendants of a common ancestor (clade) or a group of organisms that can interbreed (species). If we were there, at the moment of God’s alleged creation, we could very easily identify every single kind as it came off the line. That things have (according to creationists) changed to some degree since that time, such that kinds are not so easy to distinguish anymore, doesn’t mean that the definition of kind lacks clarity or strictness. -----
Fiver writes: ...and speciation has been observed in all definitions of "species" which can apply to living animals. Compare this to "kinds", where, as far as any definition of "kinds" go, it could be that all primates are the same "kind" (the Bible doesn't specify). Again, delimiting the scope of an individual kind is not the same as defining the overall concept of kind. Demarcating the boundaries between species and clades has a history of nebulosity at least as thick as demarcating kinds does, but nobody would say that the definition of clade (all organisms descended from a certain common ancestor) is unclear. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, PaulK.
PaulK writes: What I am saying is that a common creationist definition of "macroevolution" (defined in terms of kinds) implicitly uses a different definition of "kind". This can't be true. The common creationist definition of macroevolution that you presented in Message 29 is evolution between kinds. In this usage, "macroevolution" cannot specify a definition of kind: it simply uses whatever definition of kind is inserted there. So, it should work equally well, regardless of which definition of kind is used. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Straggler.
Straggler writes: Surely creos want to say that only micro-evolution is possible or necessary because this is just evolution within pre-existing kinds. No? It's because I used the word "descended" in my definition. A macroevolved, new "kind" would still have descended from an old "kind." As such, any new "kind" that came about would still fit within the old "kind," as per my definition, which defines "kinds" partly by descent. That's what Paul's talking about. Edited by Bluejay, : apostrophe-S -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Paul.
PaulK writes: A definition of "kind" that works with the definition of "macroevolution" as "evolution between kinds" cannot define kinds as separate creations for the reasons I've gone into. With all due respect, you don’t really go into things, Paul. What you do is more like mentioning things. And, I still disagree with you: creationists don’t define kinds by what they can and can’t evolve into. They try to identify kinds by what they can and can’t evolve into (that’s what baraminology is), but they define them by their relationships to the original, archetypal organisms that God created (or to the organisms on the Ark, which represent a subset of the archetypes created by God). That these kinds allegedly exist within potentiality regions which prevent transmutation between them is a different issue entirely. Potentiality is just a characteristic of life that happens to be diagnostically useful. Likewise, the position of sensory hairs on the legs or the shape of the genitalia are characteristics that are useful for identifying spiders; but, "species" is still defined by (presumed) reproductive incompatibility and such. ----- I suppose, though, that it would be appropriate of me to admit that there may be creationists out there who do define "kinds" by their characteristics, rather than by descent. But, I don't know of any off the top of my head. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Paul.
PaulK writes: Bluejay writes: With all due respect, you don’t really go into things, Paul. What you do is more like mentioning things. With all due respect I think that describes your position here more than mine. Come on, Paul: you write one or two sentences, and leave me to try to connect the dots for myself in every message. It took you six messages of two-liners, and you still didn't really articulate your argument in a way that anybody understood it: I had to do it for you, and I did it in one message. And, it’s not like I’m just throwing around random accusations, either. Three other people also jumped in and said that they didn’t understand what you were talking about, and nobody chimed in to say they understood you until after I explained it on your behalf. On the other hand, nobody (not even you) has asked me what I’m talking about yet. How you concluded from this that I’m the one not explaining myself is beyond me. -----
PaulK writes: Bluejay writes: And, I still disagree with you: creationists don’t define kinds by what they can and can’t evolve into. They try to identify kinds by what they can and can’t evolve into (that’s what baraminology is), but they define them by their relationships to the original, archetypal organisms that God created (or to the organisms on the Ark, which represent a subset of the archetypes created by God). You see, you haven't even understood my point. I'm not saying that creationists can't use your definition. My argument wasn’t about whether creationist can use my definition, either. My argument was a statement that they do use my definition. Show me a creationist who doesn’t. After finally figuring out what your argument is, I agree that there could very well be at least some creationists who will reject my definition. But, I can’t think of any that I’ve either debated with or heard about (other than the drooling, idiot type of creationists who don’t really know what they’re saying, anyway: I’ll let you be right about those with no complaints) -----
PaulK writes: Your point about baraminologists doesn't even address my argument unless you can show that they use the definition of macroevolution that I referred to, and explain how they deal with the problem. Then let me expound a bit more on the concept of descent from a creationist perspective. I admit that this is a bit speculative, but it comes from my assessment of creationists during discussions on this site. To the creationist, information-adding or new-structure-adding mutations break the rules of descent. They allow organisms to give birth to things that are not related to them. Birds and dinosaurs are clearly not related, so arguing that birds evolved from dinosaurs is saying that birds evolved from something they’re not related to, which is clearly (to them) bupkis. That’s why it’s such a big deal for them to say things like, a dinosaur laid an egg from which the first bird hatched or it’s still a bacteria: you haven’t shown it turning into a man yet. To a creationist, microevolution can happen by descent, but macroevolution cannot. They believe that there has to be some other kind of magic to make macroevolution happen. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Straggler.
Straggler writes: But that isn't the creationist argument as I understand it. I thought the whole concept of kinds pertained to that which was created and from which all else micro-evolved. That's my understanding of it, too. But, Paul obviously sees something different. It is kind of silly for creationists to define "kinds" by descent from unevolved sources, then to make a big deal about having never observed new "kinds" evolving from old ones. Still, I think this is exactly what they do, and I don't think there is actually a logical inconsistency there, other than a misapprehension that "macroevolution" breaks the rules of descent. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Paul.
First, I'm sorry: it wasn't my intention to start another fight; but I seem completely incapable of not starting fights on EvC recently. Maybe it's just about time for me to take another break. At any rate, I’m ending the bickering over our respective explanatory skills now. Clearly, we have some communication problems between us, but that wasn't an excuse for me to take a cheap shot at you.
PaulK writes: I can't believe that a creationist would resort to claiming that parent and offspring were unrelated. If you gave birth to a turtle, would you consider it to be your descendant? Or, would you think something had suddenly gone extremely screwy with the universe? This is what creationists who use your definition of macroevolution think we are proposing: that it takes more than just changes in characteristics to make something into a new kind. It's either that, or they believe that "macroevolution" doesn't refer to anything. Either way, they believe something that you and I both have a hard time believing they believe. The simple observation is that they demonstrably do define kinds by descent (and I still haven’t found or been shown any creationists who don’t), and they (some of them) demonstrably do define macroevolution as evolution between kinds. Thus, they must implicitly be considering macroevolution as something other than descent. Maybe it’s more of a no true descent, but this is clearly the implication of their using both of these definitions simultaneously (as they demonstrably do). Although it’s somewhat weird, it’s clearly superior to your argument, because the evidence supports it: we know that they are using my definition of kind simultaneously with your definition of macroevolution. Edited by Bluejay, : Addition. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Fiver.
Fiver writes: If we are to define "kind" as you suggest, then we clearly can't use this definition to support the Creationist claims... 1. The 'kinds' are immutable.2. There have been no new 'kinds' since the Creation. 3. Humans and other primates are in separate "kinds". 4. The animals alive today are descended from the original "kinds". But, all of these things would have to be true if my definition of "kinds" is true. Except, of course, for #3, which is just a practical matter of deciding which organisms group into which "kinds": a problem that I don't disagree---and have never disagreed---that creationists have. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2688 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, CS.
Catholic Scientist writes: I think we can allow that "all the decendants" would not include those that would be so different that they would be thought of as a new kind that came about through macroevolution, even though technically there could be a decendent that microevolved so much that it would be too different to be considered within the same kind. Actually, I'm on the same page with Paul on this one. Since I defined "kinds" to include descent, then no level of change can make a new organism be thought of as a new kind while still maintaining the integrity of the definition. You have to insert a clause that grants special circumstances when organisms change a lot. Paul argues that allowing some level of descent-based change to result in a new "kind" shows that creationists are not strictly using the definition that I provided, which would, at that point, prove that my initial assertion (that you will not find any creationists who disagree with my definition) is false. My answer, at this point, is that there is another option that allows creationists to weasel out of the contradictions that Paul demonstrated. It involves a twist on the only other major terminology involved in the definitional soup we’ve been batting around---i.e., the word descent. It’s my position that we have abundant evidence that creationists do use my definition of kind simultaneously with Paul’s definition of macroevolution, and, since the precedent Paul set is that contradictions in terminology are taken to mean implicit modifications to the usage of some other terminology, I propose that creationists who use these definitions simultaneously must be implicitly proposing that macroevolution violates the descent part of their definition of kind. And, this, to me, seems fully consistent with the knee-jerk reactions of creationists to birds hatching from dinosaur eggs or apes giving birth to humans. In fact, I think it rather elucidates the creationist mindset in some way: now, if only we could discuss it with a creationist to find out whether I’m on to something, or just on something. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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