Beetles and Creationism

Originally posted by bbarr
Yes, I understand this view. If lions and tigers can successfully interbreed, then by your criterion they are of the same kind, correct?

I think the definition of "kind" in the Bible would be much broader than biological "species" (for example). "Kind" might differentiate by things like "animals that chew the cud, or animals that have split hoofs. Leviticus 11 gives some examples of different "kinds" of animals relative to which are considered "clean." Most of the differences have to do with physical features.

I don't know of breeding would be a criteria, but if someone knows of a reference that includes that let me know.

Originally posted by Coletti
I think the definition of "kind" in the Bible would be much broader than biological "species" (for example). "Kind" might differentiate by things like "animals that chew the cud, or animals that have split hoofs. Leviticus 11 gives some examples of different "kinds" of animals relative to which are considered "clean." Most of the differences ha ...[text shortened]... eding would be a criteria, but if someone knows of a reference that includes that let me know.

So, moving along, with your definition of kind, how many different beetles were on the ark?

Originally posted by Coletti
I think the definition of "kind" in the Bible would be much broader than biological "species" (for example). "Kind" might differentiate by things like "animals that chew the cud, or animals that have split hoofs. Leviticus 11 gives some examples of different "kinds" of animals relative to which are considered "clean." Most of the differences ha ...[text shortened]... eding would be a criteria, but if someone knows of a reference that includes that let me know.

O.K., so now we have a theist arguing that unspecified morphological criteria determine kinds. Is this at odds with chinking's notion of a kind, or is it supplementary? If you all define macroevolution as a change in kind, and then ask us evolutionists for evidence of a change in kind, then how are we supposed to provide the required evidence if you all can't give us a rigorous definition of 'kind'. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for two creatures differing in kind? Without specification of this central notion, I see no reason to take your distinction between macroevolution and microevolution seriously.

Originally posted by frogstomp
and you haven't stated what the man is converted form and into, nor have you defines "faith" as used by Christ.

And have yet to show "faith" being connected to salvation.
as well you haven't defined "works"

As far as I know Christ didn't use either " faith", "works" or even "believe "in the Mat ...[text shortened]... ning of Christ's words for yourself , unless you think Christ incapable of delivering it.

and you haven't stated what the man is converted form and into, nor have you defines "faith" as used by Christ.

Faith: Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good report. 3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

You can read the whole of chapter 11 if you want to know more what faith is.

Being "converted" means a change of nature of man, where Christ now lives within man. This clearly cannot occur without faith in Christ.

Galatians 2:20 - I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Originally posted by dj2becker
[b]and you haven't stated what the man is converted form and into, nor have you defines "faith" as used by Christ.

Faith: Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good report. 3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the ...[text shortened]... ve in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. [/b]

more Paul?
I asked for how Christ used it , not Paul.

and don't give me that junk that it's all the word of God,,, cause Paul ain't God.

Originally posted by bbarr
O.K., so now we have a theist arguing that unspecified morphological criteria determine kinds. Is this at odds with chinking's notion of a kind, or is it supplementary? If you all define macroevolution as a change in kind, and then ask us evolutionists for evidence of a change in kind, then how are we supposed to provide the required evidence if you all can ...[text shortened]... n, I see no reason to take your distinction between macroevolution and microevolution seriously.

I think the overdue answer to your challenging question Bb, is somewhat hard to grasp, simply because it is so simple. Why not take the clues from the source? Genesis 1.


20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."



In rough terms only (God, I think, never intended the Scriptures to be textbook like), but clear enough to be understood by someone less than a taxonomist, a picture is given of the various types of animals God created. There are two points, perhaps, in this narrative; One is that God is responsible for all the animals that we find on earth, and two is that they can be classified. (In fact, we see in chapter two that God asks Adam to 'name' the animals. This was not a matter of being creative with names like Spot and Blackie, but rather, his task was to identify the differences and to classify them!)

Genesis 2
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.


But to address your point Bbar, and to end the argument rather abruptly, I would say that a kind might be identified by those creatures that have no transitional fossils found to connect them to each other! TaDA! (I think that's as good a definition as you might find, and it does fit the criterion of the creation model.)

We have found all kinds of fossils of tiny horses and giant horses, etc, and all should be identified as variants of the horse we know and love. But nothing in between the horse and whatever it is presumed to have changed from, so I would expect that there was a 'something like a horse' kind created originally.

Originally posted by bbarr
O.K., so now we have a theist arguing that unspecified morphological criteria determine kinds. Is this at odds with chinking's notion of a kind, or is it supplementary? If you all define macroevolution as a change in kind, and then ask us evolutionists for evidence of a change in kind, then how are we supposed to provide the required evidence if you all can ...[text shortened]... n, I see no reason to take your distinction between macroevolution and microevolution seriously.

That is a good point and I think it is also the problem with most ways of differentiating between animals. Species has many different definitions, some more vigorous than others. It is easy to define species in terms that makes it practically impossible for the evolutionist to observe - or it can be defined so that various breeds of dogs could be classified as different species.

Macroevolution is a difficult issue for science to deal with simply because the scale is too great for observation. Creationist and evolutionist alike can agree that "changes" occur from generation to generation. We can theorize what produces the changes we can observe - and test those theories. But science will never prove a common progenitor or that man evolve from a simple-celled life-form until we can travel back in time.

IMO what we have is a connect-the-dots drawing without numbers. We can not tell which, if any, are connected. We can only tell there are similarities between creatures on many levels.

Microevolution is what we can observe and repeat. Macroevolution is the speculation that fish evolved into man. It's good to speculate - it can produce creative theories to be further evaluated. It is good as long as we don't start to turn speculative theories into scientific certainty - unless one is honest that to do so is religion - not science.

Science should be held to a higher standard, an empirical standard. I do not think the Theory of Evolution (fish to man) meets that standard of science when it is pushed as "scientific fact". When TOE is pushed as scientific fact - it starts to become a dogmatic religion. I for one think religion is a fine thing, but only if we are honest about it.

Originally posted by frogstomp
more Paul?
I asked for how Christ used it , not Paul.

and don't give me that junk that it's all the word of God,,, cause Paul ain't God.

And do you think Jesus was God?

Originally posted by frogstomp
more Paul?
I asked for how Christ used it , not Paul.

and don't give me that junk that it's all the word of God,,, cause Paul ain't God.

Do you believe that the Holy Spirit is part of the trinity?

Originally posted by Coletti
And do you think Jesus was God?

Jesus says what he is to God, leave it at that.

Originally posted by chinking58

But to address your point Bbar, and to end the argument rather abruptly, I would say that a kind might be identified by those creatures that have no transitional fossils found to connect them to each other! TaDA! (I think that's as good a definition as you might find, and it does fit the criterion of the creation model.)

Well, that does end the argument, but not in the way you suppose. Either by your new criterion you mean:

A) Creatures are of the same kind if and only if we have discovered transitional fossils between them.

or...

B) Creatures are of the same kind if and only if there are transitional fossils between them in existence.

If the former, then two creatures may be of different kinds at time 1 and the same kind at time 2, if at time 2 we discover transitional fossils linking them.

If the latter, then you will not be able to determine, for any two creatures, whether they are of the same kind in those cases where we have not yet discovered transitional fossils linking them.

Further, this criterion succumbs easily to counterexample. Suppose that we found a series a transitional fossils linking reptiles and birds. If so, then by your criterion reptiles and birds would be of the same kind. But, by any standardly employed notion of kind, reptiles and birds are of different kinds (see your scripture for details).

Further, according to your criterion my grandfather and I would be of different kinds, since there are no transitional fossils linking the two of us.

These two counterexamples suffice to show that your putative criterion is neither necessary nor sufficient for sameness of kind.

Further, this criterion undermines your request that the evolutionist provide evidence for macroevolution showing change in kind. Suppose you ask us to provide evidence for the claim that one current population of organisms P2 evolved from some previous population of organisms P1. Suppose we then are able to show you a series of fossils that show gradual change from P1 to P2. Now, you will at that point deny that we have provided evidence for macroevolution, because our evidence consists of transitional fossils, and your criterion asserts that the presence of transitional fossils suffices for sameness of kind. In short, your criterion amounts to nothing more than the assertion that there can be no fossil evidence for macroevolution. Buth this is mere question begging on your part, and completely vitiates your "arguments" concerning macroevolution.

Basically, your criterion is absolute bunk. So, given the bunkiness of your criterion, why on Earth should we take your requests for evidence of macroevolution seriously? You can't even provide a well-defined notion of macroevolution, and when you attempt to specify the notion of a kind, all you do is rule out by mere stipulation the possibility of providing fossil evidence for macroevolution.

We have found all kinds of fossils of tiny horses and giant horses, etc, and all should be identified as variants of the horse we know and love. But nothing in between the horse and whatever it is presumed to have changed from, so I would expect that there was a 'something like a horse' kind created originally.

This is flat out wrong. Do your homework before you make these sorts of assertions, 'cause they end up making you look silly. Look up the evolution of the perissodactyls.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2b.html#peri

Originally posted by dj2becker
Do you believe that the Holy Spirit is part of the trinity?

read Christ.
What I believe isn't the point, it's what Christ says is the definition of trinity.

one clue though Paul isn't part of it.

Originally posted by Coletti
That is a good point and I think it is also the problem with most ways of differentiating between animals. Species has many different definitions, some more vigorous than others. It is easy to define species in terms that makes it practically impossible for the evolutionist to observe - or it can be defined so that various breeds of dogs could be classifie ...[text shortened]... ogmatic religion. I for one think religion is a fine thing, but only if we are honest about it.

You have no notion of macroevolution until you can specify what constitutes a kind. You have failed to do that. The biological species concept (the notion of 'species' that biologists actually use) is, at least, a rigorous and well-defined notion that is useful in tracking changes in populations of organisms over time. If you want to differentiate micro from macroevolution, then you need to specify just what is required for macroevolution to take place, and you have yet to do that.

The only dogmatism here is yours. You and your creationist ilk dogmatically assume that the small changes you agree take place during so-called microevolution cannot aggregate to whatever large scale changes you think sufficient for so-called macroevolution. You have never argued for this assumption, nor is there any evidence in its support. Given this, there is simply no reason for any self-respecting scientist or informed layperson to take your assertions about macroevolution seriously.

Originally posted by frogstomp
read Christ.
What I believe isn't the point, it's what Christ says is the definition of trinity.

one clue though Paul isn't part of it.

Sure it is. You are avoiding the issue. You don't believe the words of Christ or Paul. Your assertion that Christians should stick to the "red text" is moronic. You have never given any solid argument in your favor, and what you have said flies in the face of 2000 years of Christian doctrine. It is absurd for a person who rejects all the Bible to tell Christians what they should believe. That's like a a goldfish telling a seagull how to fly. Who are you to tell a Christian what defines a Christian?

Originally posted by Coletti
Sure it is. You are avoiding the issue. You don't believe the words of Christ or Paul. Your assertion that Christians should stick to the "red text" is moronic. You have never given any solid argument in your favor, and what you have said flies in the face of 2000 years of Christian doctrine. It is absurd for a person who rejects all the Bible to tel ...[text shortened]... dfish telling a seagull how to fly. Who are you to tell a Christian what defines a Christian?

Secret Decoder Ring Defense rides again!