Creationists: give a coherent definition of "kind"

[Haven]

In last week's debate between young-earth creationist (YEC) Ken Ham and science advocate Bill Nye, the former tried to get around the problem of too many animals on the Ark by saying that Noah didn't bring two of each species, but two of each kind of animal. Among YECs, Ham is hardly alone in using this term as a stand-in for actual biological taxonomy, and, like other YECs, he didn't offer a scientifically rigorous or even logically coherent definition of the term (he said it was 'like a family,' but made an exception for the family Hominidae, which includes both humans and the other great apes).

Can our resident creationists do better?

Debate questions: What, in biological terms, is a 'kind?' How does this term relate to biological categories, like 'species,' 'genus,' or 'family?' How many 'kinds' are there? What scientific justification do you have for using this term instead of well-established biological taxonomy?

Lastly, if you can't provide a coherent definition, will you agree to stop using the word 'kind' in debates about biology?

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 156 by Ooberman]

Volbrigade, if you aren't a scientist, how do you know enough to comment on the failings of science and scientists?

It's quite simple, my dear fellow.

I am superior.

Wouldn't you have to understand what you are criticizing in order to be taken seriously?

That understanding I have, in abundance. It was given to me by the Magic Evolution Fairy, who is also the one that told me about God's existence. "You don't think I created the universe, like those silly nitwits seem to think, do you?", were the words it used.

It is privileged information, bestowed only upon those who are willing to question their dreary materialist indoctrination into the idea that everything in the universe -- including life; including intelligence; including mind; including soul -- is merely the result of the interaction of matter.

Should you become privy to it, as I have, you will have no problem whatsoever in discerning and dismantling the solipsist fairy-tale reasoning that is used to defend the lie that microbes turned into men.

And, you will begin to notice that your solid waste has a distinct rose-fragranced bouquet.

Seriously -- there's these things called books. And a new-fangled invention called the internet. You'd be amazed at what you can find out on them, if'n you know where to look.

The main thing is, it's important, before you start looking -- as well as while doing so -- to develop abilities with regard to critical thinking, logic, and rationality.

Otherwise, you will never overcome your immersion into the ideas that God doesn't exist; that Jesus Christ is not your savior; that the universe is "just one of those things"; and that the sequence of life is "from the goo to the zoo to Mu to you."

[Ooberman]

Thanks, Vol, for the clarifications. I will consider them appropriately.

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 122 by The Me's]

Saying that the Bible is fiction is an opinion and does not insult a specific person, or any for that matter. It is the same as saying that Mother Goose is fiction. You have not been insulted in anyway.

Hiding an answer inside the excuse "it's my opinion" doesn't cut it, especially when the answer itself was written with ridiculing and condescending language.

Again, considering the last 300 years of archaeology, the only way you can have this "opinion" of the Bible is to be functionally illiterate.

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[Goat]

[Replying to post 151 by Goat]

It is shown to be true by a careful examination of the preponderance of the evidence. Just as the notion that an impersonal "something" caused the universe ('just as long as it's not a person!' -- as I've already iterated), which just happened to produce life in due course (it's just what this universe does, man), which just happened to evolve into the sort of intelligence that can contemplate how it got to be life in this universe -- that notion is shown to be untrue, by both an examination of the evidence, and the necessity of logic, coherence, and consistency.

Please, present this 'preponderance of evidence'. That is the part that theists keep on missing. They claim it, but, well, when the evidence is presented it appears to be flawed.

So, show your data, and show WHY your interpretation of the data is correct.

Show that your 'evidence' is not merely confirmation bias. Show how your declarations of 'logic, coherence and consistancy is not word salad that boils down to the simple words 'I told you so'

The evidence for a global Flood, as described in the Bible, gives authenticity and credence to Scripture. As does its record of the history of the Jewish people, which is continually affirmed.

Yet, you have not shown evidence of a global flood. I will challenge you on a head to head about any evidence you want to present. I would also challenge you on much of the claimed Jewish history. One thing I noticed is that there are a lot of pseudo archeologists in Israel that make claims about things, and can't back them up. They use the bible as the guide, and every shard of pottery confirms something (even if it doesnt')

But the Crowning (a term used judiciously ) confirmation is the record of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is by His victory over death that we can be assured that He is who He claimed to be -- the God of Heaven and Earth -- and it is by His assurances that we may hold to the veracity of Scripture in regard to the Genesis accounts of creation and the Flood.

And the evidence, examined through the lens of this worldview, confirms it.

You cannot get more "true" than that.

I would love do see your evidence that the Resurrection is more than just religious dogma, speculation and myth. That is one big claim, and I would love to see that 'evidence'. Let's see you provide evidence for that from outside a document that has religious motivations, rhetoric and dogma in it.

[McCulloch]

I've already addressed everything you've brought up, with the exception of your objections toward the fact of Jesus' life and resurrection; which are specious; and since they're not the subject of this thread, will not respond to here.

Fair enough, I will search for your specific answers in my spare time. And I will try to keep my comments on topic.

Again: to maintain your faith that microbes turned into men, you have to believe that the universe is either uncaused; or that the cause is some impersonal force.

Not so. There are many theistic evolutionists. They believe that microbes evolved into larger more complex organisms yet also believe that the universe has a personal (or not less than impersonal) cause. As to faith, I leave that to the religionists. As far as it is possible, I seek to align my beliefs with the available evidence, logic and reason. If the support for a particular proposition is weak, then my confidence in the truth of that proposition is lower.

And that life assembled itself in a blender, and grew into all the present forms and functions we now encounter, because there's magic in the air that makes it where 'that's just what life does'.

Magic is another thing left to the religionists. God, it is said, formed humans from dust and magically breathed life into it. Evolution is in no way based on magic. It is based on our understanding of biology, chemistry and physics. Observable processes that we know occur.

As far as the definition of "kinds": if we didn't waste such enormous time, resources, and talent trying to prop up the failed theory that defines our age, we would undoubtedly be a lot further along with regard to specific information about what they may have manifested as aboard the Ark.

Yes, lets end a post in a debate thread specific to the problems arising from the unscientific use of the word "kinds" as used by creationists with a blanket dismissal of the very topic.

And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.

You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female; also of the birds of the sky, by sevens, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth.

Interestingly, a creationist by the name of John Woodmorappe, has suggested that only 8,000 kinds of animals would have been taken on the ark. [Answers in Genesis] There are two major flaws with this assertion. Firstly, the number is ridiculously low. There is no way that evolution to have worked on only 8,000 kinds of animals into the diversity we now know in only a few thousand years. It seems ironic that the evolution deniers now have to rely on a kind of hyper evolution in order to make their theories work. Secondly, the number is ridiculously high. It would have been impossible for just eight people to have cared for that number of animals in a confined space for several months. Details at RationalWiki.org/wiki/Caring for the animals in Noah's_ark. Watering, Feeding, Dung, Urine, Parasites, Swamp engineering and Injury to animals all provide impossible logistics. I am curious. Which direction do you think believers in the literal flood should go? Is Woodmorappe close to correct, finding the perfect balance of impossible logistics and impossible evolution? Or is his estimate too high, Noah must have had fewer kinds of animals, making the post-flood overpopulation of the even more fantastic than even he imagined? Or is his estimate too low, Noah and his family must have been powerful, insightful workers, performing superhuman feats of animal husbandry?

The rational conclusion, reached by liberal and progressive Christians as well as non-believers, is that the Flood tale is a myth. There is no geological evidence of a world-wide flood. There is no biological evidence of a world-wide extinction event within human history. The tale, as recorded, is like all tall tales, impossible to believe as written.

[Volbrigade]

I will respond here to Mac's and Goat's objections, assertions, and demands for evidence as one; since they are similar in subject and tenor, if not tone.

First -- regarding the demands for evidence: I come to his site for amusement. I am not interested in a detailed blow for blow over ever facet of the 'Evolution vs. Biblical Truth' debate; nor am I compensated monetarily nearly enough to justify the time and effort. There are organizations with websites that ARE devoted to providing the evidence both for a global Flood, and against the Evolutionary myth; and they have copious writings available for free of both a general and technical nature. If you like, and cannot find (or are unaware of -- a telling omission; Creationists MUST be aware of Evolutionary claims; Evolutionists almost NEVER have any understanding of Creationist ones; or pick the weakest arguments or positions that are rejected by leading Creationists, and argue against those) them, send me a PM, and I will be happy to point you in their direction. I will even provide links to rebuttals of specific Evolutionary claims -- simply because I am a wonderful human being ). Other than that, I will continue to promote my understanding of the claims made by Creationist scientists, just as you continue to promote your understanding of the claims made by Evolutionists. However, I am not inclined to make this a battle over sources. That you reject mine, as I reject yours, is a given. That rejection is based on the interpretation of the data and evidence, which follow from the premises, presuppositions, and biases with which they are viewed and examined (I can't seem to say that often enough).

There is no appropriate analogy for the stance that says "I will look at the evidence impartially, and determine whether or not it leads to a theistic conclusion". Because we are dealing with something for which there is no analog: the existence of God Himself. I suppose the "piano" one gives us a flavor of the dilemma: 'looking for God in the clockwork of His creation is like looking for a tune in the machinery of a piano'. The thing is, if God is real (and following from that, if Scripture is true; His revealed Word; and following from that, if Jesus rose from the dead -- all separate issues from the fundamental premise; all connected by lines both direct and indirect), then the only way to accurately view His creation is from the standpoint of His reality as axiomatic and pre-conditional; all other views are definitionally a-theistic, and fundamentally in error.

You might keep in mind that this applies primarily to forensic science applied to the study of the past, regarding events that are unrepeatable (i.e., Creation, 'The Big Bang', the random assembly of living cells; their uphill increase in genetic information that ultimately produced the peacock feather and Einstein's brain. And please note: I don't ask for evidence of the latter two. There isn't any. There is however, abundant evidence for a Global Flood; again, I will be happy to point you toward the scientific support for it, if you like; and you can spend your time more constructively debating with the scientists that support it. Perhaps you can set them straight -- or vice versa ). The existence of God is not a factor in the performance of the kind of applied science that provides us with the wonders of technology: other than that form of science has flourished under the Christian worldview of a designed and ordered creation; and was stillborn under all others.

As to the issue of Woodmorappe’s claim (assuming that it is characterized accurately): Why is 8,000 specimens either too many or too few? Perhaps it is indeed one or the other; but an investigation of the claim from the standpoint of evolutionist presuppositions cannot yield a valid conclusion, if God was directly involved with the enterprise. For one thing, there is no reason not to believe that He might have imposed a sort of hibernation on many, most, or all of the animals; for another, the startling differences in traits between a Chihuahua and a Great Dane are evidence of the sorts of rapid (but downhill) development that are possible through natural (and/or artificial) selection in a relatively short time span.

I will leave off this already overly long missive with the words of one of the leading Creation scientists and Christian apologists of our time, as I think it speaks to the subject brilliantly:

“…(according to Evolutionists) creation is ‘unscientific’ because ‘the basic proposals of creation science are not subject to test ands verification’. But in the same breath, the critics tell us ‘scientists from many fields have examined these ideas and have found them to be scientifically unsupportable.’ But how could creation have been ‘examined’ (i.e., tested) if its ideas are ‘not subject to test’? Also, atheists claim that we should accept only scientifically testable claims – but that claim is not scientifically testable.�

[Goat]

“…(according to Evolutionists) creation is ‘unscientific’ because ‘the basic proposals of creation science are not subject to test ands verification’. But in the same breath, the critics tell us ‘scientists from many fields have examined these ideas and have found them to be scientifically unsupportable.’ But how could creation have been ‘examined’ (i.e., tested) if its ideas are ‘not subject to test’? Also, atheists claim that we should accept only scientifically testable claims – but that claim is not scientifically testable.�

Let's see, after a long winded piece of opinion that conveyed no useful information, you make a claim that is a straw man, and irrelevant. to me, it says "I don't have evidence, I don't want to look at evidence, I don't want to see if what I say about evidence is reasonable or accurate, I want to believe.'

I don't think that a quote from Pastor Chui shows shows a lack of reason.

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 156 by Ooberman]

Volbrigade, if you aren't a scientist, how do you know enough to comment on the failings of science and scientists?

It's quite simple, my dear fellow.

I am superior.

Wouldn't you have to understand what you are criticizing in order to be taken seriously?

That understanding I have, in abundance. It was given to me by the Magic Evolution Fairy, who is also the one that told me about God's existence. "You don't think I created the universe, like those silly nitwits seem to think, do you?", were the words it used.

It is privileged information, bestowed only upon those who are willing to question their dreary materialist indoctrination into the idea that everything in the universe -- including life; including intelligence; including mind; including soul -- is merely the result of the interaction of matter.

Should you become privy to it, as I have, you will have no problem whatsoever in discerning and dismantling the solipsist fairy-tale reasoning that is used to defend the lie that microbes turned into men.

And, you will begin to notice that your solid waste has a distinct rose-fragranced bouquet.

Seriously -- there's these things called books. And a new-fangled invention called the internet. You'd be amazed at what you can find out on them, if'n you know where to look.

The main thing is, it's important, before you start looking -- as well as while doing so -- to develop abilities with regard to critical thinking, logic, and rationality.

Otherwise, you will never overcome your immersion into the ideas that God doesn't exist; that Jesus Christ is not your savior; that the universe is "just one of those things"; and that the sequence of life is "from the goo to the zoo to Mu to you."

Now you defend your positions with delusions of grandeur and a superiority complex?

Crazy IMO the lengths some people are willing to go to in order to hold a preconceived idea.

Your justification is not rational, therefore I submit you hold your beliefs out of fear of hell and a promise of some heaven. It certainly does not seem due to any evidence. I really can't blame you, I was in your shoes for 2 decades.

Examine everything carefully, and hold on to that which is good.
Be well.