Question for creationists

Since creationists love to claim that animals were created after their kind I have a very simple question. How do you determine which animals are part of which kind? For example, how do know that horses, zebras and donkeys are part of the same kind? Are cats and dogs the same kind? What about whales and cows? And how do you know that?

reply to post by NegativeBeef


Every speci. carries certain genes and have similar DNA that decides there "construction" if you will. Here's the big thing, I believe and know that there are more extinct speci. than there are living now. So the horse,zeba and donkey probably have more extinct cousins than live ones. This was brought upon by adaptation or non adaptation to climate changes, natural disaster or predation overpopulation.

I know where your going with this and what you should have asked was what was the platypus's kind.

Originally posted by NegativeBeef
Since creationists love to claim that animals were created after their kind I have a very simple question. How do you determine which animals are part of which kind? For example, how do know that horses, zebras and donkeys are part of the same kind? Are cats and dogs the same kind? What about whales and cows? And how do you know that?

Oh look.. this thread again.

An easy way to understand a "kind" is that if it can interbreed successfully it is classified as a kind. So a horse, a zebra, and a donkey are all part of the same kind. Kind's can't interbreed though; i.e. a dog and a cat can't interbreed or whales and cows because they are their own kind. If you think they can go try and mate a cat and a dog and see if they can produce an offspring, or a whale and a cow. I bet you won't be able too.

Originally posted by novastrike81

Originally posted by NegativeBeef
Since creationists love to claim that animals were created after their kind I have a very simple question. How do you determine which animals are part of which kind? For example, how do know that horses, zebras and donkeys are part of the same kind? Are cats and dogs the same kind? What about whales and cows? And how do you know that?

Oh look.. this thread again.

An easy way to understand a "kind" is that if it can interbreed successfully it is classified as a kind. So a horse, a zebra, and a donkey are all part of the same kind. Kind's can't interbreed though; i.e. a dog and a cat can't interbreed or whales and cows because they are their own kind. If you think they can go try and mate a cat and a dog and see if they can produce an offspring, or a whale and a cow. I bet you won't be able too.

That's gotta be the most piss poor definition of "kind" i have ever seen.
How do you explain speciation then? When 2 (or more) groups of organism who could originally interbreed successfully evolve and can no longer interbreed at all? Wouldn't that be a change in kind? Something that creationists say is impossible? Speciation has been observed many times in nature and in the laboratory.

And what about organisms that don't breed? what kind would they be?

And I would also like to see you explain ring species: where species A can interbreed with species B and species B can interbreed with species C but species C can't interbreed with species A. This would mean that A and B are the same kind, B and C are the same kind, but A and C are not the same kind.


[edit on 10-5-2010 by NegativeBeef]

Originally posted by NegativeBeef

Originally posted by novastrike81

Originally posted by NegativeBeef
Since creationists love to claim that animals were created after their kind I have a very simple question. How do you determine which animals are part of which kind? For example, how do know that horses, zebras and donkeys are part of the same kind? Are cats and dogs the same kind? What about whales and cows? And how do you know that?

Oh look.. this thread again.

An easy way to understand a "kind" is that if it can interbreed successfully it is classified as a kind. So a horse, a zebra, and a donkey are all part of the same kind. Kind's can't interbreed though; i.e. a dog and a cat can't interbreed or whales and cows because they are their own kind. If you think they can go try and mate a cat and a dog and see if they can produce an offspring, or a whale and a cow. I bet you won't be able too.

That's gotta be the most piss poor definition of "kind" i have ever seen.
How do you explain speciation then? When 2 (or more) groups of organism who could originally interbreed successfully evolve and can no longer interbreed at all? Wouldn't that be a change in kind? Something that creationists say is impossible? Speciation has been observed many times in nature and in the laboratory.

And what about organisms that don't breed? what kind would they be?

And I would also like to see you explain ring species: where species A can interbreed with species B and species B can interbreed with species C but species C can't interbreed with species A. This would mean that A and B are the same kind, B and C are the same kind, but A and C are not the same kind.


[edit on 10-5-2010 by NegativeBeef]

Would you rather me write a 5 page paper on how to define a kind or would you rather me sum it up for you? I'm not sure what agenda you're on to attack "creationists" but it seems rather lame if you ask me.

You never asked about speciation or ring species or whatever you want to talk about. You asked specifically about a kind and that's what a kind is. I'm sorry you feel the need to slam my definition when you seem to not understand science yourself. It's in the books go read it yourself. Why do you need a creationist to explain it to you when you already have the answers made up in your head to begin with?

You should really be specific on your questions. You leave them open to interpretation which means I can not give you an answer you're looking for. In turn I get called ignorant, so please do a better job of wording your questions.

Organisms that can't reproduce are their own separate species. I'm going out on a limb and guessing you mean organisms like virus' or bacteria.

It seems you just want to argue just for the sake of arguing to try and disprove creationism. I don't see any threads asking Evolutionists to post their ideas on why they think a certain way.

To answer your ring species question I'll supply an example of your question.

Three species of wildflowers called goatsbeards were introduced to the United States from Europe shortly after the turn of the century. Within a few decades their populations expanded and began to encounter one another in the American West. Whenever mixed populations occurred, the specied interbred (hybridizing) producing sterile hybrid offspring. Suddenly, in the late forties two new species of goatsbeard appeared near Pullman, Washington. Although the new species were similar in appearance to the hybrids, they produced fertile offspring. The evolutionary process had created a separate species that could reproduce but not mate with the goatsbeard plants from which it had evolved.

This would be a great example of macroevolution and what evolutionists generally try to portray as macroevolution in action. The example above is not macroevolution, but is simply due to a single genetic event known as polyploidy. The original goatsbeards from Europe were standard diploid (two copies of each chromosome) plants. However, plants often do not undergo complete monoploidy during meiosis (during the formation of the sex cells, or gametes). This means that the gametes may remain diploid. When diploid gametes fuse, a new polyploid "species" is formed. No new information is created (Do you have twice as much information if you copy one book to produce an identical copy? No!), but the chromosomes are duplicated. The new "species" cannot produce viable offspring with the original species simply because of the difference in number of chromosomes. With goatsbeards, the process has happened more than once. Of course, the two "new" species have the same number of chromosomes and can produce viable offspring, since they are virtually identical.

If you look at the speciation events that are listed as evidence of evolution, most of them will fall into the polyploidy plant category. Evolutionists often "forget" to tell the reader that the new "species" are unable to produce viable offspring with the parental species simply because of a chromosomal duplication event. How much new information added to the new species? None!

I don't mean to sound disrespectful but you should really go study up on things before posting your opinion. There is evolution in creationism, but you don't really seem to acknowledge this concept because it's not what you want to "believe".

So answer this for me. So to get the molecules to form and get the structure we see in DNA, macromolecules, you need an enzyme. So how do you get an enzyme to form when you need an enzyme to do what you want to do in the first place? If they never existed how did they come to be? They can't appear out of nowhere or evolve from a single-celled organism. I expect an answer similar to the "sciences of the gap".

Also which do you believe in in relation to the theory of evolution: gradualism or punctuated equilibrium?

If you want my definition of a "kind" I'd like your definition of a "species".

[edit on 11-5-2010 by novastrike81]

It's in the books go read it yourself. Why do you need a creationist to explain it to you when you already have the answers made up in your head to begin with?

Actually it won't be in the books. It's a vague term that needs to be defined. The amazing thing about life on Earth is its amazing diversity. To use a vague term like kind seeks to avoid addressing the amazing life forms we see.

There are many ways for plants and animals to reproduce. Some use asexual reproduction, some sexual.

The question is what is a kind. You gave a definition. It appears to that the answer requires some additional information. This is an opportunity to address those concerns and to learn more about the amazing diversity of life.

I don't think you are ignorant. I can't count the times that I have found my first attempts at a definition fairly bad. It is often more difficult than expected to get it right. Expect the difficult to handle case. Expect people to say, aha what about this? Look at it as an opportunity to learn. From my point of view I get to learn about the wonders of nature. From your point of view you could say to yourself that you are learning about the wonders of god. In either case, it is a learning experience and that is usually a good thing.

I don't see any threads asking Evolutionists to post their ideas on why they think a certain way.

There's a good idea. You might like doing that very thing.

if my Bible says whatever and it doesnt sound like it is rite, i'll tell yall what its RITE! its the book says God wrote and it is total sense if you imagin super powers and miracles and also it says are blue eyed jesus rules and is riteous and all others are bad especialy the cannites which are dark then beelieve it. jesus was not darker and has blue eyes and the Bible says he is good and no other.


[edit on 11-5-2010 by lemonfresh]

One thing that evolutionists often fail to consider is that all life forms on Earth do appear to have a common origin — a genetic starting point, if you will.

Nevermind that primates have 95% and more identical genes to humans — even a fekking banana is 58% human, if you look at the genetic markers.

And, of course, there are countless cases of human beings born with truly bizarre physical abnormalities — we've all heard of human beings born with residual tails attached to the base of their spines; stranger yet are the cases of humans born with webbed fingers and toes, or with reptilian (or avian) scales, or with amphibian gills.

Look at the evolution of a human embryo over the course of 9 months gestation. It seemingly assumes the identity of every type of life form, from a single-celled organism to a coelenterate, to fish, to an amphibian, to a reptile, to a bird, to a mammal in just a matter of weeks, before it ever assumes a human appearance.

Are evolutionists trying to tell me that we carry the intact residual information to reproduce a monkey, or a duck, or a turtle, or a salamander, or even a fish in our genetic blueprint?

Why on earth would such intact residual information linger in the human genome for millions of years after we evolved into such a specialized species?

We could, theoretically, isolate the proper genetic sequence and pull a living dinosaur out of our human genome, yes? Or a trilobite. Or a rhododendron.

Doesn't this seem a little odd to evolutionists?

Doesn't it seem even remotely feasible that the "human genome" is not a human genome at all but is something more akin to a universal genome containing the blueprints for many, many different species of life, a genetic sequence perhaps deposited intact on Earth 3 billion years ago, and out of which sprang every form of life we can name?

This would seem, to me, to be evidence of a one-source Creator, or at least a one-source genome deposited on the Earth through the theoretical process of panspermia.

— Doc Velocity

One thing that evolutionists often fail to consider is that all life forms on Earth do appear to have a common origin — a genetic starting point, if you will.

This is completely wrong. This is exactly what evolutionists assume happened. Evolutionists see the pattern of similarity and assume common ancestors.

The "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" argument does not hold. The idea was a theory held by Haeckel that is no longer believed to be correct and as such has been sidelined.

Are evolutionists trying to tell me that we carry the intact residual information to reproduce a monkey, or a duck, or a turtle, or a salamander, or even a fish in our genetic blueprint?

No, evolutionists are not stating this. This is an old and rejected argument.

We could, theoretically, isolate the proper genetic sequence and pull a living dinosaur out of our human genome, yes? Or a trilobite. Or a rhododendron.

None of these are possible since they are not on the same evolutionary path as humans.

Doesn't it seem even remotely feasible that the "human genome" is not a human genome at all but is something more akin to a universal genome containing the blueprints for many, many different species of life, a genetic sequence perhaps deposited intact on Earth 3 billion years ago, and out of which sprang every form of life we can name?

No. The genetic layout of humans is not the same as the genetic layout of even the closest living members of the apes. We have 23 chromosome pairs and other apes have 24 pairs. Some life has circular chromosomes and others linear. Some have over 1000 and others 8. So the answer to your guess is no.

The word "Kind" has no meaning in Science. It's a word invented by creationists, and I have yet to hear a standard definition of it from them that actually applies to known science.

It's basically a way to circumvent Taxonomy.

[edit on 17-5-2010 by PieKeeper]

Originally posted by novastrike81


To answer your ring species question I'll supply an example of your question.

Three species of wildflowers called goatsbeards were introduced to the United States from Europe shortly after the turn of the century. Within a few decades their populations expanded and began to encounter one another in the American West. Whenever mixed populations occurred, the specied interbred (hybridizing) producing sterile hybrid offspring. Suddenly, in the late forties two new species of goatsbeard appeared near Pullman, Washington. Although the new species were similar in appearance to the hybrids, they produced fertile offspring. The evolutionary process had created a separate species that could reproduce but not mate with the goatsbeard plants from which it had evolved.

This would be a great example of macroevolution and what evolutionists generally try to portray as macroevolution in action. The example above is not macroevolution, but is simply due to a single genetic event known as polyploidy. The original goatsbeards from Europe were standard diploid (two copies of each chromosome) plants. However, plants often do not undergo complete monoploidy during meiosis (during the formation of the sex cells, or gametes). This means that the gametes may remain diploid. When diploid gametes fuse, a new polyploid "species" is formed. No new information is created (Do you have twice as much information if you copy one book to produce an identical copy? No!), but the chromosomes are duplicated. The new "species" cannot produce viable offspring with the original species simply because of the difference in number of chromosomes. With goatsbeards, the process has happened more than once. Of course, the two "new" species have the same number of chromosomes and can produce viable offspring, since they are virtually identical.

You just defined macro-evolution in that paragraph. How exactly is duplicate information not new information? Since you're such a genius please give us all an example on what new information would be on a genetic level.

[edit on 19-5-2010 by NegativeBeef]