According to its kind

[callmeMurph]

I'm just wondering, as far as evolution goes does every creature reproduce according to its "kind"? An ape (or whatever the common ancestor was) doesn't give birth to a hominid does it? Every creature gives birth to a slightly modified version of its self doesn't it?

Even if you don't take Genesis 1 literally I'm just wondering if reproducing after its kind would be a correct objection to evolution for those who take it literally.

 

[metherion]

Not really, because it's a continuum.

Let's say you get a new "kind" of number every 1500 numbers. And start at 0. Only count integers, and only go in steps of +1. When you get to 1500, you have a different "kind", because that's how we defined it. But if 1500 a different kind from 1501? No. Is 1499? No. Will 1502 be? No. None of those are 1500 apart.

So if you have a basic primate, that basic primate will only produce basic primates. These basic primates will slowly gain apelike features, but they are all still basic primates. Sure, basic primate 100 may be different from basic primate 1, have more apelike features, but they're still primates. Eventually, slowly, one feature every few generations, you have ape-like primates. Did you ever stop being primates? No. Did you ever change from what your parents were? Only by a tiny tiny bit each generation. Not even enough for your descendants ten, twenty, even a hundred times down the line to be a different species. But if you suddenly take an anachronistic number 1 and compare it to number 100, SURE it'll be different. But nothing has reproduced something that was not its own kind.

Metherion

 

[gluadys]

I'm just wondering, as far as evolution goes does every creature reproduce according to its "kind"? An ape (or whatever the common ancestor was) doesn't give birth to a hominid does it? Every creature gives birth to a slightly modified version of its self doesn't it?

Even if you don't take Genesis 1 literally I'm just wondering if reproducing after its kind would be a correct objection to evolution for those who take it literally.

Well, "hominid" is the scientific term for "ape" so yes, apes of all sorts give birth to hominids. And Homo sapiens is a slightly modified version of other hominids especially H. erectus.

As Metherion says, it is a continuum, and where you divide one species from another in the continuum is a judgment call based on the criteria you choose to use.

 

[shernren]

Ehh, we were talking about this recently here.

...

"I see your WikiAnswers and raise you the Bible:

Of them you may eat: the locust of any kind, the bald locust of any kind, the cricket of any kind, and the grasshopper of any kind. (Lev 11:22, ESV)

But locusts are precisely the swarming form of certain grasshoppers. (To be precise, the grasshoppers are the suborder Caelifera, of which the locusts are the family Acrididae which belongs entirely in that suborder; therefore, every locust is also a grasshopper.) Therefore, even members of the same species, which can be observed in real time to originate from each other, can be referred to as belonging in different kinds.

I rest my case."

 

[CryptoLutheran]

Life is fluid.

For example, when I was younger I was aware that according to leading scientific theories birds evolved from dinosaurs. However, as I've gotten older and read a bit more, it's actually way more fascinating than this. Birds are dinosaurs. For example, we have fossils of dinosaurs with feathers, which means feathers evolved before flight and were simply adapted for flight once they started the path toward powered flight. The difference between a pigeon and a velociraptor seems tremendous, but that's because there are thousands and thousands of generations of minute genetic changes taking place.

The mutations that help define me as me apart from my parents are equally as minute, but they're there. Mutations that benefit an organism probably mean it'll survive, breed and pass on its unique genetic code to its offspring, and so on and so on.

Taxonomy, therefore, is simply a human way of making sense of nature's diversity. And it's constantly changing as we learn more about the world around us, clades are created or made obsolete all the time to better conform with the science.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[gluadys]

Life is fluid.

For example, when I was younger I was aware that according to leading scientific theories birds evolved from dinosaurs. However, as I've gotten older and read a bit more, it's actually way more fascinating than this. Birds are dinosaurs. For example, we have fossils of dinosaurs with feathers, which means feathers evolved before flight and were simply adapted for flight once they started the path toward powered flight. The difference between a pigeon and a velociraptor seems tremendous, but that's because there are thousands and thousands of generations of minute genetic changes taking place.

The mutations that help define me as me apart from my parents are equally as minute, but they're there. Mutations that benefit an organism probably mean it'll survive, breed and pass on its unique genetic code to its offspring, and so on and so on.

Taxonomy, therefore, is simply a human way of making sense of nature's diversity. And it's constantly changing as we learn more about the world around us, clades are created or made obsolete all the time to better conform with the science.

-CryptoLutheran

I agree with one correction. Clades (or anything else) are not changed to better conform with science. It is science (including clades, etc.) that is changed to better conform with what we learn about nature.

 

[CryptoLutheran]

I agree with one correction. Clades (or anything else) are not changed to better conform with science. It is science (including clades, etc.) that is changed to better conform with what we learn about nature.

Fair enough

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Verticordious]

The important thing to make note of is that the Bible says animals reproduce according to its kind. The idea of organisms changing for the better due to random mutations during reproduction is mathematically impossible and completely unscientific. So the Bible is correct in saying that animals reproduce after their own kind, and it never says that animals do not change in other ways.

We all know that animals can change. I think everyone on the planet would agree to that. The question is: How do they change? Are you really going to accept someone who claims "it was random"? Is it scientific to just throw up your hands and declare "Random did it!"? Random isn't systematic, isn't testable, isn't reproducible, and lacks any sort of practical application. Do you think intel would ever consider firing their development team and simply wait for random errors during production to result in a better processors? Random anything is not science.

Many people have been programmed to think that either the origin of life is exactly as Darwin claimed, or that the origin is exactly as the YECs claim, and that there can't be any third option. Luckily, there have been people who have understood that neither of those two answers are scientific. People such as Barbra McClintock, John Cairns, and James A. Shapiro. The people discovered actual scientific ways that DNA changes, such as transposition and recombination.

DNA can actually split itself into more than 100,000, and then recombine to form an organism with a new feature. Reproducible experiments have been done that prove DNA can literally rewrite itself on the fly and change its food source when its current food source is not present. Splicing into 100,000 different pieces means that there are over 10^180000 different possible combinations, so there is zero probability the DNA will recombine into anything useful if it was relying solely on random chance. DNA is designed, and DNA change is an engineered process. Animal change, to whatever extent it occurs, is not random.

There is no conflict between the Bible and evolution. There are, as I’ve already talked about, conflicts between science and some of the many theories of evolution, but that isn’t at all relevant to Christianity. God is concerned about the spiritual origin and nature of man, not the physical. Whether God created one single cell, and everything from there was evolution, or whether God created every single “kind” (however you want to define it) as is, or whether it was something in between, it has no relevance to the message of the Bible or the truth of Christianity.

 

[shernren]

The important thing to make note of is that the Bible says animals reproduce according to its kind.

Grasshoppers give rise to locusts. (Observed, not inferred.)
The Bible lists them separately "after their kind".

The Bible can't be broken.
So your understanding of it must be.

 

[Verticordious]

Grasshoppers give rise to locusts. (Observed, not inferred.)
The Bible lists them separately "after their kind".

The Bible can't be broken.
So your understanding of it must be.

If you would actually look at the original Hebrew, you would know that it is impossible to match up those animals to a specific modern classification. The Hebrew named their animals based upon animal behaviors, they didn't have a detailed classification like we do today. To make any sort of interpretation the relies on connected these animals to a specific modern-day classification would be nothing more than speculation, as there is no way to know for sure.

Clarke's Commentary on the Bible

The locust - ארבה arbeh, either from ארב arab, to lie in wait or in ambush, because often immense flights of them suddenly alight upon the fields, vineyards, etc., and destroy all the produce of the earth; or from רבה rabah, he multiplied, because of their prodigious swarms. See a particular account of these insects in the notes on Exodus 10:4 (note).

The bald locust - סלעם solam, compounded, says Mr. Parkhurst, from סלע sala, to cut, break, and עם am, contiguity; a kind of locust, probably so called from its rugged, craggy form. See the first of Scheuchzer's plates, vol. iii., p. 100.

The beetle - חרגל chargol. "The Hebrew name seems a derivative from חרג charag, to shake, and רגל regel, the foot; and so to denote the nimbleness of its motions. Thus in English we call an animal of the locust kind a grasshopper; the French name of which is souterelle, from the verb sauter, to leap" - Parkhurst. This word occurs only in this place. The beetle never can be intended here, as that insect never was eaten by man, perhaps, in any country of the universe.

The grasshopper - חגב chagab. Bochart supposes that this species of locust has its name from the Arabic verb hajaba to veil; because when they fly, as they often do, in great swarms, they eclipse even the light of the sun. See the notes on Exodus 10:4, and the description of ten kinds of locusts in Bochart, vol. iii., col. 441. And see the figures in Scheuchzer, in whose plates 20 different species are represented, vol. iii., p. 100. And see Dr. Shaw on the animals mentioned in this chapter. Travels, p. 419, etc., 4th. edition; and when all these are consulted, the reader will see how little dependence can be placed on the most learned conjectures relative to these and the other animals mentioned in Scripture. One thing however is fully evident, viz., that the locust was eaten, not only in those ancient times, in the time of John Baptist, Matthew 3:4, but also in the present day. Dr. Shaw ate of them in Barbary "fried and salted," and tells us that "they tasted very like crayfish." They have been eaten in Africa, Greece, Syria, Persia, and throughout Asia; and whole tribes seem to have lived on them, and were hence called acridophagoi, or locust-eaters by the Greeks. See Strabo lib. xvi., and Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xvii., c. 30.

 

[shernren]

If you would actually look at the original Hebrew, you would know that it is impossible to match up those animals to a specific modern classification. The Hebrew named their animals based upon animal behaviors, they didn't have a detailed classification like we do today. To make any sort of interpretation the relies on connected these animals to a specific modern-day classification would be nothing more than speculation, as there is no way to know for sure.

So is there any possible definition of these animals that is consistent with their Biblical descriptions, with which "locusts" and "grasshoppers" are cladistic groups that do not intersect?

If not, then I think the text still shows that your understanding of "kinds" is flawed.

(Besides, if little critters like "grasshoppers" and "locusts" are so hard to define - even though we see them often, at least in the Middle East - then why on earth would you think an abstract, debatable, and obscure concept like "kind" is so straightforward to define, either?)