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To: annalex
annalex: "This has a bearing on the unguided evolution hypothesis only if the definition species is artificially narrowed to breeds and varietals within the same real species.
Yes, dogs and wolves, and -- I trust your word, breeds of zebras can produce healthy offspring.
This does not prove evolution from one species to another such that when the evolution is done the second species no longer interbreeds at all with the first."

First, I note your struggles with the definition of the word "species".
Scientifically, it's a simple concept, the key to it being a natural ability to interbreed, but it is only one term of many used to describe family relationships among animals, plants and other living things.
Indeed, there is a whole hierarchy of biological relationships, starting in the case of humans, with our individual families.

Traditionally, biological families grouped into closely related clans, which organized into larger tribes and nations, several of which might include all members of a particular human race/breed, and all of those races together constituting the sub-species homo sapiens sapiens = all human beings.

The overall species of homo-sapiens includes us, plus other subspecies which DNA and other analyses show interbred, including Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo sapiens idaltu, and possibly even Homo floresiensis.

And that is the key scientific distinction: if they successfully interbred, then they are sub-species.
But it not, then they are separate species.

Again, we can follow the zebra example all the way up their scientific hierarchy.
Three separate species do not interbreed in the wild, even when they live together.
Yes, they can be forced-bred in captivity, but their offspring are not fully viable.

But within each species are sub-species which do successfully interbreed in the wild.

The three zebra species, plus donkeys and horses are grouped into a larger genus called equids.
And between species in that equid genus, the best that interbreeding can produce are those infertile offspring of donkeys and horses = mules.

Moving up, the equid genus belongs to the "horse family" which includes many extinct species going all the way back to eohippus about 54 million years ago.

Next up the hierarchy of groupings is the order Perissodactyla = "one toed ungulates".
These include the horse family, rhinoceroses and tapirs.

And so biological classifications go... up the ladder to eventually include all mammals, then all animals with backbones, all animals and finally all living things.
And all that is basic high-school biology, which is why I know it.

So those are the various scientific classifications, as defined by scientists.
Your problem is how to shoe-horn the biblical word "kinds" into those scientific classifications, and I would suggest to you that it simply cannot be done.

One reason: a biblical "kind" is not strictly defined, even in the Bible, and any efforts you make to define it are just matters of your theologically based opinions, and have nothing to do with real science.

annalex: "Microevolution -- the difficult but possible interbreeding inside several subspecies, -- does not prove the real thing."

Sorry FRiend, but as an anti-scientist, you don't get to define scientific terms -- if you wish to argue science, then you have to use the definitions scientists developed.
In the case of micro-evolution it is not what you say.
Rather, the definition (simplified) means the accumulation in every generation of DNA mutations.
As I've said before, most mutations have no effect, and of those which do cause changes most are negative, and so get weeded out by natural selection.

Over many generations -- typically hundreds of thousands or millions of years -- these minor changes eventually produce sub-species, species and genera which can no longer interbreed.
And that's what evolution is all about.

annalex: "There is no evidence of "descending" of anything from anything."

There is almost endless cogent evidence in fossil records and DNA studies showing relationships and ancestry of all living things.
Of course, people with eyes closed can't see it, but the evidence remains persuasive to anyone not committed to an anti-science theology.

125 posted on 05/17/2012 3:09:55 PM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: BroJoeK; St_Thomas_Aquinas
those are the various scientific classifications

I am aware of classifications. The ability of subspecies to interbreed and undergo natural selection under certain conditions says nothing about creation of new species from old ones. You are simply trying to bury a proposition that fails experientially and logically under irrelevant detail.

as an anti-scientist, you don't get to define scientific terms

I am not "anti-scientist" and I do not derive my inability to believe the evolution cult from anything written in the Bible. My first post on this thread was to explain that the Bible can be interpreted in a way compatible with your beliefs. Your beliefs are wrong precisely because they fail the scientific method of testing hypotheses with evidence, -- not because of some turn of the phrase in the Bible.

almost endless cogent evidence in fossil records and DNA studies showing relationships

They are similarities. Yes, distinct species are often similar and so their DNA are similar. That does not prove the relationship of evolution, just the similarity of the design.

Go to a junk yard and observe "fossils" of cars there. You will find "endless and cogent evidence" that car models originated from other car models by breeding with one another, won't you?

126 posted on 05/17/2012 5:51:00 PM PDT by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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