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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2004
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Claim CB901.1:

Species may undergo minor changes, but the range of variation is limited to variation within kinds.

Source:

Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 51-52, 87-88.
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here? Brooklyn, NY, 109.

Response:

  1. What is a "kind"? Creationists have identified kinds with everything from species to entire kingdoms. By the narrower definitions, variation to new kinds has occurred. By the broader definitions, we would not expect to see it in historical time.

  2. Helacyton gartleri shows one example of change that would be hard to call anything other than a change in kind. It is an amoeba-like life form that came from a human (Van Valen and Maoirana 1991; evolved from a carcinoma, it spreads by taking over other laboratory cell cultures).

  3. Creationists have never hinted at, much less shown, any mechanism that would limit variation. Without such a mechanism, we would expect to see kinds vary over time, becoming more and more different from what they were at a given time in the past.

References:

  1. Van Valen, Leigh M. and Virginia C. Maiorana, 1991. HeLa, a new microbial species. Evolutionary Theory 10: 71-74.

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created 2003-4-21, modified 2003-9-3