Claim CH350:
The created kinds are distinct; evolution between them is impossible.
"Creation of distinct kinds precludes transmutation between kinds" (Morris
1974, 216).
Source:
Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master
Books, pp. 13, 216-218.
Response:
- Creationists have been unable to specify what the created kinds are.
If kinds were distinct, it should be easy to distinguish between them.
Instead, we find a nested hierarchy of similarities, with kinds within
kinds within kinds. For example, the twelve-spotted ladybug could be
placed in the twelve-spotted ladybug kind, the ladybug kind, the beetle
kind, the insect kind, or any of dozens of other kinds of kind,
depending on how inclusive the kind is. No matter where one sets the
cutoff for how inclusive a kind is, there will be many groups just
bordering on that cutoff. This pattern exactly matches the pattern
expected of evolution. It does not match what creationism predicts.
- Fixity of kinds is based on the philosophy of Plato, not the Bible
(Dewey 1910). Nowhere does the Bible say that kinds themselves cannot
change and diversify. Reproduction "according to their kind" is
entirely consistent with evolution, as long as it is recognized that
kinds are not fixed.
- Although major changes from one kind to another do not normally
happen, except gradually over hundreds of thousands of generations, a
sudden origin of a new kind has been observed. A strain of cancerous
human cells (called HeLa cells) have evolved to become a wild
unicellular life form (Van Valen and Maiorana 1991).
- According to Morris, fungi were not part of the original creation.
They were not among the categories listed in Genesis 1, and as decayers
they would not have their form until after the Fall. Thus, Morris's
own theology requires new kinds to originate after the creation.
References:
- Dewey, John, 1910. The influence of Darwinism on philosophy. In The
Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary
Thought, New York: Henry Holt & Co. Reprinted in Fisch, M.H.
(ed.),
1951, Classic American Philosophers, New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts.
- Van Valen, Leigh M. and Virginia C. Maiorana, 1991. HeLa, a new
microbial species. Evolutionary Theory 10: 71-74.
created 2001-2-18