What Are "Kinds"

The thread on the latest dinosaur discovery has been hopelessly taken off topic, as normal, and now has many separate topics wrapped in one thread. One posted has asked that we divide the separate topics into separate threads.

What question that came up was the issue of "kinds."

I had posed the question,

"Could you define for us what a "kind" is? Tell us how you identify them. Tell us by what process a "kind" is able to produce the variations that result in different species. Tell us what process prevents a "kind" from varying right into what might be called a different kind."

An answer was given.

"Here's simple for you. Strong's.
kind, sometimes a species (usually of animals) ++++ Groups of living organisms belong in the same created "kind" if they have descended from the same ancestral gene pool. This does not preclude new species because this represents a partitioning of the original gene pool. Information is lost or conserved not gained. A new species could arise when a population is isolated and inbreeding occurs. By this definition a new species is not a new "kind" but a further partitioning of an existing "kind"."

While beginning, this is not yet a useful definition. We need to be able to identify "kinds" and not just have a general definition. So to start, I want to examine one specific area: dogs.

Where is the line with dogs? I will present some possibilities.

1. The first possibility is that dogs are a unigue "kind." It might be possible to even break the brreds of dog into separate "kinds" since the wide gulf between the largest and smallest dogs make reproduction impossible for the entire group. But I do not list that as a possibility here because I think that most on both sides agree that all the breeds of dog are the result of selective breeding.

2. Dogs and the wolves are a single "kind."

3. Dogs and the other canines are a single "kind." This would mean that wolves, dogs, foxes, coyotes and jackels are all part of one "kind." I think this is the view favored by many YEers but it raises that question of where did all of the genetic information needed to make this wide variety of species come from? You have significant differences in genetics and even differening numbers of chromosomes among this broad group.

It also raises the question of where to fit creatures such as Cynodictis, Hesperocyon and Ursavus. These are transitionals. The first two are the ancestors of bears and the members of the canines while the third is an ancestor of the bears which is very dog-like. How would these be incorporated into the kinds concept. I suppose one option would be that these are additional, unique kinds.

4. Or there could be another option. Bears and all of the canines are of one "kind." This is likely further back than the average YEer would be comfortable, but it is the only way to really classify the three above (and other,related) animals in an intellectually satisfying way.

But this leads to a problem of what to do with all of the intermediates at this level of classification in the fossil record.

5. Which leads to another possibility. Perhaps all of the Caniformia group of carnovores are one "kind." Now you are including, in addition to wolves, coyotes, bears, foxes, jackels and dogs, pandas, weasels, ferrets, otters, badgers, skunks, wolverines, raccoons, walrus, seals, sea lions and related species in one "kind."

It has now gotten rediculous, but you must group them this way if you wish to account for all of the know transitionals between these groups. They are not listed here for space, but we can add them if needed.

6. But, if you are going to go that far, you might aswell continue to recognize the role of known transtional species and add the rest of the memebers of the carnivores to the list. So besides the ones in choice 5, you must add lions, tigers, cheetas, saber-toothed cats, civets, hyenas, mongooses, meerkats, linsangs, genets, aardwolfs and other related species.

This is nothing that your average young earther is willing to do, but is must be done. If not, then we need to identify ALL of the "kinds" in the group called carnivores in a way that takes care of both the extant species AND which places the fossil species identified as transitions either into one of these other "kinds" or into their own separate "kinds." Until there is a method defining how this should be done and allowing for the categorization of other groups of animals into "kinds" then the concept is not defined nor useful.

 

"Information is lost or conserved not gained."

This statement is also up for debate.

First, define information such that we can judge whether something yields new information or not.

Please tell why each of the following are not examples of new information.

"Accelerated protein evolution and origins of human-specific features: Foxp2 as an example," Zhang J, Webb DM, Podlaha O, Genetics. 2002 Dec;162(4):1825-35.

"Syncytin is a captive retroviral envelope protein involved in human placental morphogenesis," Mi S, Lee X, Li X, Veldman GM, Finnerty H, Racie L, LaVallie E, Tang XY, Edouard P, Howes S, Keith JC Jr, McCoy JM, Nature 2000 Feb 17;403(6771):785-9.

"Origin of antifreeze protein genes: A cool tale in molecular evolution," John M. Logsdon Jr. and W. Ford Doolittle, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA,Vol. 94, pp. 3485-3487, April 1997.

DeVries, A. L. & Wohlschlag, D. E. (1969) Science 163, 1073-1075.

"A carrot leucine-rich-repeat protein that inhibits ice recrystallization," Worrall D, Elias L, Ashford D, Smallwood M, Sidebottom C, Lillford P, Telford J, Holt C, Bowles D, Science. 1998 Oct 2;282(5386):115-7.

"Recruitment of a double bond isomerase to serve as a reductive dehalogenase during biodegradation of pentachlorophenol," Anandarajah K, Kiefer PM Jr, Donohoe BS, Copley SD, Biochemistry 2000 May 9;39(18):5303-11.

"The Tre2 (USP6) oncogene is a hominoid-specific gene," Paulding CA, Ruvolo M, Haber DA, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science U S A 2003 Mar 4;100(5):2507-11.

"The human genome contains many types of chimeric retrogenes generated through in vivo RNA recombination," Anton Buzdin*, Elena Gogvadze, Elena Kovalskaya, Pavel Volchkov, Svetlana Ustyugova, Anna Illarionova, Alexey Fushan, Tatiana Vinogradova and Eugene Sverdlov, Nucleic Acids Research, 2003, Vol. 31, No. 15 4385-4390.

"The narrow sheath Duplicate Genes: Sectors of Dual Aneuploidy Reveal Ancestrally Conserved Gene Functions During Maize Leaf Development," Michael J. Scanlona, K. David Chenb, and Calvin C. McKnight, IV, Genetics, Vol. 155, 1379-1389, July 2000.

"The maize duplicate genes narrow sheath1 and narrow sheath2 encode a conserved homeobox gene function in a lateral domain of shoot apical meristems," Judith Nardmann1, Jiabing Ji, Wolfgang Werr, and Michael J. Scanlon, Development 131, 2827-2839 (2004).

"Human LINE retrotransposons generate processed pseudogenes," Esnault C, Maestre J, Heidmann T, Nature Genetics 2000 Apr;24(4):363-7.

“The Structure and Early Evolution of Recently Arisen Gene Duplicates in the Caenorhabditis elegans Genome “, Vaishali Katju and Michael Lynch, Genetics, Vol. 165, 1793-1803, December 2003

 

That sure was a lot of words to say that you do not know what a kind is and you have no idea how to define what a kind is. You do accept the concept of kinds, right?

This is just another example of the failure of YE "science." They are wedded to the kind concept but are unable to define it. I think that proper statement, as exemplified above, is that they are unwilling to define it.

The dog example shows the weakness of the kinds concept. If you were to choose to draw a circle and declare that animals in that group came from the same original kind as the dogs then you would effectively paint yourself into a corner. It is then just a matter of trotting out the evidence that connects animals out side of hte circle to those inside of the circle and your premise falls apart.

It really is smart of you and other YEers to not ever define kind. It would be the end of the argument because the definition would be ripped to shreds. I think YEers know this and this is the reason we do not get a firm definion. They know it is not true. Better leave it hazy. Less trouble.

"If I was an evolutionist I would might choke when I first read first cor 15: 39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds."

Why would I choke on that? In a literal sense, even, these things are different. Could you not test a sample and determine the source. But beyond that, the verse is not even in context for your use. It is building towards the resurrected body we will have one day and you remove it from context to make a point...which fails.

 

I have no reason to define kind. I do not subscribe to the kind hypothesis. There is no evidence that life can be grouped into neat kinds that do not overlap. There is no evidence to support the idea that new forms cannot arise.

"It certainly is building up to the topic of the resurrected body. What difference does that make? It still states what it states."

It matters (1) because it is taken out of its context and (2) because it is immaterial because even scientists recognize the difference between species.

 

What does any of that mean?

That there is not a definition for kind is the point! There cannot be one because it is a false concept! This fact has zilch to do with the verses you took out of context. Even as you represented them, everyone, including scientists, agrees that the flesh of one animal is differnet than the flesh of another animal.

"We'd have to be able to go back and find the original groups that existed to be able to properly define groups."

If there really were individually created kinds then you would today be able to identify them. Members of one kind would have sharp genetic and physical differences between them and there would be no chance of finding fossil creatures intermediate between the kinds. Kinds fails these tests.

"By virtue of simply being there, species separation by scientists admits boundaries to the ability of that group to move outside of it's classification, doesn't it?"

Nope. It is just how they are today.

Do I need to supply you with lists of creatures that have moved beyond their classification?

You also have not responded to the information part. Maybe giving you specific examples of new information arising and sending you off to refute them was too hard of a challenge and you wisely ignored it.

So I'll make the question general. Why are the two following processes not considered new information even though they have been observed to lead to new genes with new information.

Exon shuffling.
Duplication and mutation.

You'll need to include a definition of information in your reply.

I predict you will be as evasive in committing yourself here as you have been in the pther questions.

 

The idea of "kinds" fails exactly because no one can tell us what one is. If you attempt to define it, you run into the uncomfortable position of not having a place to put all of those organisms intermediate between your defined kinds.

If you attempt to define it, you run into that pesky problem of there being no evidence to show the clear lines that should be expected.

If you attempt to define it, you run into that pesky problem of their not being any demonstratable mechanism for preventing change of members of a kind into something else.

If you attempt to define it, you run into that pesky problem that any specific definition that places "kind" at anything other than species will put humans and chimps as the same "kind."

You run into the pesky problem that if you attempt to define "kind" as something broader, like the family level, then you require an extrodinarily rapid pace of evolution to get the current diversity of life.

"As far as information, there always IS a loss of information, or better worded a loss of use. The unused information can be "regained", but that doesn't make it new."

Uh...No. Let's take an example.

Zhang, J. et al. (1998) Positive Darwinian selection after gene duplication in primate ribonuclease genes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
U. S. A. 95, 3708–3713 71 Barnard, E.A. (1969) Biological function of pancreatic ribonuclease.
Nature 221, 340–344

In this case, a primate had a gene that made a particular protein. The gene was duplicated. The duplicate mutated. The mutated copy was able to perform a new function.

Viola! New information! There is a new gene with a new function and the old gene and the old function remain. There is no loss of information nor of function.

Now you can define this away. But in that case your definition of information no longer has any bearing on the discussion because what evolution needs is what is described. If your definition falls outside of these bounds in order to exclude such processes, then your definition is at odds with reality and not worth considering.

 

"I've ceased to know of which I speak so have asked for someone with more information to step in, which should be happening in the near future. You may find this person of interest, she is de evoluting even as we speak."

Fun.

There are a number of threads in this forum for which no YEers has yet been able to put up a case. She should be prepared to discuss them all since if this person seems knowledgable I will likely begin bumping them back to the top to see if the possibility of an intelligent YE response exists.

Some of the topics are the ones about evidence for human evolution, Snowball Earth, ice cores, the Grand Canyon and information.

 

Gup

I really dislike the massive copy and paste. If you have something to say, I beg of you to make an argument in your own words and provide the link as reference.

Moving on to your "post."

If you "source" is going to use Denton as a reference then it should be fair game to point out that since the publishing of that book, he has since published Nature's Destiny in which he recants the book referenced. Since he is put up as a reference and an expert, should not his more recent publication be the decisive one? I find the tactic misleading at best.

Just to take one sample part of your pasting...

"In the whole creation/evolution debate, keep in mind that variation within a kind, such as through breeding or adaptation, is not evolution. All the biological / genetic 'evidence' for evolution is actually variation within a kind, not evolution at all. This includes peppered moths, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, insecticide resistance, horse 'evolution', Galápagos finches, Arctic terns, etc."

So horses are just variations within a kind? Let's take a look at the endpoints of that. Comparing Hyracotherium with Equus...

Let's start with the toes. H. walked on pads on the toes, somewhat like the pads of a dog or cat. E. have hooves.

H. had four toes on the front feet and three on the back. E. have one toes on each foot. Two other toes have shrunk into shin splints on each side.

E. walks on the tips of its single big toe. The ligaments that support to weight on this toe are springy giving the foot a spring like action adapted to running.

H. had bones that provided a lot of flexibility of movement and rotation. In E. the radius and ulna have fused together while the fibula has been reduced in size. In E., the joints have lost their rotational flexibility in order to be better adapted to running.

H. had a long narrow skull, with eyes set forward and a small brain. E. has a larger brain with a larger cerebellum and a fissured neocortex. E. has a long, flexible muzzle. E. has the eyes set further back on the skull and a deep jaw.

H. had very generalized, simple browsing teeth. In E. 3 of the 4 premolars of H. have been turned into molars. The molars of E. have high, straight crests with a complicated folding of the enamel specialized for grazing. The incisors are also wider than in H.

H. has a rather flexible spine while E. has a very rigid spine.

E. has proportionally longer legs and neck than H.

So all of these changes are just variations within a kind, huh? Fine, then I accept the kind concept. There is only one kind, however, and that is life.

 

You really could have pulled the salient point out...

His definiton is "Groups of living organisms belong in the same created kind if they have descended from the same ancestral gene pool."

That really does not help us.

We need to know how to identify kinds. We need to know what a "kind" is. All he has done is restate the original claim and call it a definition.

This will not allow us to identify what extant and fossil species belong to the same kind. It is useless.

 

"UTE, don't you have better things to do than this? It does not matter how many times you get answered, you pretend you were not answered and ignore what was said. "

As long as folks are falsely asserting that our religion is incompatible with reality then someone has to point out that they are wrong.

"1. Kind is the original population. That is presuming there were orignial created populations, which there were. The simple process of natural selection tells us clearly that the further back you go, the more potential for variation was in the various gene pools. Thus, the original populations had gene pools which could respond to changing conditions and niches by speciating."

Then what are the kinds? Simply take the example given above. Just what animals are to be included in the doggie kind? Just the breeds of dogs? Do you need to add wolves? Do you need to add all canines? Do you need to include all of the Caniformia group of carnivores? Maybe it should be all carnivores? All placental mammals? All mammals? All tetrapods? All vertebrates? All animals? All eukaryotes?

You may also need to explain just how NS shows that there must be more diversity in the past. I think most biologists would say the opposite, that diversity increases and decreases. In the "kinds" paradigm, all animals have gone through a bottleneck of two individuals (a few seven). We do not see this genetically. There are many more alleles in the populations than if this had happened. This bottleneck would also eliminate whatever sort of original diverse population that you assert was once present. The diversity would be eliminated at the bottleneck and would not be available in order for selective forces to lead to speciation.

"2. There is NO evidence for human evolution. There is only the declarations with each fossil that is found. Take out the hot spots and Neandertals were identical to us, for instance. Fully human. It just doesn't sit too well with evolutionists to admit that."

Neanderthals were identical? I do not know anyone with brow ridges, do you? What about that low Neanderthal forehead? What about the occipital bun? Their bones were heavier and the long bones were curved. And according to this

Matthias Krings, Anne Stone,t Ralf W. Schmitz, Heike Krainitzki, Mark Stoneking, and Svante Pääbo, "Neandertal DNA Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans" Cell, Vol.90, 19-30, July 11, 1997

Neandethal mDNA falls completely outside of that of modern humans. Are these hotspots?

"3. Snowball earth is a desperate assumption by a few geologists to account for what is actually the Flood layer of Noah. The diamictite layer under the carbon rich layer is in a cement matrix which required warm water to form. That's hard to account for when stuff is supposedly frozen!"

Read the abstract.

ML Corkeron, AD George, Glacial incursion on a Neoproterozoic carbonate platform in the Kimberley region, Australia, Geol. Soc. Am. Bull, 2001.

"The 80-m-thick Egan Formation preserves sediment deposited during the younger of two episodes of glaciation recorded in the Neoproterozoic succession of the Kimberley region, northwestern Australia. Like many terminal Proterozoic glaciations recorded in Australia and elsewhere, the glacial strata of the Egan Formation are associated with carbonate rocks of likely warm-water affinity, but they are sedimentologically distinct from the marker “cap carbonate” horizons that overlie glacial strata in other Neoproterozoic successions. The carbonate strata comprise a wide range of facies indicative of shallow-water patch reef, shoal, and lagoonal deposition. Detailed facies analysis of the Egan Formation indicates interruption of the carbonate system by glaciation and subsequent resumption of warm-water conditions. This sedimentological analysis allows a reassessment of the regional stratigraphic correlations proposed for the Egan Formation, which is here considered to record a glacial event younger than the widespread Marinoan glaciation of central and South Australia and, therefore, a speculated third global glaciation in terminal Proterozoic time."

The warm water matrix is part of the theory. It was not frozen the entire time.

Also notice that the abstract mentions that there are multiple such cycles, not just one. Makes it hard for them to be flood deposits.

I asked you this last time, but I did not get an answer. Are the cap dolostones what you frequently refer to as the carbon rich flood layer? If so that leads into the next paragraph.

The point of posting the Snowball earth material was not to advance the theory. It is still an idea under development and there are several versions floating around.

The point was to ask how the particlar set of observations that lead to the theory could be explained in a young earth paradigm.

As a reminder, some of these features are the tropical glacial deposits, the cap dolostones, the paradox having these two close by implies (extreme cold followed by extreme warmth), the associated banded iron formations, the excursions of the carbon isotopes through this period and the multiple layers.

Since I think that you are saying that the dolostones are the carbon rich flood layer and since you claim this layer is organic, let's point out specific problems with that. One, as mentioned, is that there is an excursion in the ratio of carbon isotopes that indicate a non-organic origin for the carbon in the dolostones. Second, the dolostones also preserve features such as crystal fans and gas escape tubes that indicate formation by precipitation from water saturated with carbonates, not an organic origin.

These are the answers needed from the YE community. Poking holes in the Snowball earth theory does not provide an explanation for their formation in a young earth scenario. It is a mere distraction.

"4. Layerings in ice cores which are annual now were formerly the result of storm waves, expecially after the tilt of the earth and its correction in 2345BC as documented by South Australian government astronomer George Dodwell"

Perhaps you should read the thread.

http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/66/10.html?

The ice cores match up well with other data that shows this not to be the case. For example the last post provides a link which shows how variation in methane and CO2 levels in the ice cores match driving forces from the long term changes in earth's orbital parameters in a periodic manner.

"5. Information, presumably you mean in regard to cells and mutations, means nothing coming or going if the cell does not know what to do with it."

I do not know what this means. We have examples of new genes evolving which provide new functions. So sometimes life can figure out how to do something with new information.