Re: King David and his son, King Solomon --case closed

Hi Adman;

This is a reply to
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/fffbe35b8e1ad21b

with most of our previous discussion cut, so I can focus on the
usefulness of biblical "kinds" to realistically describe the
animals we see in nature.

I believe evolution happens. But within the species. A modern
day example would be dogs. Because of selection, natural or
otherwise, genetic drift, ---add in some external pressures
and ancient wolves become the variety of dogs we see today via
evolution.

Well since you use dogs (including wolves) as an example of a
semi-immutable kind, I guess that's as good a place as any to
begin.

Consider the following list of dog like animals:

- aardwolves
- African Wild Dog
- coyotes
- dholes (Asiatic Wild Dog)
- dingoes
- dogs (domestic)
- foxes
- jackals
- raccoons
- wolves

Can you tell me which are dogs?

Roughly 20 minutes in Wikipedia will give you one grouping as
follows:

* Excluding the aardwolves (which look like dogs but are in fact
a type of Hyena and thus in the cat family) they are all in
the:
Suborder: Caniformia, or Canoidea which literally means "dog-like"

* Then, excluding the raccoons all of the remainder are in the
Family: Canidae (though it is argued that foxes be moved
farther away from Canis/dogs)

* Then, excluding the:
Genus: Lycaon (African Wild Dog)
Genus: Cuon (dholes)
Genus: Vulpes (foxes)

The remainder are in the Genus: Canis
(dogs, coyotes, wolves, dingoes, and jackals).

The point I am making here is that there is no obvious line
between an animal that is clearly a dog and one that is clearly
a cat or a weasel. Species often grade into one another without
any clear line separating them. This in fact, is one of the
most annoying problems faced by taxonomists when trying to
develop meaningful classification systems.

I hope you will take a few minutes to track any of the groups
that are unknown to you, to verify that the above is sensible.


From ancient texts this would be "each after their own kind".

OK, this leads to an alternative classification system. It is
proposed by many Christians that the animals we see are grouped
into [semi-]immutable "kinds" (Hebrew "min") following their
creation.

To see if this classification system is better, I think it will
be useful to begin by looking into scripture to see what "kinds"
are. This should be pretty easy since the Bible only uses
kind/(min) in four places.

Here are all four from the NIV translation:

/===================================================================/
(1) Leviticus 11:13-23

13 These are the birds you are to detest and not eat because they are
detestable: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, 14 the red
kite, any kind of black kite, 15 any kind of raven, 16 the horned
owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, 17 the little
owl,
the cormorant, the great owl, 18 the white owl, the desert owl, the
osprey, 19 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

20 All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to
you. 21 There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all
fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on
the ground. 22 Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid,
cricket or grasshopper. 23 But all other winged creatures that have
four legs you are to detest.

Leviticus 11:29

29 Of the animals that move about on the ground, these are unclean
for you: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard,

/===================================================================/
(2) Deuteronomy 14:12-13

11 You may eat any clean bird. 12 But these you may not eat: the
eagle,
the vulture, the black vulture, 13 the red kite, the black kite,
any
kind of falcon, 14 any kind of raven, 15 the horned owl, the
screech
owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, 16 the little owl, the great owl,
the white owl, 17 the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant, 18 the
stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

/===================================================================/
(3) Ezekiel 47:10-12

10 Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En
Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will
be of many kinds -- like the fish of the Great Sea. 11 But
the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be
left for salt. 12 Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both
banks of the river.

/===================================================================/
(4) Genesis 1:11-13

11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing
plants
and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to
their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced
vegetation:
plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing
fruit
with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was
good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning -- the third
day.

Genesis 1:20-25

20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let
birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God
created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving
thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and
every
winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22
God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and
fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the
earth."
23 And there was evening, and there was morning -- the fifth day.

24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to
their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and
wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God
made
the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according
to
their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground
according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

/===================================================================/

Now, if you do a little googling you will find that there are
MANY possible ways to translate these phrases, producing many
possible meanings. One (of many) alternative variants is
discussed here:

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/biblevol.html

so I will mention only in passing that if we accept this NIV
translation then (see Deuteronomy 14:13) there are "kinds" of
both ravens (Genus: Corvus) and falcons (Genus: Falco), but
right away we see a problem, because if the members of a genus
are broken into "kinds" it is roughly equivalent to saying that
there are "kinds" of dog (Genus: Canis), and thus presumably
that domestic dogs and wolves are of different "kinds".

The details of the foregoing argument may or may not be fair,
depending on what the original text was intended to mean, but it
highlights the point that the Hebrews did not divide up animal
groups in at all the same way we do.

We see another grouping problem immediately prior to the quoted
text in Leviticus 11:4-6 where we have the famous passage in
which rabbits and camels are grouped together because they both
chew the cud.

From the quoted text we see that (the 1100 mammalian species of)
bats are grouped together with birds. We also see from the
above (Leviticus 20:23) that insects are described as having
four legs.

So I think we can say with some confidence that the authors of
these texts did not have a good understanding of species and
their anatomies, throwing yet more doubt on the value of "kind"
for any realistic model of animal classification.

But even if we assume that none of these problems is important and
that "kinds" means something like Genus, it still isn't obvious
that the word "kind" was used in a way that contradicts
evolution.

Consider that the Genesis 1 verses 20 and 24 begin:

And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures ...

And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according
to their kinds:

These phrases are fully consistent with God LETting the water
and the land produce animals by an evolutionary process, and
such an evolutionary process produces genera or "kinds".

So, as far as I can tell, nothing in Genesis forces us to
concluded that the various kinds were created instantaneously
(instead of by evolution) and you have already acknowledged that
evolution is proceeding now.

So, it is not clear to me why you believe that dogs, foxes,
raccoons and aardwolves aren't kinds that have resulted from an
evolutionary process guided by God.

Are you certain that you are not reading into scripture a
meaning that simply is not there, especially given that God has
left us so much other evidence to examine?

Bye;

Friar Broccoli
Robert Keith Elias, Quebec, Canada Email: EliasRK (of) gmail * com
Best programmer's & all purpose text editor: http://www.semware.com

--------- I consider ALL arguments in support of my views ---------

.

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