Topic: Evolution
Quote: I have never, once, seen a Creationist actually make a list of what the kinds are, and what animals belong to them. They will say there is a canine kind, to which dogs and wolves belong, and maybe one or two other obvious ones like felines, but that's the greatest commitment I've ever seen.
Response: Actually, the debate on this one was hard to miss 8 or 9 years ago. John Woodmorappe, in his book, Noah\'s Ark: A Feasibility Study, Inst for Creation Research (July 1, 1996), 298 pp., ISBN: 0932766412 did exactly that. Essentially Woodmorappe equated "kinds" to genus in most cases, with an occasional family that contained an inordinate number of genera thrown in where he couldn\'t make all of them fit. Woody came up with 15,754 "kinds", and calculates that there would have been enough room on the ark for all of them. He also calculated the room requirements based on the median size of the animals rather than the average size. Of course, he leaves off all plants, arthropods, mollusks, fish, and aquatic mammals. I don\'t recall if he included the dinosaurs, but Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, Carl Baugh and the like have them on the ark.\nYou correctly assume that the creationist story would be that there was a "dog king" and a "cat kind" from which all species evolved in a few years after the flood. Never mind that a single pair of cats could not possibly carry enough genetic diversity to evolve all 36 species of cat in 4 genera, not even in the 4,500 years since the flood was claimed to have occurred. In order to cram all the "kinds" on the ark, creationists must leave off everything but mammals and birds (without ever explaining how they could have survived a flood that lasted a year), and then propose hyper-evolution at rates that make evolutionary biologists dizzy, calling it "variation in kind."\nIt should also be noted that "John Woodmorappe" is a pen name of Jan Peczkis, a science teacher from Chicago with a degree in earth science. Besides his young earth creationist articles as Woodmorappe, Peczkis has also published old earth articles in peer reviewed literature. At one time Peczkis threatened to sue several people on the internet who revealed the duplicity (one being Joe Meert of the University of Florida geology department. Radiometric Dating, Paleosols and the Geologic Column). If he consulted a lawyer, I\'m sure that he was laughed out of the office, since you can\'t sue someone for slander if what they say is true.\nA review of Woodmorappe\'s book and other interesting links can be found at Talk Origins. You can buy the book at amazon.com for $44.50.\n
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