Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2004

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Claim CH350:

Source:

Response:

1. 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.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. 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).
   
   
4. 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.

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