Forum:Undermining The Core Belief of Young Earth Creationism

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This is quite a lengthy post, and I have posted it here as a first draft for comment. I have no idea whether this is old news, or whether anyone has noticed it before. However, I would really like feedback before I do more work, just in case I am labouring under delusions (it would not be the first time!) I fully appreciate that sections are in need of further sources. [Clearly, this should end up as an Essay is I ever get round to completing it.]'

After spending some time on creationist forums and websites, I have identified what I believe to be the kernel of the YEC belief system. It is not actually biblical literalism but a ‘naïve belief’ that “kind can only beget kind”. The basic belief which is claimed to have its origin in the writings of Aristotle, says that 'things can only reproduce other things which are like themselves’ . This is then taken to mean that speciation cannot occur. None of this is new, and the viewpoint is described by Mayr, who called it ‘biological essentialism’. In 'The Growth of Biological Thought ' Mayr claimed that this notion was the prevalent view prior ot Darwin. He cites as evidence a quotation from Lyell: "There are fixed limits beyond which the descendants from common parents can never deviate from a certain type" . Mayr goes on to point out that "It is quite impossible to develop an evolutionary theory on the foundations of essentialism".

However, what is interesting is how the YECs justify it to themselves. In an article addressing this issue, AiG says: “According to the Genesis record of Creation, God created various kinds of things to reproduce their own kind." However, a close inspection of the text of Genesis reveals that it says nothing of the sort. The text actually discusses how things were created, and says little about how they should reproduce: “God created the great creatures of the sea … according to their kinds” (NIV G:1.20). In other words, the text is saying that God made different ‘kinds’ of things. There are instructions to reproduce: “Be fruitful and increase in number…”(NIV G1:28); clearly this is just an invitation to spread all over the earth – it neither suggests that their offspring should be the same as them, nor denies the possibility that they would not.

Just in case this is a translation issue, I checked with the KJV: “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind.” Whatever “after their kind” is supposed to mean, the context is an instruction from god to the earth to produce the first creatures; it is not about reproducing. However, this phrase “after their kind” crops up time and time again as the justification for the mantra “kind begets kind”.

The fact is, no matter how you look at it, this cornerstone belief is not justified by the bible. So, where is it from? Later on in the article in AiG, the author says: "The scientific problem is simply this: One natural kind changing into a totally different kind has never been observed.” This clearly demonstrates where this comes from. It is an appeal to naïve observation & “common sense” – the same kind of view as the theory of geocentricism – the sun must go around the earth, because that’s what we see every day; dogs can’t breed cats because no one’s ever seen that.

However, some of the other core beliefs of the YECs appear to undermine this principle. Every YEC website admits that in order for the ark animals to repopulate the earth, there must have been some form of ‘microevolution’. They explain this by claiming, for example that dogs are just another “kind” of wolf. “Kinds” are allowed full expression within each “kind”, but they can never reproduce outside it. [source needed]. Clearly this is the most blatant example of goalpost-shifting and term-redefining in history. I have not even seen one website which even attempts to pin down precisely what is meant by a “kind”, nor to give any idea how a continual process of reproduction could in principle be limited in such a manner that one “kind” is by necessity restricted to whatever the parameter range of that “kind” might be. I would conjecture that YECs are not interested in what the process might involve, nor in exploring how it might work, because they think they do not need to defend the principle, in anything other than biblical terms.

However, as we have seen, there is no biblical justification for the belief. The conjecture (for that is what it is) it is simply based on inference from observation, and that lands it squarely in the in the realm of science, not theology. However, before we go any further, we should be quite clear what this ‘conjecture ‘ actually says, and what its implications are. The conjecture does not merely say that “kind” usually begets “kind”; that would be unremarkable, and almost trivially true. The conjecture states that it is impossible for any “kind” to be the ancestor of anything which was not of the same “kind” as the original. This is a bold statement, and “audacious” indeed, and furthermore, would actually disconfirm the whole of evolution if it were true. YECs usually demonstrate the truth of this to themselves by observing that a cows only give rise to another cow, and not a dolphin, with added hilarity at the expense of those ‘misguided and foolish’ evolutionists who could possibly think that it could. Before we get too worried, however, we should actually consider whether this hypothesis is even reasonable, given that we can think and observe in the same way as YECs, without invoking evolution, or fossils, or anything else.

YECs own theories even allow (actually they demand) the possibility that one “kind”, when left to reproduce can produce a wide variety of diverse forms. They believe that at the end of the flood, Noah released the animals and it is these animals that have bred and given rise to all the world’s species today. As a defence to all the criticisms that the species of animals that we see alive today could not possibly have fitted into the ark, even if we only took two of each kind (not the seven required for some animals), YECs have used the construction of “kinds” to explain that Noah only took around 17,000 pairs of animals into the ark. (NB, no plants, insects, fresh water fish or soil bacteria- clearly God forgot to tell him he’d need those.) YECs go to great pains to explain how all these could fit in the ark, and how 8 people could look after them.

This sleight of hand was detected fairly early on, and in response to evolutionists’ queries about how the 17,000 “kinds” from the ark managed to turn themselves into the diversity of species we see today, produced the following explanation. “Of course it wasn’t your ‘evolution’”, replies the YEC, “each pair of the 17,000 were representative of their “kind””, and goes on to explain how one pair of a particular creature has given rise to wolves, jackals, dingoes and all the various types of dogs that we now have around the world. The YEC explains patiently: “In point of fact, you know haw this is done- it’s microevolution”, and the YEC then explains to you the difference between macroevolution and microevolution, pointing out that the latter merely involves variation within “kinds”, whereas the former implies that one “kind” can give rise to a different “kind”, which is, of course, impossible. At this, you can be forgiven for just slapping your head in disbelief, or sinking into a pit of despair.

However, the idea of Microevolution, or at least their version of it, provides a challenge to YECs in terms that they can understand. If one “kind” (whatever that means), when released from the ark, can give rise to animals as diverse as toy poodles and Irish Wolfhounds, over the course of around 4500 years, then would not it be possible in another 4500 years, say that something so completely different could result, so different that it would not even be recognisable as the same “kind”? After all, if we did not know that a Chihuahua and a Great Dane were both dogs, would non-experts actually recognise them as the same “kind” simply by looking? Just this fact on its own says that the conjecture might need further scrutiny.

More evidence that the conjecture may not be as obviously true as suggested by YECs is clearly signified by the results of any number of selective breeding initiatives made by man down the centuries, resulting in plants and animals which bear little resemblance to the original “kind”. Obvious examples are bananas which started life as green, almost spherical fruits with large heavy seeds, and by successive selection has developed into the long, curved, seedless objects we have today. Pigeons have been bred from wild birds, and today not only has their homing instinct has been highly developed, but there are hundreds of different varieties with extravagant feathers and yet others which can perform incredible acrobatics. These are two examples, but you can see the same process at work in any number of domesticated plants and animals: sheep, coats, cattle, horses, roses, tomatoes… the list is endless.

Given this evidence, you would need to very foolhardy (or dogmatic) to say that “kind begets kind” is some sort of universal rule, and continue to state categorically that there is no possibility whatsoever that one kind, left on its own or by human hands, would produce anything other than the kind we started with. Now clearly despite what we think, many YECs are not stupid. They may be deluded; they may have convinced themselves by tortuous and erroneous logic that their ideas are correct, but they are not stupid. They hold onto this idea despite the evidence, and despite the fact that it appears to be challenged by other elements within their own belief system.

So why exactly is this a “cornerstone” of YEC belief, if it’s non-biblical, and it is only founded on a naïve and highly dubious interpretation of observational evidence, and may even be contradicted by other beliefs they hold? The reason is clear – without it, YECs have no grounds on which to attack evolution. Once you allow the possibility that starting out with one “kind” can produce in the future something different to the original “kind”, even if only as a remote possibility, you have opened the door to evolution in its fullest sense. You then have to admit that it is not just a possibility that might occur in the future, but that it could already have happened in the past. However, as this is a conjecture, and is couched in terms which approach being scientific, it is open for testing, and if we make some observations in the real world, we should be able to check this out. We can ask is there any evidence which disconfirms this notion of "kind always begets kind"? Well, yes, there might just be a little bit – how about the fossil record, comparative anatomy, DNA and genome analysis? And, oh yes, there’s a bit of evidence about human evolution – that we evolved from primates.

YEC cannot allow any evidence of evolution like this to slip in through the slightest chink, and certainly not through the back door, otherwise their claim of biblical literality would be demolished. Once you allow the possibility into your belief system that we “might” have evolved from apes, that thought becomes complete and utter anathema. YECs have to assert “kind begets kind” as the central dogma at the core of its beliefs, and so there can be no doubt whatsoever, they need to justify that claim on the highest authority – that of the bible. However, this is a completely false assertion; no such “teaching” exists in Genesis.

So, the question is, if this is pointed out to YECs, will they all see the light and become evolutionists? Well, that’s not going to happen, anytime soon, is it? They will simply argue that because they already know the bible is true, and that the bible contradicts evolution, and that in order to work, evolution claims at its core that “kind begets things other than kind”, then that claim must be false, and so “kind begets kind” must be true. For those that are already in this black hole, there is no way out. Any evidence produced by evolutionists simply contradicts with the bible and therefore is invalid.

Adult YECs are almost all doomed to plunge ever deeper into the black hole they have created, and there is almost no hope of rescue. My real concern is for those young children poised at the event horizon, looking across it at their creationist teachers on the other side. These children are being told that “kind begets kind” is both true and biblical, and that the latter provides them with the highest authority on which to conclude that evolution is false. They are not being subjected to the kind of post hoc logical gymnastics exposed in the paragraph above; the message to children is simple: “kind begets kind” is in the bible, evolutionists deny this, so that means evolution CANNOT be true. The logic is straightforward. However, that argument is founded upon a lie, and that lie must be discredited.

Currently, YEC ‘science’ teaching to children goes along these lines. Let’s look at this idea: “Kind begets kind”; it’s a simple idea, but very powerful. We call it a hypothesis. Look around you – cats beget cats, goldfish beget goldfish, frogs beget frogs. Have you ever seen a dog give birth to a cow – no of course not, that would be impossible. You already know all this, so the ‘hypothesis’ must be true. Now, where did I get that hypothesis from? Did I make it up? No, of course not, I got it from the bible – it tells you that in Genesis. God told creatures to “reproduce after their kind”, and that’s what they do. So now you can see how science works, you have an idea – a hypothesis, you look around to see if it’s right, and then check what the bible says. If it’s correct, you will always find that the bible tells you that, just as in this case. So you see, you can take the word of God as true – he wouldn’t lie to you would he? God is amazing.

Although I have made this up, you can find lots of examples of this on the web where similar teaching occurs. (e.g.) Just as in this applaling example , they are perfectly insidious, completely dishonest and tantamount to child abuse. The examples do, however, have the superficiality of science; they talk of hypotheses, and the use of evidence – and the results are at least plausible. This is what makes it so corrosive; it is a grotesque distortion of what science teaching should be.

If their biblical argument were discredited, YECs would be forced to reframe their belief in the following manner: “Since we take the bible to be literally true as a principle, even though it does not say this anywhere in the bible, we deduce that “kind begets kind” must be a biblical principle, because otherwise the bible would be at odds with the real world”. Now this exposes the belief for what it is, a piece of dogma created entirely on the basis of the assumption of biblical literality, simply in order to deny the possibility that real world evidence might contradict biblical teachings. If they were forced to take this position, it would deny the YECs any opportunity to teach ‘kind begets kind’ as “scientific” fact.

Eradicating the biblical authority for “kind begets kind” would mean that YECs could not begin with the principle, because it does not exist in the bible, and thus only claim for it being true would be on the basis of science – and all available evidence points to it being false. Therefore, YECs could not and would not teach such a thing. If YEC teaching wished to somehow link the conjecture to some sort of biblical authority, they would need to start with the very thing which the underhand “teaching” seeks to establish, namely that the bible is 100% correct, even before you start considering how animals reproduce. That sort of teaching puts creationism exactly where it belongs, in the RE classroom, and never, ever as science. If the theological underpinning of “kind versus kind” can be shown to be flawed, then no creationist could ever again claim that in promoting this notion, that what they are doing is science, simply because their naked belief in biblical literality is exposed as the very first step of the process. In fact the route by which biblical literality is established by YECs requires logical and theological gymnastics of the most tortuous kind, relying as it does on an convoluted understanding of prophesy, a generous interpretation of the New Testament – including some smattering of Hebrew, as well as an initial commitment to the idea of God as its starting point.

Therefore, in dealings with YECs, whenever you meet them, I urge you, in every forum, in every conversation, do not try to engage them with argument and evidence about the real world. Simply ask them whether they believe that “kind begets kind”, explaining what you mean. Then ask them why they believe that. A few may not have thought about this, you might then have an opportunity to engage in a conversation about dogs, wheat, horses and bananas. You might even be able to have a conversation about DNA and how changes to the genome occur. For the others, who will “know” that it is in Genesis, challenge them. Say “Where in Genesis? When I started thinking about this, I read Genesis, just to check, - and it is not there. Sure, it says that God created kinds, but he did not tell them to reproduce according to their kind”. I am sure that most of these people will swear blind it is in there, and even if shown the text of Genesis will say “well if it’s not there, it must be somewhere else”. It isn’t. No YEC was ever convinced to change their belief on the basis of evidence, no matter whether the evidence was biblical or scientific. However, if this is said long enough and loudly enough by enough people, the message will eventually be heard that YECs are making a knowingly deceitful claim of biblical authority. If nothing else, it exposes YECs and all the others who make this claim as heretics, and puts them squarely into the much-despised category of ‘false prophets’. From thereon in, perhaps the YECs might just be sucked into the singularity and disappear out of the universe.

Replies

Perhaps. I don't know. I don't get enough exposure to idiots of this caliber. Living in the bay area in Cali has some benefits. I've always figured the best way to attack these beliefs is to ignore evolution entirely, and focus on the age of the Earth and the age of the universe. You don't have to appeal to hard to understand concepts in biology. Instead, you can talk about Dendrochronology and explain it in terms of matching up the rings just like you would put together a jigsaw puzzle. You can talk about measuring the relative quantities of radioactive elements on the ocean floor, and compare that to the magnetic field description captured in igneous rock, and how we can use lasers to measure the rate of spread of the sea floor. A little harder but still quite easy to explain is red shifting, and how type Ia supernova have a specific light curve, have the same absolute brightness due to the understood mechanics of how they happen, and how this shows big bang theory and 13.7 billion years. Throw SN 1987A at anyone who is "informed" enough to make a c-decay argument. In short, just link to Evidence_against_a_recent_creation. My 2 cents. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 06:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Even though I understood it at some level, it was only recently that thanks to an Aronra talk that I finally got the major point of contention of your essay. I superficially understood that transitional forms would look like the common ancestor, and the common ancestor of us and fish is probably a fish. What I didn't quite grasp was that the creationists are actually looking for a crocodock, and why this is just obscenely silly. Aronra's talk explains that a fish is always a fish. In a certain sense they are right that kinds do not produce other kinds. Clades are closed. The descendents of a clade will always be members of that clade. We are member of the "fish clade". We are members of the mamalia (sp) clade. And our descendents always will be too. We see transitional forms, form between modern forms and ancestor forms, but we never see "proper" transitional forms between modern forms, such as a crocoduck. Evolution strictly forbids it. So, I understand that you want to dismiss entirely "kinds only reproduce the same kind", I think this is a bad phrasing of evolutionary theory. Kinds, in the sense of clades, do only produce the same kind. However, a clade can expand and diversify, and from the "fish clade" we can get stuff from T Rexes to Humans to Turtles. They're all still members of the vertebrate clade, and their descendents always will be. They'll never produce a non-vertebrate. And here we go, found the video. It's good stuff for those not very versed in evolution. I thought I was. I wasn't. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 06:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I think the issue is, you probably have to spend some time around creationists to understand their thinking. The "kind begats kind" mantra is theirs, not mine, and in this context the crocoduck argument is a red-herring. That is something dispensed to counter evolution. However, claiming that evolution is not the mechanism by which we got here today, is of a completley different order to claiming it could NEVER happen - even in principle. The point is they have set up a "Theory of Non-Evolution", which is a parallel theory. Consider how these theories are applied to the future: Evolution would merely claim that it is possible at some point that an animal from one species can be the ancestor of an animal which is so far removed from the original that it cannot be regarded as the same species. It does not predict what that might be, or how long it would take - nor does it guarantee it could happen. On the other hand, "Non-Evolution" denies that this is possible, even in theory. Future Evolution is speculative, and you can point to things like crocoduck, and say it's unlikely, but effectively it is impossible to rule it out altogether just by pointing to evidence. In a sense, that is an unfalsifiable claim, and if that was all evolution had, it would not qualify as science [This is argument is thrown at evolution by creationists all the time - it's the straw man "future speculation" argument - because its unfalsifiable, they claim Evolution is not Science]. However, the Creationists' Future 'Non-Evolution' is not speculative. It's definitive, and that is what makes it special. IT says that something can NEVER happen, and it applies to all living creatures. In order to substantiate such a claim it is not sufficient to point to a series of examples; a mechanism is required which unambiguously demonstrates that cumulative changes to a genome can never change one 'kind' into another kind in the future, nor has ever done so in the past.--CatWatcher (talk) 11:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I do want to emphasize that, for example, all descendents of mammals are going to be mammals, forever. A mammal will never have a descendent which is a non-mammal. The descendent might even lose all of the immediately obvious distinguishing criteria of mammals, but its place on the taxonomy tree of life and the genetic tree of life will be as a mammal. Kinds do only reproduce after their own kind. That a creationist asks for a kind turning into another kind merely demonstrates that the creationist doesn't know what they're talking about. Kinds can only reproduce the same kind, and you can have common descent of all known life. These ideas are compatible, and both are part of evolutionary theory. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 11:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Needed clarifications. All descendents are the same kind (clade) of their ancestors, but the reverse is not true. All descendents of mammals are mammals, but not all ancestors of mammals are mammals. All descendents of vertebrates are vertebrates, but not all ancestors of vertebrates are vertebrates. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 11:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, i.e. that all animals stemming from a common ancestor can all be regarded as variants of that ancestor, and the further back you go, the more general the categories become. However, I disagree with the mamals can only give rise to mammals notion. Take a group of rats, leave them on an island for 50 million years, and you could well have entirely new kinds of creatures, for example:

• some creatures have developed external sacs on their back into which fertilised eggs are deposited, and young develop until they are 'born'; however, birth is for these creatures a somewhat indeterminate concept, as they grow, teats develop inside the sacs, and soon afterwards the placenta begins to shut down and be reabsorbed. At some point the umbilical cord atrophies altogether. During this period the young can exit and re-enter the sac, as it behaves like a marsupial pouches, and is a protective case for young infants, until they are fully ready to leave their mother.
• Due to a mutation on the genome, female animals are created with two sets of reproductive apparatus, and have double wombs. In addition, the fallopian tubes evolve in such a manner that fertilised eggs are stored in a vessel which only allows duplication of the zygote, but never allows the zygote to develop. This not only allows the animal to be in a state of permanent pregnancy, staggered so that a new pregnancy is created as soon as one of the wombs becomes vacant, but that all of the creatures produced are clones from the original mating which may have occurred many years previously.

Now, would either of these be called "mammals"? They might be descendants of mammals, but their reproductive systems would be something entirely different - and identifiably different from each other. And perhaps this latter is really the point; in the creationists world view, whatever resulted, would always be the "same" as each other.--CatWatcher (talk) 12:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

According to modern cladistics and taxonomy, yes they would still be mammals. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 21:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Ok then. I bow to your superior knowledge. If that is correct I am not sure where this goes. The interesting thing here, is that 'Kind begets Kind' IS a central belief of YEC, and it is plastered all over the place. However, they would not agree that the things I described are mammals. I personally don't think that labelling ALL the descendants of mammals as 'mammals' regardless of what they evolve into actually captures the essence of evolution. After all, human beings are not ancient eukaryotes (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21034815) ; we might have descended from them, but we MUST be clearly different. However, I understand what you are saying. YECs have simply taken a taxonomic convention and turned it into some sort of universal law, justified by some naive thinking and a misleading reading of Genesis; If it is challenged, then they simply point to the taxonomy and say we are being disingenuous, because we believe exactly the same thing. Evolution says that everything comes from one stem; Creationists say there were many stems. Effectively if you slice through the evolutionary tree horizontally and ignore the bottom bit, Evolution & YEC diagrams become almost isomorphic. God I despair.I will have another deep think about this. Many ThanksCatWatcher (talk) 13:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

First, while we might not be "ancient eukaryotes" (whatever that means), surely we are eukaryotic. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 21:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Second, evolution does say that kinds only beget the same kind. The problem is the YECs mean something slightly different. In their world, kinds are implicitly and "obviously" discreet and non-overlapping. That's the fatal difference. Descendents of mammals will always be classified as mammals, because their taxonomy will almost surely suggest it, as will their genetics. Thus, we are eukaryotes, animals, vertebrates, tetrapods, mammals, monkeys, apes, and human. Those are all nested "kinds", or clades. Creationists don't recognize those as valid "kinds". See Baraminology. As far as I know, they don't recognize anything as a legitimate classification scheme of kinds, because if they did, then we could probably prove them wrong. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 21:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Third, I don't know if it's effective, but the the biggest reason why I believe evolution is true is that Linnaeus developed taxonomy, very close to modern taxonomy, a century+ before Darwin. He saw and documented the tree of life without knowing what it was, and he was effectively a christian creationist. Add on that the tree of life according to genetics more or less fully agrees, and the conclusion is inescapable. At least, I wish it was. You'll probably find YECs who disagree. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 21:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Having looked into what you have said, I do think you are right. I just wish you weren't. In essence YECs are making a definitive statement here, but are doing it in terms which admit almost infinite flexibility. Even if one of my double placental rats resulted from a gene duplication, they could argue it was still the same "kind", as it was merely a variant of the original , and had found expression within the range of genetic types allowed under that "kind". They could and would do it, even though a week before they would have denied any such thing is possible. There is only one slight chink that I might explore. If their "Theory" is to be in any way valid (if I imagine such a thing) then it would need to be supported by a theory of how the DNA somehow 'prevents' expression outside a 'kind' or restricts expression to a particular kind. Evolution places no such restrictions - a rat could potentially evolve into something like a snake in a suitable environment (convergence). However, if the idea of "kind begats kind" means anything at all, it must surely imply that a rat could not change into a snake, even if that snake were actually a small mammal, which had an extended body and atrophied limbs.--CatWatcher (talk) 23:25, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Cheetahs

Dunno. Another one of my favorite points on evolutionary theory itself is genetic diversity. If you consider the creationist perspective that all life came from 2 (or 7) individuals per "kind" ala Noah's ark, then you get into extreme silliness. We know how genetics works, and the modern genetic diversity of nearly all species cannot be accounted for by known rates of mutation from such a small starting population less than 6000 years ago. They want to have their cake and eat it too - they say on one hand that the rates of mutation is much smaller than evolutionary theory would require for the current variety of life, but then they say that the rate of mutation is far bigger than evolutionary theory to get the current genetic diversity. ---- Then, finish up with the cheetah. God hates the cheetah. The cheetah has an amazingly low amount of genetic diversity. This is because it actually was reduced to staggeringly low population numbers, still not quite as bad as 2 (or 7), but close in the recent past. Ex: normally, organ donations are rejected for a vast majority of individuals in a population. The immune system recognizes it as foreign and attacks in. Not so for the cheetah. They found cheetahs as distantly related as possible and did skin grants - they all took. ---- So, obviously god made Noah do the Ark thing, but that wouldn't have enough genetic diversity and most would die off anyway, so god had to after the fact go in and add a bunch of genetic diversity to all of the animals (including humans) a few hundred years after the flood. Except the cheetah, because god hates the cheetah and wants it to die off from too little genetic diversity (which the species is actually in danger of). LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 08:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)