How many different kinds of birds are there?

Once again I make an attempt to open the question of created kinds, or baramins, or whatever you want to call them: groups within which there is common descent but between which there is not. This is an opportunity for the creationists who frequent TSZ to school me on the subject.

I ask one simple question to begin the discussion: how many different kinds of birds are there? (It should be obvious why I chose birds, but the choice was, from a scientific standpoint, arbitrary.) As a followup, how can you tell? If there are indeed separately created kinds, I would think the divisions would be obvious. Would you agree, and why or why not? In any case, I’m not asking for precision; an answer within an order of magnitude will do.

Here’s my answer: 1; all birds belong to the same kind. In fact they form an infinitesimal fraction of a kind, since all life on earth is related. We have discussed the evidence many times here: nested hierarchy, etc. There are no joints at which kinds can easily be carved. How about you?

460 thoughts on “How many different kinds of birds are there?

  1. colewd:
    John Harshman,

    DNA sequence variation from all compared species of greater then 1% is where I would start to sort it out. The other line I would look at is where interbreeding cannot occur and collect mean and standard deviation of the closest DNA sequences.I would look at sequences from lions and tigers where interbreeding can occur but is non continuous. Also horses and donkeys. Again, look at mean and standard deviation sequence similarity.What stops animals to from being able to breed with each other?What could cause this line to be crossed?

    Bill, are tigers and house cats the same feline “kind”?

  2. Nonlin.org:
    Are you pointing out how failed the concepts of “species” and “speciation” are?

    This has already been pointed out. Did you read the OP? Not only that, this “problem” is precisely what would be expected since life forms evolve.

    Nonlin.org:
    …how Neanderthals and Sapiens had fertile descendants despite being “different species”?

    News seem to spread very slowly to creationists. Neanderthals are classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. But that’s a technicality. Species are hard to define. So what? Nobody in the scientific community is claiming that “species” were created separately by a magical being. The evidence suggest that life forms diverge from each other (evolution), and the “species problem” is a symptom of this very phenomenon.

    “Kinds” on the other hand, are claimed to have been created separately by a magical being.

    So, who cares if species can or cannot be precisely defined and identified? Nobody claims them to be magical stuff.

  3. Creationists are caught between a rock and a hard place – and John Harshman’s trap is exquisite.

    Creationists are hard pressed to explain variety within a “Kind”. Subtleties of distinction become particularly awkward when presented as a continuum as seen within the Bramin of Przewalski’s horse, domestic horses and donkeys.

    For example, Hinnys and Mules are hybrids which occur when mating horses and donkeys but these hybrids are infertile. A reduction in fertility is all that occurs when Przewalski’s horses and domestic horses are crossed. All of these crosses are the result of mating within the family Equidae and according to creationists, all of these hybrid animals are the result of the mating of two animals of the same “kind” or “Baramin”

    Herein lies the rub:

    Nobody disputes that Neanderthals, Denisovans, other archaic Hominidae coexisted with coexisted with Humans.

    Despite Nonlin.org’s protestations to the contrary, no reasonable person (especially NOT Dawkins and not even Behe) doubts that all Hominidae had a common ancestor, and that not too many million years ago, interbreeding occurred between archaic Hominidae and the ancestors of modern humans.
    Ditto Chimpanzees.

  4. Here is the problem for creationists to explain: If they accept the notion that the family Equidae comprise the same “kind” or “Baramin”…

    then (drum roll please)…

    Creationists are similarly obliged to concede that Neanderthals, Denisovans, other archaic Hominidae and even Chimpanzees are no different and constitute the same “kind” or “Baramin” for exactly the same reasons as Equidae!

    With a tip of the hat to John Harshman by way of an ornithological metaphor:

    Sauce for the Equidae Baramin goose – is also sauce for the Hominidae Baramin gander.

    It is really not difficult for a high school student to grasp – I remain bemused by the difficulties experienced by creationists present.

  5. Seqenenre,

    Welcome to TSZ.
    Just to let you know that I deleted your account in error and, though I reinstated it, you’ll need to request a new password to log in. Sorry for the inconvenience.

    PS, it’s Dr Harshman.

  6. TomMueller,

    In my experience, you’re right. Creationists move the goal posts according to their predilections. As you said, they claim that something is the same kind, but would not concede that if we measure their supposed kind and apply those measures to humans, then at least all of the other great apes would also be humans.

    It’s been worse. Once one told me “those are still bacteria!” By that measure humans are “still eukaryotes.”

  7. colewd:
    John Harshman,

    DNA sequence variation from all compared species of greater then 1% is where I would start to sort it out.

    Why 1% specifically? If you can’t provide a rationale, there doesn’t seem to be a point to it.

    The other line I would look at is where interbreeding cannot occur and collect mean and standard deviation of the closest DNA sequences.

    If I can interpret that at all, I think you’re trying to find the mean and standard deviation for the percent sequence difference between sister species that can’t interbreed, for a large sample of species. But the problem there is that if you’re using that criterion, there would be no such thing as sister species. Two species of heron that can’t interbreed would be no more related than a heron and a carrot.

    Then again, if you’re talking about the process with species that can interbreed, there are two main difficulties. First, the numbers will be all over the place, so the variance will be huge, and thus not very useful in determining kinds. More fundamentally, however, you would have to present a rationale for why members of the same kind should be able to interbreed and members of different kinds should not. Where does such an expectation come from?

    I would look at sequences from lions and tigers where interbreeding can occur but is non continuous. Also horses and donkeys. Again, look at mean and standard deviation sequence similarity.What stops animals to from being able to breed with each other?What could cause this line to be crossed?

    What does “non continuous” mean? What could cause the line to be crossed has been the subject of quite a bit of research, and the answer is “many things”; so your criterion is not useful.

    From the limited sequence data in your 2008 paper the Ostrich appeared to have the most unique sequences.

    Meaning, I suppose, that its genetic distance from the closest other species is the greatest, among those sampled. That’s true. But that doesn’t tell you that it’s a separate kind. Or if it does, you will have to present your reasoning.

  8. colewd:
    John Harshman,

    DNA sequence variation from all compared species of greater then 1% is where I would start to sort it out.

    Why? I mean, other than the fact that it’s less than the difference between chimps and humans.

    You don’t seem to have any criteria for evolution and design beyond whatever you want things to be. But then that’s nothing new.

    The other line I would look at is where interbreeding cannot occur and collect mean and standard deviation of the closest DNA sequences.I would look at sequences from lions and tigers where interbreeding can occur but is non continuous. Also horses and donkeys. Again, look at mean and standard deviation sequence similarity.

    At least this seems to have something to do with relatedness. On the other hand, some species interbreed with poor effects mainly because of chromosome number, rather than simply genetic relatedness.

    What stops animals to from being able to breed with each other?What could cause this line to be crossed?

    Chromosome numbers can be a reason. So can accumulated differences over the course of evolution. IOW, there are real evolutionary reasons why reproductive incompatibility occurs, while you’re just kind of trying to define evolution as not possible where you want it to be impossible.

    Glen Davidson

  9. Entropy: Neanderthals are classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. But that’s a technicality. Species are hard to define. So what?

    The evidence suggest that life forms diverge from each other (evolution), and the “species problem” is a symptom of this very phenomenon.

    So, who cares if species can or cannot be precisely defined and identified? Nobody claims them to be magical stuff.

    Even now you are talking about the “origin of species” and all of a sudden there are no more species? The finch and the moth and thousand others were proof of “speciation” (crayfish most recently) and now you’re casually dropping the concept? Or more precisely want to have it both ways.

    Neanderthal is certainly presented everywhere as a different “species” (Denisovan too). Even your comment is ambiguous – on purpose no doubt. Yeah right, technicality.

    But the fact is we don’t see the horizontal gradualism (like canine to feline, ape to human today), so why believe vertical gradualism (in time, aka evolution). Organisms are clearly separate from one another and gradualism is another failed concept: http://nonlin.org/gradualism/
    All contemporary “proofs of evolution” are variations around a mean. Certainly not the transmutation Darwin promised.

  10. TomMueller:
    Nobody disputes that Neanderthals, Denisovans, other archaic Hominidae coexisted with coexisted with Humans.

    Despite Nonlin.org’s protestations to the contrary, no reasonable person (especially NOT Dawkins and not even Behe) doubts that all Hominidae had a common ancestor,and that not too many million years ago, interbreeding occurred between archaic Hominidae and the ancestors of modern humans.
    Ditto Chimpanzees.

    Define “archaic Hominidae” – Google is not clear.

    How the heck would you know: “interbreeding occurred between archaic Hominidae and the ancestors of modern humans”? DNA only links to Neanderthal and Denisovan which can be different races of Sapiens.

    Whatever “reasonable persons” agree may be false. For many reasons, the story of human evolution doesn’t make any sense: http://nonlin.org/human-evolution/

  11. Nonlin.org: Even now you are talking about the “origin of species” and all of a sudden there are no more species?

    Nobody said that. The point is that if speciation is a gradual process, which it generally is, there will be many ambiguous cases in which it will be difficult to decide if a given group of individuals is one species or two. Would you disagree?

    The finch and the moth and thousand others were proof of “speciation” (crayfish most recently) and now you’re casually dropping the concept? Or more precisely want to have it both ways.

    No, nobody is dropping the concept. Incidentally, the moth (if by that you mean Biston betularia) has never, ever been presented as an example of speciation.

    Neanderthal is certainly presented everywhere as a different “species” (Denisovan too). Even your comment is ambiguous – on purpose no doubt. Yeah right, technicality.

    Neandertals and Denisovans are more of those ambiguous cases. They may be separate species, or they may not, and the answer may depend on your personal taste. Again, as expected if speciation is a gradual process. It’s worse for extinct taxa, since they can’t be compared in the wild.

    But the fact is we don’t see the horizontal gradualism (like canine to feline, ape to human today), so why believe vertical gradualism (in time, aka evolution).

    Of course we see the horizontal gradualism. That’s why the ambiguity about species. Of course canine to feline is a creationist fantasy, since their common ancestor was neither, and humans are a species of ape.

    Organisms are clearly separate from one another and gradualism is another failed concept: http://nonlin.org/gradualism/
    All contemporary “proofs of evolution” are variations around a mean. Certainly not the transmutation Darwin promised.

    If organisms are clearly separate from one another, then why is the concept of species so fuzzy? More on topic (are you interested in the topic?), why can’t you tell me how many kinds of birds there are, if the kinds are so obviously separate?

  12. Nonlin.org: How the heck would you know: “interbreeding occurred between archaic Hominidae and the ancestors of modern humans”? DNA only links to Neanderthal and Denisovan which can be different races of Sapiens.

    They’re “races” (remember that ambiguity of species) that diverged from modern humans 500,000 years ago, which seems like a problem for you. Also, the ancestors of chimpanzees and humans interbred occasionally for a few million years after the split, and there are a few parts of the human genome that reflect that too. If you believe the data on neandertals and denisovans, why don’t you believe the similar data on humans and chimps?

    Hey, do you think we could talk about birds?

  13. Nonlin.org

    But the fact is we don’t see the horizontal gradualism (like canine to feline, ape to human today), so why believe vertical gradualism (in time, aka evolution).

    Because we have 150+ years’ worth of consilient positive evidence from dozens of different scientific disciplines which supports the idea.

    What is the magic barrier which makes it impossible for one “kind” to evolve into another “kind”?

  14. Entropy: phoodoo,

    John also explained:

    In fact they form an infinitesimal fraction of a kind, since all life on earth is related. We have discussed the evidence many times here: nested hierarchy, etc. There are no joints at which kinds can easily be carved.

    Since you ignored the explanation you missed a very good point. How about you took those reading comprehension lessons?

    I didn’t miss anything, why don’t you take reading comprehension lessons.

    John’s answer to how many kinds of birds there are is “ALL” ?

    Such a poor answer would be justification for a creationists answer to be “SOME”.

    There, now John, stop claiming no one has answered your question (except that John won’t know that because John blocks people who don’t agree with him, whilst he complains that no one answers him).

    Skeptics!

  15. phoodoo:

    John’s answer to how many kinds of birds there are is “ALL” ?

    Christ, phoodoo, you’re proving Entropy’s point about reading comprehension.

    John wrote:

    In fact they [birds] form an infinitesimal fraction of a kind, since all life on earth is related.

    If you need to read that ten or twenty times before it sinks in, well, then read it ten or twenty times.

  16. Corneel: Can’t resist. Have you ever seen a slowworm, Robert?

    If you check out wikipedia, be sure to click the legless lizardlink as well.

    Everyone knows about legless lizards in creationism.What of it/ they are not snakes.
    They are adapted lizards to this or that place. however they move in unique areas. snakes live everywhere.
    Anyways i was making the case the bible would say snakes are one kind despite the historic dibversity.
    so a clue as to kinds God created.
    also a clue to how diverse things can get within kind.

  17. Rumraket:
    They “lost” their legs because of a curse. But this guy didn’t get the memo:

    he did get the memo. jUst some errror reveals the original state. in fact the big snakes also show evidence of a previous leggy past. One of the few creatures with actual evidence of a previous body plan.

  18. keiths: Here’s my answer: 1; all birds belong to the same kind. In fact they form an infinitesimal fraction of a kind, since all life on earth is related. We have discussed the evidence many times here: nested hierarchy, etc. There are no joints at which kinds can easily be carved. How about you?

    How many is that keiths?

  19. Nonlin.org: But the fact is we don’t see the horizontal gradualism (like canine to feline, ape to human today),

    As predicted, we don’t see examples of the horizontal gradualism that you bring up. There’s no reason a super-intelligent designer couldn’t do it, though.

    so why believe vertical gradualism (in time, aka evolution).

    Because the limitations of inheritance explain the particular features, and the patterns, found in life. Both the nested hierarchy of extant organisms and the succession of life (especially the “transitionals”) exhibit extensive structures and patterns predicted by the limits of non-magic evolution, and not, for instance, the features possible from a very intelligent designer.

    Glen Davidson

  20. Robert Byers: Everyone knows about legless lizards in creationism.What of it/ they are not snakes.

    And what did they do to deserve this?

    Anyway, that is exactly the point, isn’t it? Why are snakes not of the lizard kind? Phylogenetic analysis places snakes within lizards. Also, Why don’t blind snakes belong to a separate kind? Wouldn’t you agree that, if even legless lizards don’t qualify, these critters certainly don’t belong to the same kind as the serpent that deceived Eve?

  21. John Harshman: Why 1% specifically? If you can’t provide a rationale, there doesn’t seem to be a point to it.

    Haha, Glen spotted that one right away:

    […] it’s less than the difference between chimps and humans.

    I told you John, creationists are not really interested in birds or crocs or horses or whatever. It’s about humans.

  22. Adapa: C’mon, nobody can be so stupid they can’t count to one.

    Oh, it’s Phoodoo.Never mind.

    Well, I am pretty sure most creationists believe that birds are one kind, so where is the problem exactly?

  23. phoodoo: Well, I am pretty sure most creationists believe that birds are one kind, so where is the problem exactly?

    This is:

    colewd: I would put up the Ostrich as a candidate for a created kind.

    J-Mac: When you look closely at the facts, ratites, like ostrich and emus, have clearly been created as a kind of ground “birds” with puny wings needed for balance and powerful legs allowing them to run up to 70 km/h.

    If there really are created kinds, you would expect the divisions to be obvious, yet they are not.

  24. Corneel: This is:

    If there really are created kinds, you would expect the divisions to be obvious, yet they are not.

    Why would you expect that? Who is to know what one would expect?

  25. phoodoo: Why would you expect that? Who is to know what one would expect?

    The claim I have seen repeatedly made is that an enormous amount of variation is tolerated within kinds, but that evolution between kinds is impossible. I interpret that as huge morphological, physiological and genetic differences between kinds. After all, these differences cannot possibly be overcome by evolutionary change. My naive expectation would be that such differences clearly stand out.

  26. re: Tom Mueller’s observation that Neanderthals and other archaic Hominids interbred with Humans

    Nonlin.org:

    How the heck would you know: “interbreeding occurred between archaic Hominidae and the ancestors of modern humans”? DNA only links to Neanderthal and Denisovan which can be different races of Sapiens.

    Whatever “reasonable persons” agree may be false. For many reasons, the story of human evolution doesn’t make any sense: http://nonlin.org/human-evolution/

    Oh Wow!

    I am immediately reminded of Wolfgang Pauli’s great quote which loses in translation: “Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!”(“That is not only not right, it is not even wrong, anymore!”)

    Yes – Neanderthal DNA sequence admixture occurs in varying proportions in different human populations.It was once thought, no admixture occurred in African populations, but has since been shown otherwise.The variation in admixture indicates both how timing and location of the interbreeding occurred and also explains the relative rarity of Neanderthal contribution to the surviving human genome, which resembles (in general terms) an inbred population of chimpanzees.

    Meanwhile – as John Harshman has already pointed out – you are getting bogged down in semantics in a desperate attempt to avoid inescapable conclusions.

    I suggest you check out this link citing Sean B. Carrol and others, which slays one by one your various Shibboleths

    https://www.livinganthropologically.com/biological-anthropology/denisovans-neandertals-human-races/

  27. Of course I meant to say:

    “Tom Mueller’s observation that Neanderthals and other archaic Hominids interbred with the ancestors of modern Humans”

  28. Corneel: The claim I have seen repeatedly made is that an enormous amount of variation is tolerated within kinds, but that evolution between kinds is impossible. I interpret that as huge morphological, physiological and genetic differences between kinds. After all, these differences cannot possibly be overcome by evolutionary change. My naive expectation would be that such differences clearly stand out.

    I don’t see how this is addressing the issue that John says birds are all just one kind, and so do many creationists.

    There are birds, there are dogs, there are cats…And no cat-dogs.

  29. So, to sum up, Phoodoo thinks that all birds are one kind and that most creationists agree, while Bill thinks that ostriches are a kind all to themselves, and J-Mac either believes that all flightless birds are one kind or that there are multiple kinds of flightless birds, unclear which. (Robert Byers said something, but who can tell what?) Three attempts at an answer, three or four different answers. And only one attempt at providing a criterion for answers.

    So why can’t creationists agree even on something this seemingly simple?

  30. phoodoo: I don’t see how this is addressing the issue that John says birds are all just one kind, and so do many creationists.

    I suspect many creationists disagree about birds being one kind. For one thing, Bill Cole and J-Mac have already put the dividing line at a lower taxonomic level in this thread.

    And that is the whole point of the OP: most creationists maintain that kinds are easy to recognise, but they seem to be unable to agree where the boundaries are or even how many there are.

  31. Nonlin.org: Even now you are talking about the “origin of species” and all of a sudden there are no more species?

    Seems like you forget what you write. You were complaining about cases where it’s very hard to delineate species as if that was a problem for those who don’t believe in magical beings. Now you complain because I said that evolution predicts those cases, and twist it into something I didn’t say.

    Nonlin.org: The finch and the moth and thousand others were proof of “speciation” (crayfish most recently) and now you’re casually dropping the concept? Or more precisely want to have it both ways.

    Dropping the concept? I don’t remember saying that we should drop the concept. You should join a club for improving reading comprehension.

    Nonlin.org: Neanderthal is certainly presented everywhere as a different “species” (Denisovan too). Even your comment is ambiguous – on purpose no doubt. Yeah right, technicality.

    Certainly? Everywhere? Well, apparently everywhere doesn’t include, ahem, everywhere. I have read plenty of articles where they refer to Neanderthals as a subspecies of Homo sapiens. So, go tell those scientists and scientific journals that they’ve got it wrong, and that they’re not part of everywhere.

    There’s nothing ambiguous in stating that evolutionary processes should give us trouble in defining species.

    Nonlin.org: But the fact is we don’t see the horizontal gradualism (like canine to feline, ape to
    human today), so why believe vertical gradualism (in time, aka evolution).

    Horizontal gradualism? You seem to be confused (not too surprisingly). Organisms don’t diverge “horizontally,” but “vertically.” They have diverged from common ancestors, not from each other. They inherit their characteristics vertically (aka from their parents).

    When species aren’t very well delineated, you ask why that wasn’t mentioned (even though it was mentioned). When species or other taxonomic groups are well delineated (like felines and canines), you seem to ask why don’t we see them less delineated.

    Well, that’s what we expect from diverging populations. The ones that just recently split, well, they’ll be hard to put into separate species. the ones separated much longer ago, well, they’ll be easier to delineate. It’s natural. All you have to do is understand the process, and all falls into place.

  32. Nonlin.org: All contemporary “proofs of evolution” are variations around a mean.

    Really? Oh shit! That changes everything! Such a surprise! Recently separated populations diverge by variations around the mean of both populations! Never ever expected! It’s not as if there was such a thing as population genetics. I’m so publishing an article about this! Should get in nature easily!

  33. Nonlin.org: Whatever “reasonable persons” agree may be false. For many reasons, the story of human evolution doesn’t make any sense: [link-to-some-bullshit]

    Of course you cannot make any sense of it, or much else. You mismatch concepts and make a mess in your head with them. There’s an easy solution: get to understand evolution first. Once you understand it, check the idiocy that you’ve written. You’ll have a laugh at your own expense.

  34. phoodoo: There are birds, there are dogs, there are cats…And no cat-dogs.

    OK – so we are converging on agreement.

    There are dogs and then there are cats to be considered as “different kinds”

    There are also Lemurs and Chimpanzees to be considered as “different kinds”

    That all said – Chimpanzees, Neanderthals, and Humans clearly belong to the SAME “kind”, for the SAME reason that donkeys, horses and zebras belong to the SAME “kind”

  35. John, you ask:

    how many different kinds of birds are there?

    I would say that there are thousands of kinds of birds. But this diversity of kinds can be recognised as a unity. The fact that we can distinguish birds from other life forms means that we can group them as a unity. The question is, can the origin of this unity be explained by looking at the fossil record?

    And Craig Holdrege points out a problem with looking for the source of this unity in the past:

    Since every organism is connected with others in the realization of its life, we need to think of organisms as interpenetrating fields or centers of activity that are in turn influencing and being influenced by the whole ecology of the earth. The fossil record reveals the earth evolving as a whole. It presents traces of a global process of creative transformation…

    There is a strong tendency to conflate building up a picture of the continuity of life in evolution with the question of origins. This tendency manifests itself when evolutionary scientists continue to speak of and to search for ancestors. “An ancestor is, by definition, plesiomorphic (primitive) in every way relative to its descendants” (Cartmill and Smith 2009, p. 62). “Primitive” means, strictly speaking, that it does not have the specialized characteristics of its descendents. But, as Romer pointed out, every species one finds in the fossil record is in its own ways specialized. It is in this sense neither “primitive” nor “generalized,” which is what one implicitly assumes the ancestor to be. So the search for ancestors is the futile search for fully developed organisms that also should somehow indicate that they have potential for further evolution.

    The futility shows itself inasmuch as scientists usually end up recognizing that purported missing links or ancestors are too specialized in one way or another to fit the vaguely held notion or expectation of an ancestor. For example, Romer designates an apparent prime candidate for a tetrapod ancestor as being “a bit off the main line” due to its unique specializations (Romer 1966, p. 88). It is altogether clear: biologists work with conflicting and unclear ideas in their search for ancestors that are meant to pinpoint origins.

    In “Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution” by Robert Carroll, he also highlights questions that are not easily answered:

    In order to maximize the completeness of the fossil evidence and minimize the possibility of paraphyletic groups, only families with modern representatives have been tabulated, although we cannot determine how much longer they may survive. Nevertheless, nearly all have maintained a recognizable similar morphology for tens to hundreds of millions of years.

    The oldest vertebrate family with living representatives is the lungfish Neoceratodontidae, which is recognizable from deposits 245 million years old. The Latimeriidae go hack 204 million years. The average duration of seventeen modern shark families extends more than 128 million years. Batomorphii (skates and rays} average 73.6 million years, and living chimaeriforms 107 million. The few surviving families of basal ray-finned fish average more than 100 million years‘ duration: the average longevity of 250 modern teleost families with fossil records is approximately 45 million years. Among tetrapods, the oldest recognized family is the Sphenodontidae, which has endured fur 235 million years. The modern amphibian, turtle, iizard, and crocodilian families for which there is a fossil record average about 10 milliun years‘ duration.

    The average longevity for families in selected mammalian orders ranges from 16.8 to 44.7 million years. Birds have a much less informative fossil record, but Feduccia (1995) argues that most of the modern families, aside From the passeriforms, probably date from the late Eocene or early Oligocene, indicating an average longevity of about 55 million years. The fossil record demonstrates that many modern avian genera go back to the mid-Miocene, about 15 million years.

    At the level of species, there is great variation in the amount of change both within and between families. On the other hand, the relatively small number of families that are recognized on the basis of either morphological or phylogenetic criteria shows that the appearance of new morphological patterns distinguished at the family level is a comparatively rare phenomenon. Of equal importance is the great relative stability of these patterns once they are established. There was certainly much less change during most of the duration of the majority of Vertebrate families than was implied by Darwin. This requires an explanation that is not provided hy the evolutionary synthesis.

    Birds can also be divided into two kinds, enantiornithes, an extinct group and euornithes to which all modern birds belong. Enantiornitheans were a diverse group living in every continent except Antarctica. So why did they die out at the same time as the dinosaurs?

  36. John Harshman: So why can’t creationists agree even on something this seemingly simple?

    I would say that this is what happens when people are lumped into categories such as “creationist” instead of being treated as individuals with their own personal points of view.

  37. CharlieM:

    I would say that there are thousands of kinds of birds.

    You seem to be ignoring the definition of “kind”, unless you think that each species of bird was separately created. Do you?

    But this diversity of kinds can be recognised as a unity. The fact that we can distinguish birds from other life forms means that we can group them as a unity. The question is, can the origin of this unity be explained by looking at the fossil record?

    Why is that the question? You seem to have wandered off onto a digression whose point you never manage to explain. The long quotes don’t help.

    Birds can also be divided into two kinds, enantiornithes, an extinct group and euornithes to which all modern birds belong. Enantiornitheans were a diverse group living in every continent except Antarctica. So why did they die out at the same time as the dinosaurs?

    Again you seem not to understand the definition of “kind”. There can be no such thing as kinds within kinds. I will also point out that there are birds that are neither enantironithine nor euornithine. As for your question, I don’t know. Why do you ask?

    CharlieM: I would say that this is what happens when people are lumped into categories such as “creationist” instead of being treated as individuals with their own personal points of view.

    You say this as if points of view spring from the brow of Jupiter and can have no origin in evidence. If there were separate kinds, they should be obvious. That they are not suggests to me that there are no separate kinds. What about you? And please remember what kinds are: groups within which there is common descent but between which there is not. Given this definition, nothing you have said is relevant.

  38. CharlieM: I would say that this is what happens when people are lumped into categories such as “creationist” instead of being treated as individuals with their own personal points of view.

    Yes, how horrible that anyone should hold creationists to a consistent point of view that agrees with the evidence.

    So much for any pretense that creationism is science, or meaningful.

    Glen Davidson

  39. out of curiosity

    does anybody know whether or not this thread has blipped on the radar of any creationist forum out in cyberspace?

  40. John Harshman,

    You seem to be ignoring the definition of “kind”, unless you think that each species of bird was separately created. Do you?

    I don’t think that species of birds and kinds correlate however his estimate of 1000 is not a number to be discounted. If we were to use 1% variation In DNA and alternative splicing differences as an arbitrary delineation for sorting then the initial count of created kinds among birds could be over 1000. The same may be true if we moved the point of delineation up to 5%. How much do we expect DNA and alternative splicing to change by reproduction alone?

  41. Here’s my answer: 1; all birds belong to the same kind. In fact they form an infinitesimal fraction of a kind, since all life on earth is related. We have discussed the evidence many times here: nested hierarchy, etc. There are no joints at which kinds can easily be carved. How about you?

    Bravo, Dr. Harshman!!!

    And what if some birds don’t seem to belong to the same kind? I’m sure Dr. Harshman has some unfounded excuses…

    Unlike avian birds that have hollow bones, ratites (flightless birds) have solid bones…

    Ratites also have a “bladder-urine and feces are stored and excreted separately.

    Ostriches, unlike other ratites have a gallbladder…

    Ostriches and emus have lymphatic penises…

    “The existence of a lymphatic penis in some birds presents an evolutionary puzzle, says Richard Prum, an ornithologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and co-author of the paper. “What is weird about birds is that they evolved not just a new structure, but a novel way to do something that was already being done,” he says. “

    That is not a problem for Dr. Harshman as he has provided us with many “evolutionary excuses” presented as science including the miraculous gene insertions into the tree of life…

    The Nature article continues:

    “Darwin and others said that penises were primary sexual traits, meaning they’re essential for reproduction. But the birds say they’re not,” notes Montgomerie. Instead, he says, the penis may be a secondary sexual trait, helpful for stimulating the female, signalling reproductive fitness and even an aspect of competition among males — but not indispensable.”

    https://www.nature.com/news/ostrich-penis-clears-up-evolutionary-mystery-1.9600

    And here we go…Darwin was wrong about the reproduction thingy but since the assumption that evolution is always right, Darwinists can sleep well… No matter what contradicts the previous assumptions about evolution, the new ones must be right because the alternative is simply unacceptable…

    So, ratites’ breastbones lack the keel that could have allowed them to fly. They don’t have hollow bones like the avian birds, but they do have bladders as well as the lymphatic penises…

    All these puzzle can be explained by Dr. Harshman provided he makes the right assumptions first – evolution is always right.

    The nested hierarchy and the miraculous disappearances or the appearances of organs or whole functional systems can always be assumed or ignored…
    Not the first time not the last time…

    The creative powers of natural processes created by sheer dumb luck are truly amazing… All one needs if faith…

  42. TomMueller,

    Could you please try answering that question again. This time coherently…

    The concept of created kinds says there is a limit to the variation that reproduction can generate and additional living diversity comes from creation.

    My suggestion is to search for the line of demarkation between reproductive variation and a created kind using genetic information.

    The two types of information I suggested using are DNA sequences and alternative splicing patterns to see if a point of demarkation can be discovered. Different proteins are generated from both DNA sequences and alternative splicing patterns.

    Some of these different proteins are used as transcription factors (proteins that initiate DNA transcription) which determine gene expression levels and may count for part of genetic diversity.

  43. colewd:
    John Harshman,

    I don’t think that species of birds and kinds correlate however his estimate of 1000 is not a number to be discounted.If we were to use 1% variation In DNA and alternative splicing differences as an arbitrary delineation for sorting then the initial count of created kinds among birds could be over 1000.The same may be true if we moved the point of delineation up to 5%.How much do we expect DNA and alternative splicing to change by reproduction alone?

    Word salad again, Bill. Please try harder. Also, consider clarifying what you previously said in line with the various questions I have asked you. Why 1%? Why 5%? And there really isn’t much alternative splicing in birds.

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