A perennial topic. The organisms we see cluster around specific, distinct types. We can identify an individual as belonging to that type because it has the distinctive characteristics of that type. We know what the characteristics are because we see a lot of such individuals.
To the some Creationists, those types represent essential, immutable forms, perhaps with some post-Ark latitude, and a bit of variation around the ‘norm’. It is as if those forms were cast from a mould, with small manufacturing defects. The mould is eternal, unchanging.
To the Evolutionist, those types are simply the current form of a changing lineage. Lineages can branch and diverge leading to an increase in the total numbers, offset by extinction. The branching process is somewhat extended in time, so species are not only malleable but somewhat blurry around the inception of a bifurcation. Intraspecific variation does not become interspecific variation overnight.
The Creationist demands to know how one type can ‘become’ another – how one unchanging essence can become another unchanging essence. The Evolutionist answers that their conception of ‘species’ is awry – one type becomes another, or two, gradually, changing like minimalist music. The type ‘floats on the breath of the population’, as Dr Johnson said of the unwritten Erse language. The Creationist responds that this is begging the question – defining species in evolutionary terms is an attempt to prove evolution by definition.
Nonetheless, if you are talking of evolution, your species concept needs to take account of it. An essentialist conception is no use in an evolutionary framework. There is, in my opinion, no non-arbitrary means of distinguishing species from other taxonomic ranks while interbreeding (and hence gene flow) is possible. This is the limit of the Biological Species Concept – a biospecies is the set of all the individuals which can create viable fertile offspring with at least one other member of the set. This can frequently be far too broad – maples separated for 20 million years can interbreed, and fertile hybrids between morphologically distinct types, even those assigned to different genera, are common. It is also difficult practically to assess whether the sets are ‘really’ separate yet. At the extreme, a single introgression among billions of incompatible pairings would indicate incomplete speciation, to a BSC pedant.
Creationists claim an objective means (as they do in other arenas …) but take them out in the field and I suspect their hypothetical methodology would fail them. If we base it on ‘morphology’, just how does one rank characters objectively? A wing-bar, beak colour, gregarious, particular mating dance, blue eggs, prefers shrimps … how many characters, which ones are more important, and by how much?
I would take as an example the Spotted sandpiper and Common sandpiper. These are held to be an example of parapatric speciation – they occupy different but contacting ranges, and within those ranges, for reasons unknown, gene flow in a single ancestral species between the ranges gradually diminished. Potential causes include a temporary ‘firebreak’ where no individuals penetrated, dichotomous mate preference, or ecological specialisation. Now, again for reasons not entirely obvious, they do not penetrate each others’ ranges except in narrow contact zones. At these zones, hybrids frequently occur. So on the BSC, speciation is not complete (indeed, the Common also interbreeds with sandpipers of a different genus, so on the BSC they join in too). But they are clear morphological species. Are they Platonic? Were they both on the Ark?
How do you know that what a God knows could be known by a finite mind, perhaps that is a logical impossibility that even an omnipotent God could not reveal?
Heh, and here it is. And it’s your job to make me admit that, right?
I know that is what you say. But I would disagree.
quote:
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them [revealed] .
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
(Rom 1:19-20)
end quote:
It’s possible that this knowledge is not part of your conscious awareness.
And I don’t want to release the “how do you know?” bot right now so I’ll let that one lay for now.
Perhaps we can discuss it sometime when we have some time to kill. 😉
peace
Well, I don’t actually think you believe in god at all. I think you are just pretending out of guilt as your family would be devastated at your real thoughts.
Well, possibly. But I don’t see a lot of point. You seem to have made up your mind not only about what you think but what I “really” think. What could we possibly achieve by discussing it?
Elizabeth,
Yes, I hinted at the parallel in my OP: “Creationists claim an objective means (as they do in other arenas …) “. It’s great when you know what God thinks. Makes it so much easier to get on the right side of Him.
fifthmonarchyman,
Huh?
This is rather the point. How finely subdivided is God‘s view of the continuum? And regardless, if it is a continuum, and God has it subdivided in his mind in a non-fuzzy manner at some level that includes more than one organism, you must have a parent-child sequence at some point which God would place in two different categories. Unless the subdivision is at individual level, in which case it’s not much use for a classification scheme. As I said – however fractally one subdivides the continuum, the same issue arises on attempting to dichotomise the series at that level.
fifthmonarchyman,
If he does not need to subdivide, why do you think he bothers?
He seems to serve whatever purpose you feel necessary at the time, then ‘reveals’ it to privileged people like yourself to assist them in denying the entailments of an evolutionary world.
fifthmonarchyman,
Again with that dumb non-point. Who said it was about me? ‘Human’ was mentioned in the posts to which I was responding, hence I carried it forward. Substitute ‘gooseberry’ if you like.
No we aren’t. This is what Elizabeth said: “I don’t think there could be a point, for example in our future lineage, where we could say that THIS child is human but THAT child is not. That is clearly not an atemporal viewpoint, and this discussion follows on from that.
You say the words, but I bet you haven’t a clue what ‘atemporal being’ really means. If you are talking of front-loading, you are NOT talking about atemporal matters. If we are talking of the common ancestor of Chimps and Humans, and the succession of organisms leading thence, or the point in ‘name-space’ at which a child might (on some viewpoints) be in a different category from its parent … none of this is meaningful in an ‘atemporal’, flattened view. Parents and offspring are neighbours in genetic space. Even if all intervening organisms were resurrected now, and we thereby ‘flatten’ the notion of succession to generate an unsorted collection of Human-Chimp ancestors and descendants all together, we would either have one species or (at least) three for classification purposes. Which is it, O Atemporal One?
Putting all historic organisms together makes the species problem worse, not better. Imagine a tree where no cell line ceases, and hence there are no branches. Also known as a wooden blob.
I never cease to be amazed at the jacked up straw-man of version Christianity you all have constructed,
It’s not my job to get you to admit anything I really don’t care if you admit anything
The Holy Spirit is the one who does that sort of thing.
My only job in this situation is to give an answer if you have any questions about the faith I have and to spread the good news if the subject comes up?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
From the Rules:
Claiming that other participants hold a position other than what they have clearly stated they hold is a violation of at least these two, not to mention arrogant and rude.
And your other job is to spread the lie you’ve been told by your elders that non-religious persons “really” know god, but are either in rebellion or denial about it, or just don’t know consciously that they know god.
Maybe YOU just don’t know consciously that you’re repeating lies.
Good job, boyo, good job. Keep up the good work for your lying christian elders and their genocidal monster god.
It’s not that he bothers it’s simply part of being omnipotent.
If there is such a thing as an archetypical circle God knows it. In the same way if there is such a thing as a archetypical human God knows it.
If I can imagine an archetypical Canis lupus (and I can) God can do so as well. It’s no bother for him it’s part of being who he is
By definition God’s archetype is the correct one
Right this is what I’m saying, There is no reason why a parent and a child must be in the same category.
We have no problem placing Roundup soybeans in a separate category from their parents regular Glycine max. God is a least as adapt at this stuff as we are
peace
The Bible Says you know that God exists. I will not deny the Bible.
If denying the word of God is a condition of my participation here I will consider my banning to be a badge of honor.
As far as being arrogant and rude I would not want to be seen as such so I won’t rub your nose in it and won’t mention it again unless the subject comes up like it did today
peace
The Christian God is a Trinity remember?
The Logos is part of our universe and is therefore temporal.
God “a se” is Atemporal however God as experienced by us is “in time.”
The Logos became Flesh.
Once God made the decision to create the Logos became the face of God to a temporal creation
quote:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
(Col 1:15-17)
end quote:
hope that helps
peace
what does genetic space have to do with anything. We are talking about phenotype not genotype
I am not God I don’t have a direct hot-line to the divine mind and I’m not trying to put biologists out of business.
I have no idea how many species there are between chimp and human the work of categorizing takes time and effort. My approach merely says that Biologist’s categorizing work is not in vain and there is in fact a correct answer to be discovered
peace
Using the bible here is no excuse for breaking the site rules.
If you can’t behave yourself without “denying the bible” then you don’t belong here, any more than a pornographer belongs here.
Please do feel free to go elsewhere so that you can repeat your bible’s lies without having to break site rules.
You don’t have to wait for your “badge of honor”. You could demonstrate your honor and honesty by leaving voluntarily, rather than preemptively blaming the non-religious for your own failure to show any decent manners or respect for site rules.
If that is the consensus I will oblige.
I don’t want to be where I am not wanted.
I’ll lay off for a while and let you all decide.
Let me know
peace
I actually disagree, and I don’t think fifth has violated the site rules. He appears to hold honestly the belief that it is impossible not to know that God exists, and that therefore, if any of us think that God doesn’t exist, we must somehow have suppressed consciousness of that knowledge.
The rules are not intended to suppress discussion of such a belief. Fifth, you are welcome here.
Yet you do so in your very next comment:
Matthew 28:19
According to the book which you will not deny, it’s your mission from god to convert the unbelievers.
fifthmonarchyman,
If you are omnipotent you don’t need categories. You simply can hold every possible genotype in your ‘mind’ at once, without needing to group them. You can handle a continuum, and are not hobbled by the limitations of the creatures with which you are involved in some kind of flesh-based ‘covenant’. Even some people can handle a continuum, and the idea that there is no such thing as an ‘archetype’. You are simply guessing at what God’s qualities may be, based in large degree on yours – your inability to handle a continuum.
fifthmonarchyman,
Not really no. Seems totally irrelevant to me.
fifthmonarchyman,
You want to ignore genotype. I don’t, and nor do taxonomists. Phenotype is built from genotype. A child inherits its parent’s genotype, not its phenotype. God knows all about genotypes.
fifthmonarchyman,
Have we moved between archetypes there? You’re the one who was sneering about ‘squinting just right’.
fifthmonarchyman,
I am not looking for a definitive answer, I am illustrating in vain hope that you may recognise that your schema does nothing to avoid ‘the species problem’ – even less so if you want to remove the temporal dimension, which is in large part responsible for species discreteness now: ancestral forms no longer exist, so in the case of those sandpipers, we now have clear blue water between them. If the modern sandpipers and all their ancestors were collected together, we would have two ‘archetypes’ – the modern sandpipers – and a third, the ancestor, and maybe more – however many groupings The Celestial Mind sees fit. But there is nothing non-arbitrary on which to base a classificatory schema. If one decides that Common and Spotted are ‘archetypes’, what’s the ancestor? Is that an archetype too? If so, as descendants moved from the ancestor archetype to, separately, the Common/Spotted archetypes, one has a gap to jump from one to another somewhere. A parent is one archetype, the child another. Yet they are indistinguishable, archetypally-speaking. If you came across them, you would think they were the same archetype. You would not recognise an ‘archetype boundary’, even if there ‘really was one’ in the mind of God (pure speculation anyway). So you stick an intervening archetype in to solve the problem. But the same issue arises at the next level down. Ultimately, fine-grained structure resolves to each individual – there is no reason to stop subdividing to the lowest possible scale.
And therefore, what use is the notion?
Elizabeth,
Your house, your rules. My apologies for overstepping.
He probably does believe that nonsense. What I saw as a rule violation is that he refused to accept your clear statement that you do not have knowledge of a god. I don’t see how his claim doesn’t either suggest that you are not posting in good faith or that you are not either ignorant or delusional.
It’s an interesting conundrum. Is it possible to have a rational conversation with people who will not accept your statements about your own beliefs and knowledge at face value? As I understand it, one of your goals for this site was to provide a venue where people could identify the root causes of their disagreements. When someone is spouting bumper sticker theology (“The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” — and yes, I have seen those on the road in the U.S.), I suppose your goal has been met. I’m not sure what else there is to say, though.
That’s because you are a pragmatist, while fifth isn’t.