The Learning Curve/The Learning Curve (Weird Science, 1996).iso/religion/essays_on_origins/essay16

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                             ESSAYS ON ORIGINS:

                  Species, Speciation and the Genesis Kind
                       by Dr. David N. Menton, Ph.D.

                    This version copyright (c) 1994 by:
                     Missouri Association for Creation
   _____________________________________________________________________

    [No. 16 in a series]                   October 1994, Vol. 4, No. 10
   _____________________________________________________________________

     In his "table talks," Martin Luther spoke of the Greek scholar
  Cicero's proof for the existence of God:

     "The best argument that there is a God -- and it often moved me
     deeply -- is this one that he proves from generation of species;
     a cow always bears a cow, a horse always bears a horse, etc.  No
     cow gives birth to a horse, no horse gives birth to a cow, no
     goldfinch produces a siskin.  Therefore it is necessary to
     conclude that there is something that directs everything thus"
     (_Luther's Works_, 1967 Fortress Press, p. 423).

  As obvious as this principle of "like begets like" is in terms of common
  experience, a central tenet of Darwinism is that in the course of time,
  things are very different.  Evolutionists seek to account for the origin
  of all species (past and present) from a single, hypothetical,
  primordial-life-form by means of progressive change and natural
  selection.

     Many think that Darwin solved the problem of speciation (development
  of new species) with the publication of his book _On the Origin of
  Species_.  In fact, Darwin didn't really deal with the subject, much
  less explain it.  This failure to address what was seemingly the central
  issue of his study stemmed from the fact that Darwin, like many of the
  other English "transformationists" of his time, did not really recognize
  the species as a distinct and real category of organisms.  Rather, he
  extrapolated the continuous (but limited) variation he saw among
  pigeons, finches, dogs, etc. into a limitless and seamless continuum
  among all organisms.

     There were essentially two schools of biology in the 19th century
  which we might call the "typological" or German school, and the
  "populational" or British school.  Most of the great German (and French)
  biologists of this time viewed the species as a true type in nature.
  Many British biologists, on the other hand, focused on the variation
  among individuals within a species, and viewed the species as nothing
  more than a statistical average of the population.  This, in turn, led
  many to conclude that the entire system of classification of organisms
  was merely an arbitrary pattern imposed on what was in reality a
  continuum. It is not surprising then that the concept of evolution grew
  out of the British School, while many German and French naturalists were
  among Darwin's strongest critics.

     The first problem in discussing the origin of species is to define
  just what we mean by a species.  Complicating the definition of a
  species is the use in scientific literature of terms such as: _sibling
  species, subspecies_ and _semispecies_.  Until nearly the later half of
  this century, a species was considered to be any systematic unit
  classified as a species by a competent systematist.  More often than
  not, an animal's anatomy (rather than its ability to interbreed) was
  considered the primary determinant of a species.  As a result of this
  approach, ten interbreeding varieties of red foxes were once divided
  into ten separate "species" merely on the basis of their color and
  geographical distribution.  The red foxes are now considered to
  represent one species (_Vulpes fulva_) comprising 12 "subspecies."  The
  southern pocket gopher has 214 such subspecies!  Subspecies then, is
  simply another name for what has long been known as a variety.

     The modern definition of a species tends to ignore anatomical
  differences or similarities and focuses almost entirely on whether or
  not a natural population interbreeds.  The evolutionist Francisco Ayala
  has defined a species as "groups of interbreeding natural populations
  that are reproductively isolated from other such groups."  By this
  widely accepted definition, two geographically separated organisms could
  be almost indistinguishable (and capable of interbreeding in the
  laboratory) yet be considered two different "species" by reason of their
  failure to interbreed in nature.  Such populations are often referred to
  as "_sibling species_."  By this definition of species, there are over
  6000 species of fruit flies in Hawaii alone!

     Regrettably, the term species is not always used consistently today.
  The nearly 150 varieties of strikingly distinctive dog breeds recognized
  by the American Kennel Club are all considered to be members of the same
  species _Canis familiaris_, because they all can cross breed.  Yet the
  gray wolf (_Canis lupus_) and the coyote (_Canis latrans_) are
  considered to be different species, though they too are known to
  interbreed with dogs.  Creationists have long felt a need for a
  classification that would include in one consistent category all
  organisms that interbreed under _any_ conditions.

     The Bible employs the Hebrew word _min_ 21 times in the Old Testament
  to speak of the different "kinds" of animals.  In Genesis the created
  _min_ were said to reproduce each after its own kind, suggesting strict
  reproductive limits.  All birds, for example, are clearly not one _min_.
  In the 14th chapter of Deuteronomy we find a separate _min_ applied
  respectively to the raven, the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the
  hawk, the little owl, the great owl, the water hen, the pelican, the
  vulture, the cormorant, the stork, and the heron.  The classification
  _species_ as used today is clearly more limited than the Old Testament
  _min_.

     Using the Biblical concept of classification, it would seem
  appropriate to include all true cattle of the genus _Bos_ (seven
  different species) in one _min_ since they all can interbreed.  The
  Santa Gertrudis breed of cattle, for example, was developed by crossing
  Brahman bulls (_Bos indicus_) with shorthorn cows (_Bos taurus_).  Even
  the African buffalo (_Syncerus caffer_), can be crossed with the
  American bison (_Bison bison_) and with other true cattle, suggesting
  that all of these animals, though representing different genus and
  species, could be considered to be of the "cattle kind" or _min_.

     While animal species have never been observed to evolve into
  distinctively different species, new species have been produced in
  plants through the process of hybridization.  In 1881, for example,
  Judge J. L. Logan of California crossed a raspberry (_Rubus idaeus_)
  with a blackberry (_Rubus allegheniensis_) to produce the loganberry
  (_Rubus loganobaccus_).  The loganberry breeds true, with no tendency to
  revert back to either parent and is one of many examples of a true
  modern hybrid in plants.  Hybridization among animals is much more
  restricted than in plants because of their more specialized mode of
  sexual reproduction.

     It has long been hoped by evolutionists that the science of genetics
  would provide an explanation of how fundamentally new species are
  formed, but this has not been the case.  Attempts to explain evolution
  by "macromutations" have failed, as have the attempts to equate
  evolution with mere changes in the gene frequencies in populations
  (population genetics).  The evolutionist Richard Lewontin said that:

     "It is an irony of evolutionary genetics that, although it is a
     fusion of Mendelism and Darwinism, it has made no direct
     contribution to what Darwin obviously saw as the fundamental
     problem: the origin of species." (_The Genetic Basis of
     Evolutionary Change_, 1974, p. 159).

     We may safely conclude that there has never been an exception to the
  simple words of Genesis 1:24:  "And God said, Let the earth bring forth
  the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and
  beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so."
  _______________________________________________________________________

  Dr. Menton received his Ph.D. in Biology from Brown University.  He has
  been involved in biomedical research and education for over 30 years.

  Dr. Menton is President of the Missouri Association for Creation, Inc.

                          Originally published in:
                            St. Louis MetroVoice
                               PO Box 220010
                            St. Louis, MO  63122
  _______________________________________________________________________

              Corrections and revisions have been made by the
                author from the original published essay.

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