Nor that Isaac Asimov is an excellent historian of science or philosopher of science

Video

Why I am no longer a Creationist - Part 1: Genus Homo
atheistcoffee | 12.V.2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn_EPW17Fdc

I

2:08 "Neanderthals were genetically distinct from the Homo sapiens alive today"

I think this is a reason to consider them as pre-Flood.

The genomes preserved after Flood derive from Noah and his wife and their three daughters in law.

One more, some men have more Neanderthal similar genes than others, meaning, I suppose, a part Neanderthal person may have been one of the daughters in law.

In some Neanderthal friendly moments, I consider it possible Neanderthals were simply people, of another race or "subspecies", in the ancestry of Japheth's wife. In some less Neanderthal friendly moments (like watching one of the skulls you showed), I consider they were perhaps Nephelim and the ancestry of Japheth's wife is from the stock Nephelim came from, not Neanderthal / Nephelim per se.

E i t h e r way, this means Neanderthals died out in the Flood.

2:28 Sorry, genetics can determine paternity, but cannot determine how fast mutations add up to diversity.

The "hundreds of thousands of years" is a baseless claim.

2:39 I agree it was a population. I only say, the event in which they died out is - the Flood.

Robert Sparling

There was no flood

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The Neanderthal extinction event is just one of the many traces of it.

Robert Sparling

Even if there was a flood, which there wasn't, you would have no basis to declare causality.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Check : all the world of before the Flood was drowned, except four men and four women. All men who live now descend from these.

Neanderthals, Denisovans, Heidelbergians and Antecessors are gone. Home Sapiens is left.

That makes Homo Sapiens a good candidate for the race on board Noah's Ark.

That in its turn makes Neanderthals a race which did not make it (except through a half breed who was daughter in law of Noah) onto the Ark.

Or, all of the post-Flood population comes from three brothers (with their dad and mum) and their three wives, meaning, their descendants replaced whatever population lived before the Flood.

Meaning, since European population has not been radically replaced since the time Homo Sapiens replaced Neanderthal, while Neanderthal could theoretically (but I think unlikely) also be post-Flood, the Aurignacian and so on populations could not be pre-Flood, since we are still around.

Robert Sparling

The stories are not impressive. The lack of geological evidence to support stories of a world wide flood, and the presence of geological evidence to deny such a flood ist überzeugend.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am wirklich traurig to have to tell you that your pretense is not impressive at all.

Cretaceous is one label of geologic evidence for the Flood. Jurassic is another one. And so on. In Karoo, the pre-Flood fauna was divided in biotopes like Permian, Triassic and Jurassic.

And there are other ones.

Robert Sparling

I don't understand your argument. Perhaps you should explain it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Perhaps this correspondence may help? Here:

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : Superposition of Palaeontology Or Lack of Such?
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2018/02/superposition-of-palaeontology-or-lack.html

Robert Sparling

You're going to have to walk me through it since ich bin keine geologiker. I understand there is an assumption of overlap of two geologic formations but that this particular research team has not physically discovered an underlying formation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

My argument is, this particular research team is typical in not finding fossils from both over and underlying fossils in same place, but untypical in admitting it.

Not that they typically deny it, they most typically don't even answer.

This one was sent to the University of Madagascar:

Creation vs. Evolution : Question for Madagascar ...
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/01/question-for-madagascar.html

I have received no answer.

By the way, since they [thosewho answered] are creationists, the admission was not costly on their part.

Here is an answer from a non-creationist team on a very wide ground with overlapping (or supposedly) Permian, Triassic and Jurassic:

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : Contacting Karoo about superposition of layers and fossils
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2015/06/contacting-karoo-about-superposition-of.html

Robert Sparling

Yeah, it's all greek to me. It appears that you are searching for evidence of a flood by following one line of inquiry. Since I am not knowledgeable in this area, I can only rely on things like the USGS publication "The World's Largest Floods, Past and Present," in which Noah's flood was conspicuously absent, or the publications of Glenn Morton regarding the geologic column, or the problems from this reference: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html#georecord . It seems that the overwhelming consensus of geologists is that the Noahic flood is a myth.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I can only rely on things like the USGS publication "The World's Largest Floods, Past and Present," in which Noah's flood was conspicuously absent"

It would be absent.

The publication is listing local Floods, identified as such (some of which might be parts of Noachic Flood), while the Noachic Flood was global.

"or the publications of Glenn Morton regarding the geologic column,"

Glenn Morton is one of the guys I am trying to refute.

Your link reference claims that "ecologic zonation" (my theory) fails to explain, number 1:

"the extremely good sorting observed. Why didn't at least one dinosaur make it to the high ground with the elephants?"

This is precisely what I have just refuted. We do NOT find fossil dinosaurs at 10 feet deep and then fossil dinosaurs ten feet lower.

I'll pick one more, now:

"the relative positions of plants and other non-motile life. (Yun, 1989, describes beautifully preserved algae from Late Precambrian sediments. Why don't any modern-looking plants appear that low in the geological column?)"

Part of the problem is, on land, as in Cretaceous or Jurassic land faunas, very little plant life is perserved at all. "Late Precambrian algae" works because algae were swimming in the sea and these well preserved ones apparently got buried sufficiently fast and well to get preserved.

Same answer applies to how we find trilobites below "Jurassic" sharks, since trilobites were typically (not always, but often) bottom living creatures.

"why some groups of organisms, such as mollusks, are found in many geologic strata."

A "no brainer" : the Flood water was transporting these all the way around the globe, everywhere.

"why organisms (such as brachiopods) which are very similar hydrodynamically (all nearly the same size, shape, and weight) are still perfectly sorted."

Unclear, if there is one single place where Cambrian brachiopods come below Silurian ones, I'd like to know that.

But if it only means Cambrian and Silurian brachiopods always come in Cambrian and Silurian layers, simple ecological zoning, once again.

"why extinct animals which lived in the same niches as present animals didn't survive as well. Why did no pterodons make it to high ground?"

One of the places where Pterosaurs are actually found is Tyrol, in Austria. While it was arguably less high before the Flood, where is the argument that the Jurassic or Cretaceous of Tyrol (whichever it is) was lower than the Palaeocene of Vienna?

"how coral reefs hundreds of feet thick and miles long were preserved intact with other fossils below them."

Here we are arguing drill cores, not observed intact coral reefs.

Part is, some animals can have lived below coral reefs pre-Flood, part is, some "coral reefs hundreds of feet thick and miles long" could be in fact assemblages of coral reef débris from the Flood.

"why small organisms dominate the lower strata, whereas fluid mechanics says they would sink slower and thus end up in upper strata."

It would seem that you have lots of clams and other small organisms in Jurassic of certain parts of US.

It is just that palaeontologists are less interested in them than in the dinosaur bones.

Obviously they would have been washed over the dinos during the Flood, as the land where dinos were grazing was washed over by water, mud and clams.

"why artifacts such as footprints and burrows are also sorted. [Crimes & Droser, 1992]"

Discounting Paluxy ...

"why no human artifacts are found except in the very uppermost strata. If, at the time of the Flood, the earth was overpopulated by people with technology for shipbuilding, why were none of their tools or buildings mixed with trilobite or dinosaur fossils?"

While the tools necessary for shipbuilding existed, we do not know that anyone except Noah was using them for the purpose.

Cities of men in well built houses, I would once have been looking at Mohenjo Daro for Nod, but now I consider on carbon dates that Mohenjo Daro must be post-Flood, and therefore, I would look for Nod below Himalaya's.

In the pre-Flood times the area of Vienna was at a sea shore. This we would know from the seal in Nussdorf. Praepusa Vindobonensis, classed as Palaeocene. This means if there was a pre-Flood city anywhere near, we could consider it as very buried by the Alps.

"why different parts of the same organisms are sorted together. Pollen and spores are found in association with the trunks, leaves, branches, and roots produced by the same plants [Stewart, 1983]."

Not universally. There was recently a "Cambrian rabbit" scenario with pollen in a layer supposed to be from times before pollinising plants existed.

"why ecological information is consistent within but not between layers. Fossil pollen is one of the more important indicators of different levels of strata. Each plant has different and distinct pollen, and, by telling which plants produced the fossil pollen, it is easy to see what the climate was like in different strata. Was the pollen hydraulically sorted by the flood water so that the climatic evidence is different for each layer?"

I'd like to know exactly where we find pollen from diverse eras at different depths.

If we find Palaeocene pollen near Palaeocene land animals like Creodonts, it could be because Creodonts lived near pollen bearing plants.

Citing wiki: D. proteus is known from the late Paleocene and earliest Eocene of Wyoming and the only species present in the Tiffanian and Clarkforkian stages (60–55 Ma). It is slightly larger than D. leptornylus and slightly smaller than D. protenus.

Didymictis : From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didymictis

It pretty obviously lived near pollen bearing plants, if you find pollen in Palaeocene of Wyoming.

Meaning, I will have to ask how Palaeocene of Wyoming relates locally to the Morrisson or Hell Creek of Wyoming ... I suspect that there is there also no overlap.

"It seems that the overwhelming consensus of geologists is that the Noahic flood is a myth."

That argument is not really about the evidence, is it?

Robert Sparling

I think the statement relates to the consideration of the evidence. I am not as knowledgeable as you in the arguments, but that is no real support for the arguments either. The point is that your arguments have not been found convincing by the community of geologists. I understand that a lone voice begins an alvalanche, like Darwin's voice once did. But I am still stuck believing what the experts in the field have concluded. I once saw a short clip of Kent Hovind and Ken Miller in which Hovind claimed that the speed of light is not constant: that one set of researchers had measured it in one instance at very much higher speeds, and another set of researchers had measured it at a very low speed. I would not have been able to answer the claim, but when Ken Miller answered it, the deception was crystal clear. In the same way, Woodromappe's claims fall to ashes when answered by people who are knowledgeable in the relevant fields. With no disrespect to you or your effort, I suspect that your claims will end up the same way.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I think the statement relates to the consideration of the evidence."

As opposed to the evidence itself, yes.

"I am not as knowledgeable as you in the arguments, but that is no real support for the arguments either."

Indeed not. Welcome back if you actually look into them!

"The point is that your arguments have not been found convincing by the community of geologists"

Who have not bothered to look at them, most of them ...

I need to go back to my debate with an ex-pastor now Atheist who actually is a geologist, we were discussing Bonaparte Basin, he ended up blocking me. Tony Reed, in case you know him.

"In the same way, Woodromappe's claims fall to ashes when answered by people who are knowledgeable in the relevant fields."

I actually don't think so.

How many of them are even aware that "created kinds" makes the space on the Ark question rather easy to resolve?

"I once saw a short clip of Kent Hovind and Ken Miller in which Hovind claimed that the speed of light is not constant"

Distant starlight problem, no doubt?

Well, with Geocentrism, there is no parallax measure to light years away to start that part of cosmic distance ladder which leads to "13 billion + light years away = ago".

"With no disrespect to you or your effort, I suspect that your claims will end up the same way."

More likely to be actually ignored up to Doomsday ... which I hope won't be the case either, but so far it doesn't look too good.

Robert Sparling

"created kinds" would be a concept that would be easier to discuss if there we a single definition for them. Hovind's claim was that the speed of light is not constant. Miller explained the definition for the speed of light and made Hovind look silly because his claims were based upon experiments that did not adhere to the definition. One experiment measured the SoL in a dense medium rather than a vacuum, the other measured the speed of a photon at the crest of a wave.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Hovind's claim was that the speed of light is not constant. Miller explained the definition for the speed of light and made Hovind look silly because his claims were based upon experiments that did not adhere to the definition. One experiment measured the SoL in a dense medium rather than a vacuum, the other measured the speed of a photon at the crest of a wave."

But the context in which Hovind tried this was the Distant Starlight paradox, right?

For which my own solution is Geocentrism and fix stars one light day up from us.

New blog on the kid : Stellar Radiuses (If Sphere of Fix Stars is One Light Day Up)
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2018/02/stellar-radiuses-if-sphere-of-fix-stars.html

""created kinds" would be a concept that would be easier to discuss if there we a single definition for them."

That is like saying Linnean species could be a concept that would be easier to discuss if we had a single definition of them.

I mean, lupus lupus has meanwhile become canis lupus.

Which means wolves and dogs could clearly have one ancestor couple on board the ark.

There are 16 species of hedgehogs, I think they had one ancestor couple on board the ark.

Robert Sparling

Probably. Distant starlight is the classic rebuttal to a young creation. When I talk about a definition for kinds, I am asking for a parallel to linnean classification. Does a "kind" correspond to a genus, family, suborder, order? I can't ever get a singular answer for that, and so there is really no way to discuss the issue until we determine what a kind is.

Answered twice

A and B

A

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Does a "kind" correspond to a genus, family, suborder, order? I can't ever get a singular answer for that"

No, you can't.

Because sometimes we don't know what type of level a kind corresponds to.

Hedgehog is one kind, it has 5 genera and 16 species known as hedgehogs, BUT the kind might also involve Galericinae, in which case there are more than 16 species, I think that would make it 25 species live today.

If both Deinogalerix and Amphechinus were pre-Flood creatures, then Galericinae are a different couple on the Ark and so probably a different created kind from hedgehogs.

On the other hand, if one or both of these are post-Flood, these could be early bifurcations of the couple on the Ark.

Us not knowing whether Moonmice and Hedgehogs are two or one kind doesn't change that the distinction can exist.

It also doesn't change that there being one or two couples on the Ark for 25 species of Hedgehogs and Moonmice obviously saves some space. Leaving Woodmorappe in the right on at least that account.

B

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Distant starlight is the classic rebuttal to a young creation"

Indeed. It doesn't bother you it has an answer beyond what you judge the débacle of Hovind?

Robert Sparling

Science has an answer that Hovind does not accept, nor do you. I didn't ask about how your 1 light day thing was accepted by astrophysicists. I think astrophysicists are likely to have a better understanding of distant starlight than any apologist. "What ifs" are fine as models, but the hypotheses and experiments to test them are a necessary part of discovering truth. Without that, you don't have truth in regards to astronomical distances. If you can't tell what a kind is, then what good is the label?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I think astrophysicists are likely to have a better understanding of distant starlight than any apologist."

Where do you get that from?

Astrophysics is, like Evolution, "science at a distance" in this case in space rather than time.

I definitely know about how parallax is measured.

"What ifs" are fine as models, but the hypotheses and experiments to test them are a necessary part of discovering truth."

Well, the astrophysicists have no experiments to discover objects shining from 13.8 billion light years distance. That also is a what if. That is not a discovered truth, but if true at all, a truth not yet properly discovered.

You are giving "experts" far too much slack instead of checking what arguments they use, and then you use this blind faith in experts to "argue" against the argument of an apologist.

"If you can't tell what a kind is, then what good is the label?"

Not being able to apply a label is not the same as not knowing what it is.

I know two hedgehogs, even of different genera, are the same kind as each other.

I also know, they are not the same kind as dogs.

I am not able to say offhand whether Moonmice are same kind as hedgehogs.

Linneans have been hithering and thithering on whether Lupus is really Canis or not.

It seems, as I recall, Linnaeus said "Lupus lupus" and now Linneans say "Canis lupus".

It also seems that Canis lupus is still another species than Canis canis, but we do have fertile offspring between wolves and dogs, so, ideally, Canis canis and Canis lupus are not so clearly different Linnean species, even.

This means, I could turn the question around and simply ask what is the good of the Linnean "species" label, if you "don't know what it means".

I do what kind means.

It means a group which God originally created as one Linnean species, even if later it may have diversified into different ones.

Are you at least admitting that the concept of a kind having 16 or perhaps even 25 species and that kind rather than each species having one couple aboard the Ark means Woodmorappe is vindicated, or are you just filibustering to pretend there is one little detail wrong and therefore the "each Linnean species" on the Ark "remains" so to speak?

What is the good of arguing with people stuck in so much irrelevant formalism, if that is so?

Robert Sparling

So are you on board with dogs and earless seals being of the same kind?

A

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Obviously not, no.

Did you misread? I said dogs and wolves are of same kind.

Earless seals being marine animals might not have needed the ark ... not sure.

I am on board with earless seal and walruss being same kind.

B

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Are you confusing family Erinaceidae, formerly also the order Erinaceomorpha with order Eulipotyphla?

I noted dogs and seals were both order carnivora.

It seems that an order has been demoted to a family in Linnean terminology.

Ensuing

A and B are all separate posting comments, not all A's or all B's connected:

A

Robert Sparling

Dogs and earless seals are both caniformia, a suborder within carnivora. Caniformia means dog-like. Sounds like a kind to me.

B

Robert Sparling

How about hyenas? Are they in the same kind as dogs?

A

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Hyaenas? Possible.

Caniformia a kind? Not if all Carnivora, as they are, are divided between either Caniformia or Feliformia.

B

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Actually Hyaenas are considered Feliformia.

One should keep in mind though, that the division between Cani- and Feliformia is based on shape of cranium.

Robert Sparling

All of this should have demonstrated that the term "kind" is pretty well useless. Earless seals are more closely related to modern dogs than cats are, even though it is pretty easy to visually mistake a hyena for a dog-like creature. That is convergent evolution on display - form follows function.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"All of this should have demonstrated that the term "kind" is pretty well useless."

Not more than Linnean terminology. Hedgehogs and Moonmice were an order - like Carnivora - and are now a family, like Canidae.

AND you are still trying to get around the fact that genus, family and inbetween - hedgehogs are a subfamily, hedgehogs with moonmice a family - are the typical places to look for a created kind.

AND you are still trying to get around the fact that whether hedgehogs with moonmice are one or two kinds, were one or two couples on the ark, this is still clearly less than the 25 species having one couple per species.

"Earless seals are more closely related to modern dogs"

Related or "related"?

What we can see from zoology in the present, they are "related" as in similar, to a certain degree, one which I obviously put down to a common maker.

If you claim they are actually related, you are arguing from a premiss you would first have to prove to me, and that would be from the doctrine of common descent.

"than cats are,"

Possibly, that is why I added an extra remark about Hyenae being Feliformia.

"even though it is pretty easy to visually mistake a hyena for a dog-like creature."

Which means, of course that it is easy to be in two minds about whether hyenae are canine kind or not, right?

"That is convergent evolution on display - form follows function."

Or a common creator - feliformia and caniformia, as far as I am aware, are most distinguished by skull shape, triangular for feliformia and square for caniformia.

If a common shape is no proof of common descent, as hyenas not being dogs would argue if true (and which I don't deny the possibility of at all), then you cannot argue that canids - btw, jackals are canids, that is what I was thinking of - must have a common ancestor with seals.

I am even less sure whether canids is one kind of foxes and canines two kinds.

Canids are 12 genera, of which canis has 1 Canis adustus, 2 Canis anthus, 3 Canis aureus, 4 Canis latrans, 5 Canis lupus (including former canis canis), 6 Canis mesomelas, 7 Canis rufus, 8 Canis simensis, 9 Canis lycaon, then 10 Cuon alpinus, then 11 Lycaon pictus and 12 now extinct Lycaon sekowei, then 13 Cerdocyon thous, then 14 Chrysocyon brachyurus, then 15 †Speothos pacivorus and 16 Speothos venaticus, then all the genus Vulpes, namely: 17 Vulpes bengalensis, 18 Vulpes cana, 19 Vulpes chama, 20 Vulpes corsac, 21 Vulpes ferrilata, 22 Vulpes lagopus, 23 Vulpes macrotis, 24 Vulpes pallida, 25 Vulpes rueppellii, 26 Vulpes velox, 27 Vulpes vulpes, 28 Vulpes zerda, but we are still not done, there is also Nyctereutes: 29 †N. abdeslami, 30 †N. donnezani, 31 †N. megamastoides, 32 still extant N. procyonoides (the others are extinct), 33 †N. sinensis, 34 †N. tingi and 35 †N. vinetorum. As if that were not enough, we have 36 Otocyon megalotis, 37 Urocyon cinereoargenteus, 38 Urocyon littoralis, 39 †Urocyon progressus.

So, kinds are useless you say ... but it still does make a difference whether there were on the one hand one or two, perhaps 3 canid couples on the ark or all 39 species a separate couple.

It seems very clear you are simply not seriously dealing with Woodmorappe's solution, but finding faults in technicalities to avoid dealing with it.

Robert Sparling

• 1. Yes, kinds are more useless than Linnean classification. It would be a misunderstanding to say that any category is the final word on classification: indeed science only works by being open to new information! Your implication that science is worthless because it doesn’t get everything right the first time is unrealistic. Scientific truth is uncovered, many times, by a series of successive approximations.
  
  Linneaus developed his taxonomy by observation of morphology. His work was masterful in the context of the time that he lived. Morphology, like most isolated lines of inquiry, may be prone to some errors. When genomic or microbiological information produces a different place for a classification, as perhaps in the case of hedgehogs, then science corrects itself, and does so without the need for prayers, divine enlightenment, or inventing woowoo categorizations like “kinds.” It fits neatly in the taxonomy, albeit in a different place. The same has happened many times since genomics has taken off.
  
  Predictability is a characteristic of a theory. Evolutionary theory predicted the existence of a tiktaalik-like animal long before tiktaalik was found. What theory do you use to predict that created kinds would be found at the genus or family level if you can’t define a kind? So no, I don’t consider it a fact that those are the places to look.
  
  And no, I can’t talk about any kind of fact when it comes to what was on an ark.
  
  
• 2. The field of genomics has pretty well nailed down universal common descent: there is no real disagreement about that in biology. A popular controversy surrounding the theological implications does not require that proof be provided to people who are unable to understand it or are unwilling to honestly examine it.
  
  
• 3. No, one can no longer be of two minds about whether a hyena is a caniform or a feliform. It is clear based upon the genome. It simply means that the observational skills that might be attributed to clever people in the bronze age have been surpassed by science and technology.
  
  
• 4. The distinguishing characteristic that separates feliforms from caniforms is the bony enclosures surrounding the middle and inner ear (skull shape): the point is that it persisted in feliforms and not in caniforms. This is divergent evolution. This particular divergence is not readily apparent to a casual observer but other features of hyenas greatly appear to be dog-like. That is why a hyena is often thought to be a dog-like animal.
  
  Of course I can argue that seals have a common ancestor with dogs. They also have a common ancestor with cats, but it is a different ancestor. The apparent differences to a layman is not the standard by which these animals are taxonomically categorized. Seals are not canids, but they are caniforms. It is the divergent evolution that would confuse a casual observer.
  
  https://academic.oup.com/sysbio/article/54/2/317/2842927
  
  
• 5. In the end, the system of Linnean taxonomy, genomic analysis, and microbiology has or will, with continued research, present the truth of the organization of life.
  
  
• 6. As I mentioned before, I am not ready to talk about what may have been on an ark that did not exist. Woodromappe’s “solution” encompassed a lot more than just the problem of getting animals on board, after all. If you accept that only ancestral examples of kinds were aboard, then he has to deal with the speciation that must have occurred over a relatively short time.
  
  Also, there is certainly enough money available from adherents of the Abrahamic religions to actually build an ark. I would like to see one take to the seas. I do not want to be on it when it sinks.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

• 1) "Yes, kinds are more useless than Linnean classification. It would be a misunderstanding to say that any category is the final word on classification: indeed science only works by being open to new information! Your implication that science is worthless because it doesn’t get everything right the first time is unrealistic. Scientific truth is uncovered, many times, by a series of successive approximations."
  
  That works for Baraminological science too.
  
  Whether Hedgehogs and Moonmice are one kind or two different ones, we may not get it right the first time either, doesn't mean the distinction is useless.
  
  "Linneaus developed his taxonomy by observation of morphology. His work was masterful in the context of the time that he lived. Morphology, like most isolated lines of inquiry, may be prone to some errors. When genomic or microbiological information produces a different place for a classification, as perhaps in the case of hedgehogs,"
  
  Not the case.
  
  Hedgehogs are 5 genera and 16 species. Not one species.
  
  And we develop baraminology by morphology with corrections too.
  
  "then science corrects itself, and does so without the need for prayers, divine enlightenment,"
  
  Baraminology is not a prophecy by Pentecostals talking in tongues.
  
  It is not a vision by a Catholic mystic like Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich.
  
  "or inventing woowoo categorizations like “kinds.” It fits neatly in the taxonomy, albeit in a different place."

The fact remains, the distinction between genus and family is a bit woowoo, since both would be typical results for a kind (in the case of hedgehogs and moonmice, they are a family - sorry, it's moonrats: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Hylomys_suillus_-_Naturmuseum_Senckenberg_-_DSC02077a.JPG/1920px-Hylomys_suillus_-_Naturmuseum_Senckenberg_-_DSC02077a.JPG By Daderot - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21664535 this one being of the moonrats the one perhaps visually closests to hedgehogs : its hairs are tufty, recalling the spines of a hedgehog,

or here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Haarigel_%28Echinosorex_gymnura%29.jpg/1280px-Haarigel_%28Echinosorex_gymnura%29.jpg Von Haplochromis - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27680296 )

The fact remains, the distinction between family and order is also a bit woowoo, since moonrats are now a subfamily of Erinaceidae, which is in the order Eulipotyphla, while formerly hedgehogs and moonrats were families within the order Erinaceomorpha, and Eulipotyphla didn't even exist as a term.

"What theory do you use to predict that created kinds would be found at the genus or family level if you can’t define a kind?"

I can define a kind, you pretend to invalidate the definition based on its not being either all genus or all family.

It was not predictable that Erinacheomorpha should be degraded from order to family, and therefore hedgehogs and moonrats [each] from family to subfamily.

I disagree with predictability as main criterium of all scientific valid theories, but I could make a prediction : with baraminology, it will be superfluous to consider that any chromosome splits have taken place, especially in mammals.


• 2) "The field of genomics has pretty well nailed down universal common descent: there is no real disagreement about that in biology. A popular controversy surrounding the theological implications does not require that proof be provided to people who are unable to understand it or are unwilling to honestly examine it."
  
  High horses. Someone disagreeing with your terminology is not just confused, but someone disagreeing with your conclusions unable to understand or unwilling to honestly examine.
  
  With such high horses on your part, I can confidently conclude that YOU are not willing to honestly examine any science outside your own school, whatever your colleagues may be.
  
  
• 3) "No, one can no longer be of two minds about whether a hyena is a caniform or a feliform. It is clear based upon the genome. It simply means that the observational skills that might be attributed to clever people in the bronze age have been surpassed by science and technology."
  
  Bronze age people be blown.
  
  There is not sufficient genomic similarity between all caniforms or between all feliforms to proclaim common descent. There may be sufficient similarity of hyenae with feliforms and sufficient similarity of canis with caniforms to definitely show hyenae are not canids. So?
  
  I am not a bronze age man, I am also not a specialist in biology. I believe you hyena cannot be a dog, up to further evidence.
  
  B u t, I do not believe your honesty. You were willing to be deliberately provocative. I did not class hyena as same kind as dogs and wolves. THEN you go on an treat me as if I had fallen into the trap. This kind of deliberate and belittling mishearing is where an oral discussion between us would have been very sour, and I had to take a pause for a coffee.
  
  Here is what you asked, a few lines back in the discussion:
  
  "How about hyenas? Are they in the same kind as dogs?"
  
  Here is what I answered, divided over two comments:
  
  "Hyaenas? Possible. ... Actually Hyaenas are considered Feliformia."
  
  If the difference between feli and cani had been about skull shape and about genomic differences relating to it, well, this would have been insufficient to show hyenas a different kind from dogs. If there is more to it in the genome than that, well, it is not insufficient. No need to attribute to me a position I did not consider as my theory, and even less so to attribute it to bronze age people just because I share the theology with some of them. In fact, the word "hyena" does not come in the Bible. Nor does jackal - the canid which I was momentarily, as a non-specialist, confusing with hyenas.
  
  So, if you had gone over a deliberate mishearing like that several times over, orally, you might have had a punch. That is one reason I keep discussions with aggressive evolutionists like you to the internet - though there are less agressive ones, I would like to converse with orally on the matter as well.
  
  But some of you seem to have an agenda of being deliberatley provocative so as to show me "unbalanced". As I am well known, such plots are certainly possible and plausible, whether you are already in one or not, and as I am homeless, I have other occasions than trolls like you to confront deliberately provocative people - on a daily basis. This night someone whose staircase I was squatting claimed that last time I had been there I had peed in the corner. In fact I recall that last time very well, since I was asked to go after being in an hour or two, and I would certainly not have peed in the corner, but some people like to be masterful about homeless people. Whether it is warranted or not.
  
  So, if you once more tell me as if I or the Bible or baraminologists in general had considered hyenas as being of the canid kind, piss off!
  
  
• 4) "The distinguishing characteristic that separates feliforms from caniforms is the bony enclosures surrounding the middle and inner ear (skull shape): the point is that it persisted in feliforms and not in caniforms. This is divergent evolution."
  
  I was right about skull shape being key, then.
  
  There are some possible scenarios:
  
  
  • a) carnivora started out as feliforms, with those enclosures, and caniforms evolved by losing them;
  • b) carnivora started out as caniforms, without those enclosures, and feliforms evolved by gaining them (this would involve explaining how the mutations could add up to forming them)
  • c) carnivora have a common Creator who decided feliforms should have and caniforms not have those enclosures.
  
  
  "Of course I can argue that seals have a common ancestor with dogs. They also have a common ancestor with cats, but it is a different ancestor. The apparent differences to a layman is not the standard by which these animals are taxonomically categorized. Seals are not canids, but they are caniforms. It is the divergent evolution that would confuse a casual observer."
  
  Again, caniforms can have started out close to canids and seals have developed by loosing ears, they can have (probably not your position) started out as seals and canids have evolved, they can have started out as bears and both canids and seals have evolved. OR canids, bears and seals are three separate created kinds each of which has its uniting characteristiscs, and which also - by the fiat of the Creator - shares the negative characteristic of not having those enclosures in the skull.
  
  Either way, which you are very long overdue in admitting, the space of the ark is different according to whether Ursins are one bear couple or the 11 species of Ursus, Melursus and Helarctos as well as Protarctos form 11 couples on the ark.
  
  So, Woodmorappe has a point.
  
  
• 5) "In the end, the system of Linnean taxonomy, genomic analysis, and microbiology has or will, with continued research, present the truth of the organization of life."
  
  A truth, certainly - as long as you don't automatically consider taxa as homophyletic on all levels.
  
  The point is, there is a difference between a truth and the truth. Linnean terminology is inconsistent over time in how to class certain taxa as families or orders, as shown.
  
  The fact that hedgehogs belong to five genera rather than to one is partly a bit of impressionism.
  
  
• 6) "As I mentioned before, I am not ready to talk about what may have been on an ark that did not exist. Woodromappe’s “solution” encompassed a lot more than just the problem of getting animals on board, after all."
  
  And keeping them there. Now, this one is the most common brought up objection, and I was defending the Ark in the first place.
  
  If this means you close down this discussion from further exchange, fine. I already find you toxic. Not because of what you say, but because of how you say it, insisting that baraminology implies taking hyenas as part of canid kind, when that is in fact part of a debate not closed among us. If Ken Ham did so ...
  
  "If you accept that only ancestral examples of kinds were aboard, then he has to deal with the speciation that must have occurred over a relatively short time."
  
  Not necessarily he. While he has a major on both biology and geology, he is not - I just checked the page - the top five hits on CMI for baraminology have Todd Charles Wood, Dr Kurt P Wise, Alex Williams, Jean K Lightner and one of them was also the personal page of Todd Charles Wood.
  
  Now, you might know the ordinary mouse has 40 chromosomes, but certain mice have only 22. This is a very rapid form of speciation in chromosome fusion. I predict, chromosome fission will not be needed - as it is physically impossible.
  
  Lagamorphs have a hare species with two pairs more than the rabbit - these are clearly different species, and cannot mate. In America, but not Europe, an intermediate species has an intermediate number of chromosomes, and can mate with either.
  
  After the ark, populations were small, meaning that mutations spread quickly in each population.
  
  "Also, there is certainly enough money available from adherents of the Abrahamic religions to actually build an ark. I would like to see one take to the seas. I do not want to be on it when it sinks."
  
  I happen to know that the ark was not navigating. No sails, no oars etc.
  
  The major problem would not be sinking, but getting to a shore to refill food and fresh water soon enough. Remember, the ark could depend on rain water and seas were not so salty, an ark these days could not.
  
  Correcting link to moonrat by providing a short link which does not parse bad on youtube : http://ppt.li/3y6

Robert Sparling

I get it. You are a young earth creationist, so everything that is known to main stream science has to change to accommodate that belief. There is probably no use going farther with this discussion because we can't agree on the foundational underpinnings. (Is foundational underpinnings doppelt gemoppelt?)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I think foundational underpinnings, while not exactly part of my vocabulary is clear enough.

I also think your outbreak actually makes sense in one kind of context : namely, you bummped in to correct me, I didn't take correction. That said, it is not perfectly honest.

Now, my problem is NOT with Linnean taxonomy, as I have already stated.

You have already shown yourself dishonest, now you repeat offense. You have attributed to me a position which is not mine, and you are doing so again.

My problem is with what you as an evolutionist make out of Linnaean taxonomy.

Linnaeus was a possibly young earther and certainly creationist.

To him, the baramin was the Linnean species. This, we now usually consider wrong.

To him, already genus and obviously all level higher taxa than genus, all even more abstract, were precisely abstract taxa, to his mind never realised by common descent or crossfertility.

This means that even in his own approach, there could be a fluctuation between genus and family and order.

This means, it should be expected that our approach to taxa as real baramins should - due to his terminology and its application, even independently of our disagreements internally, fluctuate between for instance genus and family. And in one case perhaps even an order, since the possible baramin for hedgehogs and moonrats was previously considered an order.

I get it, you are a devout evolutionist, so every argument with which a young earth creationist, as a creation scientist, approaches the data, will to you signal we want to adapt what is "known" to your sect to our "agenda". I think that is a fair retort to your final quip.

Speaking of fair, here is a link to what has been said:

[link here at this adress:]
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.fr/2018/01/nor-that-isaac-asimov-is-excellent.html

II

4:54 "oldest"

Most "recent" Neanderthals are carbon dated and their carbon dates are not so old there were no equally carbon dated Cro Magnon (Sethites, ancestors of post-Flood man) back then. I consider carbon dates have a relative value (but are flawed in the absolute, behind a certain point back in time, perhaps 500 BC, perhaps less recent - and the transition is gradual).

But "oldest" Neanderthals and also the non-Neanderthal and non-Cro-Magnon men are dated with other methods which have no even relative value. Like Potassium Argon, which was indirectly used for dating Lucy. It has also dated Mount St Helen's and some volcanos on New Zealand to very far back for eruptions known to be recent.

So, we cannot safely say the non-Cro Magnon men are older than the Cro Magnon ones.

This means, of course, I consider the Heidelberg, Erectus and Habilis genomes would be prone to involve genomes that can be amplified with techniques like for Neanderthals.

7:00 Different parts of the world?

For Heidelbergensis, if intermediate between Cro Magnon and Neanderthal (as a supposed common ancestor should in some ways be), this is not really a problem for the pre-Flood world.

7:03 Same geologic strata?

Probably circular reasoning. You find an erectus, you label it as an appropriate stratum.

Confirming potassium argon is kept, disconfirming or infirming potassium argon is not kept. Some cases would have no potassium argon at all at hand.

III

9:03 "we are more right all the time"

I agree that Isaac Asimov was right that a Flat Earther was "nearly right" since the curvature per mile is not 0, but very close to 0.

B u t the problem with his piece - which I just read before going on with the video - is a double one:

• he is presuming civilisation started out as Flat Earth. For certain civilisations from the time we get to know of each its documents, correct, I presume (I don't know any Sumerian text claiming verbally the earth is flat, and the diagrams might not be as literally meant as supposed, as with Medieval Mappa Mundi maps);
• even assuming this were correct, he is presuming this is what goes on with every field, not just the shape of the earth.

Btw, I like this line - but will presently correct it on a point:

"Furthermore, the flat earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite earth, or of the existence of an "end" to the surface. The spherical earth, however, postulates an earth that is both endless and yet finite, and it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings."

This breaks on in two parts.

"Furthermore, the flat earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite earth, or of the existence of an "end" to the surface."

This image was actually present in Giordano Bruno's recorded verbal reasoning about possibility of an infinite universe (which he preferred and from which he deduced Heliocentrism).

"The spherical earth, however, postulates an earth that is both endless and yet finite, and it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings."

Not quite endless. There are in fact corners and edges. They are called capes and coastlines.

One of the things very often read as proof of an earlier civilisation holding to "flat earth" is : Bible speaks of four corners of the earth. However, Hebrew Eretz means, not only earth in total (as mentioned in Genesis 1:1), but I think also dry land (as mentioned in 1:10). We have basically two alternatives on where to place the four corners on a globe:

• Americas count as two islands, if so the corners are NW : NW Europe (a diagonal took the place of a possible original corner); SW : Africa (Cape of Good Hope); SE : SE Asia (Singapore, New Guinea, Australia could be the corner); NE : Sakhalin or Japan.
• Atlantic counts as an inland sea (makes especially much sense if there was an Atlantis filling most of it or much or it before) : NW and SW are demoted to Alaska and Cape Horn / Tierra del Fuego.

So, the most complete text corpus often taken as proof we started out as Flat Earthers is really no such proof.

Among Greeks, who after discussion settled on Spherical Earth, we find many options discussed, not just Flat and Spherical, and unless we presume to know Homeric and Hesiodic mythology represents their earliest world view (if even then!) we cannot know that Flat Earth is what they started with.

So, Isaac Asimov is relatively right at the latter end, where Spherical is corrected to Near Spherical, and relatively at least potentially worng about earlier part of history, of us starting with Flat Earth.

"we are less and less wrong all the time"

Presuming, once again, that Isaac Asimov is correct about starting point and that he is correct in generalising "shape of earth" discussion to all discussions overall in science, as if there could never be any discussion going the other direction (from relatively more right to relatively less right, if not in all detail, at least in general overview).

IV

9:48 "perhaps that is why creationists don't look seriously at the evidence"

I could have broken even in publishing in Paris if French Evolutionists (including both Atheist and Catholics) had been willing to take a serious look at my mathematical evidence that carbon dating can make kind of sense in a Biblical timeline (with, inter alia, carbon date for last Neanderthal found, as to carbon dates, as a limit for pre- to post-Flood world).

Most people of most convictions do not take a serious look at the evidence for opposing views, it is NOT a foible specific to one side of a discussion, as you'd like to paint it.

V

10:17 "God is not the one who is speaking here"

Of course not, but this doesn't stop him from knowing, relatively right (6000 years instead of 7200 years as we get with a specific LXX connected tradition) what God's word is saying.

Christianity is about God HAS revealed Himself and therefore IS known to men.

If you want to argue that wrong, you give evidence for the revelation story reported being wrong, and you don't complain each time someone is presuming it as right.

Acknowledgement

After seeing Isaac Asimov quoted on video, I found same page, and this is where I quoted from:

The Relativity of Wrong
By Isaac Asimov
[The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1989, Vol. 14, No. 1, Pp. 35-44]
http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm