ID/Creationist classification musings

[Peter Stevens]

I don't know about ID and apomorphies, but I happen to have a
print-out on botanical nomenclature from the Institute of Creation
Research website (I am thinking how [or if] I can weave it into an
article on naming organisms).  The bottom line seems to be that god
greated kinds, members of these kinds can interbreed and have
(actually, they were endowed by god with) a wide genetic "variety".
Genera, and perhaps families in plants, probably are closest to god's
kinds.

It is difficult to summarise much of the article because the argument
is so inchoate (perhaps pre-Creation?), but it emphasises that
grasses, herbs, and fruit trees are god's three divisions of plants.
It seems the site approves of Linnaean nomenclature as a means to the
end of learning more about the wonders of god's handiwork, but since
this particular part of the site seems to have been written in dec.
1996, they have not yet learned about the phylocode. However, the
article makes it clear that we are mired in man-made classifications
because they are based on evolutionary thought.

P.


>It wasn't me, but it's an insightful idea.  Puts a new spin on "apomorphy" and
>"plesiomorphy" too.  Presumably, an intelligent designer would be trying to
>improve his/her existing designs, so that an apomorphy would be "better" than
>the pre-existing condition it was derived from.  (This presupposes an ID model
>that allows some change over time, as opposed to everything created at once in
>a rock-hard configuration.)  What, then, is the criterion for "better" and how
>would we recognize it?  Greater mechanical efficiency?  Something that confers
>greater likelihood on the possessor of leaving grandchildren?  (The latter
>being close to "selective advantage" beloved of evolutionists.)  If so, does
>that imply foreknowledge on the part of the intelligent designer as to what
>conditions will be like a generation or two down the road ...
>
>Or do ID advocates really involve themselves in these kinds of thought trains?
>
>Barry
>
>
>--- "Frederick W. Schueler" <bckcdb at ISTAR.CA> wrote:
>
>>  Richard Pyle wrote:
>>
>[...]
>>
>>  * it's been pointed out before on this list (by Barry Roth?) that if
>>  creationists (or intelligent designers) were real scientists they'd be
>>  occupied with the question that occupied pre-darwinian creationist
>>  biologists (Linneaus, Agassiz, etc): the delimitation of created
>>  'kinds.' That they don't do this (and secondarily don't find any
>>  characters that delimit these kinds) is evidence of something...
>>
>>  fred.
>
>
>
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