Created kind: Encyclopedia II - Created kind - Kinds in the Tree of Life

Created kind - Kinds in the Tree of Life

The creationist "kind" is assumed to be based upon an idea that life in the past exhibited greater genetic diversity and heterozygosity than life today, in the form of "kinds" analogous to the liger. Thus, the kinds were created with the innate ability to vary a great deal, and subsequent evolutionary processes are merely the means by which that innate ability to vary is expressed.

The definition of created kinds is therefore similar in form and function to the phylogenetic tree of evolutionary biology, but bears two important differences.

• First, while the phylogenetic tree traces life back to a single cell or population of single-celled organisms, creation biology traces life back to a large number of unrelated populations of life-forms which roughly resembled the forms of life today, effectively stating that there are no biological connections beyond the very tips of the phylogenetic tree.
• Second, while the pylogenetic tree credits evolutionary change to a diversification and specification of lifeforms through processes such as natural selection, creationists credit microevolutionary change to the rearrangement and expression of genetic variation that was "built in" to the original kinds.

Change in created kinds is said to take place through an unspecified process that is said to be "degradation of the genome", as natural selection and reproductive isolation, inbreeding, and genetic drift caused lifeforms to adapt to their environment by the loss of capacity to adapt to other environments. Speciation is held to be a side-effect of a degrading genome, and most is said by creationists to have occurred during and after the rapid dispersion immediately after a global flood that is reported to have occurred in Genesis. This event is said to have caused an extreme population bottleneck which caused the major speciation events taking place within the space of 1000 to 2000 years after the flood. In effect, this requires an evolutionary process that is faster than modern biology's timescales for speciation. This explanation also relies on the assumed fact of a global flood (see flood geology), an event for which neither mainstream biology nor geology has found any evidence.

Many creationists believe that the formation of the races was a result of so-called "degradation of the genome". The population onboard the ark is believed to have been a hybrid population containing the genetic characteristics of all the races. When the population spread over the Earth after the flood, gene pools became isolated resulting in the races. This view is not supported by the genetic evidence surrounding race, which is that there is more genetic variation within the races than between the races.

The differentiation of species from original hybrids is the heart of the concept of created kinds. Hybridization as a genetic concept is technically rejected since creationists believe a hybrid is less, rather than more, degraded, with regard to its parents.

Created kind - Boundaries between kinds

The asserted boundaries between the kinds -- the position that the kinds are unrelated -- is arguably the most divergeant view of creationists from mainstream biology. Those challenging creation biology often ask what basis creationists have for asserting that such boundaries exist, or for determining what those boundaries are.

The project of determining the precise boundaries between the kinds is not agreed upon by creationists. Creationists generally assert that conclusions about common ancestry should only be drawn if there is "substantial evidence" to support the conclusion. As to what qualifies as "substantial evidence", creationists are often at odds with each other.

In the absence of the ability to directly observe life in its original form, classification of kinds generally revolves around reproductive compatibility -- that is, created kinds are generally seen as having common descent if they are reproductively compatible.

The classification is more difficult when reproductive compatibility is partial, as in the case of the mule, a hybrid of the horse and the donkey which, although viable, is not fertile. While it is possible that the two species descend from a common ancestor due to their reproductive compatibility, it is also possible that they do not, but were created separately with reproductive systems similar enough to create viable offspring, but not similar enough to create fertile offspring.

Other criteria for common ancestry are rejected. The mere fact that organisms are alive is not seen as evidence of common ancestry. Genetic and physiological similarities are not seen as evidence of common ancestry, but rather are thought to result from a similar design being used on different "kinds." There is normally no justification offered as to why reproductive compatibility shouldn't be viewed in the same way, though there are references made to biblical verses such as "go forth and multiply" -- the command given by God to Noah's family after the flood.

Since 2001, a new method has been discussed for demarcating created kinds via baraminology. The new method involves the application of morphological character data to create a "biological character space," which can then be used to determine continuity and discontinuity between species, and ultimately to determine "biological trajectories." This method is discussed in greater detail in the article Baraminology.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Kinds in the Tree of Life", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki