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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Vestigal Organs
Message-ID: <622@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Jul-85 11:18:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.622
Posted: Wed Jul 17 11:18:19 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 14:46:41 EDT
References: <2156@ut-sally.UUCP> <347@scgvaxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 53

In article <1289@uwmacc.UUCP> dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) writes:
> 
> > [Paul Torek] 
> > Indeed, many insect species have "vestigal" wings, which are small 
> > non-functional organs sitting right where the wings were/are on the
> > closest related species.  If there's a God who created all species
> > from scratch, He must be trying awful hard to trick us into believing
> > in evolution!
> 
> No, just trying to see how many people can look at degeneration
> and say "evolution!"  Break comma give me a.
> 
> Seems to me that a number of creationists have mentioned degeneration
> as a component of "creation models".  How is your example supposed to be
> inconsistent with that?  Or are you trying, in a roundabout way, to
> support creationists?

Right.  We all know that animals are degenerating because they too have
Original Sin.    :-)

The fact is that evolution can provide testable explanations of why and
when such "degeneration" occurs, whereas creationists can only say things
like "Gawds curse".

This reminds me of "Snouters", a very tongue in cheek work of biological
fiction.  It was a monograph on a newly discovered but (alas) now extinct
(due to atomic testing) order of mammals, the Rhinogrades.  One of the
most fascinating sections was on the derivation of a worm from a snouter,
by the successive reduction of all parts of the body except the nose.

What's the point of this diversion?  That if creationists want to
postulate devolution (or degeneration) as a force shaping the fauna,
then they open a whole can of worms.  Perhaps worms, one celled animals,
etc, are all descendents of Cain?  :-(  If not, then what limits this
degeneration?

The only escape for creationists is their notion of "kinds".  They would
claim that degeneration is recent, that animals haven't yet been able
to change much from their "kinds", and that there is some unspecified
limit to the amount of change possible.  All well and good except:
WHAT IS A KIND?  They can give a theological definition: what a creator
made.  But they have had a singular lack of success (or attempts) at trying
to pin this down to something physical, like enumerating the specific
kinds and their member species.  What criteria would they use?

The fact is that "kinds" are a rhetorical device pretending to be a
scientific concept.  I say pretending because there is no body of
literature pertaining to the real world about kinds.  The sole source
of "kinds" is a couple of lines in the bible.
of
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh