johnhanks
Well-Known Member
I'm sure you know enough to realise that I chose beetles for a reason: they represent about a quarter of all known animal species. (You will probably also know JBS Haldane's reply when some clergymen patronisingly asked him what his study of creation told him about the creator: "An inordinate fondness for beetles.")I don't know enough about beetles to say, but I have no problem with new species of beetles arising from pre-existing ones.
In this context, though, they sum up beautifully the creationist's dilemma over 'kinds'. If beetles are a 'kind', the creationist must straight-facedly propose that in almost no time at all one pair saved on the ark gave rise to 350 000 (+) different descendant species, ranging in form from stag beetles to weevils and beyond; if not, he must arbitrarily decide where among the intricate hierarchy of sub-orders, super-families, families, sub-families etc the 'kind' level is to be found. (He must also credit Noah with considerable entomological expertise in recognising it.)
I have known some creationists duck this issue by declaring that insects were not present on the ark, but survived the flood in some other way; if you are of this persuasion, perhaps you could explain how these exquisitely terrestrial animals - water-beetles excepted - did in fact survive such prolonged inundation.
When creationists talk about 'kinds' they invariably invoke vertebrate examples: dog-kind, cat-kind, etc; and the further these examples are from humans, the wider they get - lizard-kind, bird-kind - in direct proportion to creationists' ignorance of their diversity. I've not yet met a creationist willing to talk about invertebrate origins: most know little about them, to be sure, and I suspect prefer to nurture that ignorance and thus pretend the questions don't exist.