Troublesome Topic: According to Their Kind

According to Their Kind

The phrase “according to their kind” is an important phrase in the creation narrative. God created living beings much like what we see them today. This phrase, which is repeated numerous times, does not leave room for any evolution from one type of animal to another type, a process properly called macroevolution. There is indeed room for, and there is indeed evidence of, small changes within a kind; this is called microevolution. This type of adaptation does happen and we see it in the manipulation of the canine gene pool which has brought about different types of dogs, or in the natural formation of different types of finches on the Galapagos islands. There is a dog kind, a cat kind, a horse kind, a cow kind, etc. variations have come about in each of these kinds, but there is never the possibility for any crossover from one kind to another.

Promoters of evolution often show evidence of microevolution as if it were proof of macroevolution. Besides the Galapagos finches, the Stickleback fish is another favorite of the evolutionists. But the dogs remained dogs, the finches remained finches, and the stickleback fish remains a fish, even a stickleback fish; there is no solid evidence of one kind of animal becoming another, and the “missing links” remain missing.

Bible-believing scientists have created an entirely new branch of science called Baraminology, which is the study of created kinds. Bara is the Hebrew word for “created” and min is the Hebrew word for “kind.” A very general rule of thumb is that if two animals can mate and produce offspring they are of the same created kind. However, that rule is overly simplistic and may lead us astray on a few occasions, especially where we have some sterile animals like the mule; it is of the horse kind even though it is sterile. The classification of created kinds is not always synonymous with the classification termed species. They are sometimes different because the classification of species is based on physical characteristics with an evolutionistic mindset while created kinds is a classification based on how God likely created these animals and how they have become divided into the various subcategories we see today. Apart from Baraminologists, when scientists classify animals today, they do so based on the assumed evolutionary tree. The classification assumes the tree of evolution is correct and the tree claims the classification of animals proves its validity.

The reason there can be no crossover from one kind to another, nor the formation of any new kinds, is that new genetic information would be needed to produce new kinds. Take the dogs as an example. It is said that a wolf has all the genetic information needed to produce, through many generations of careful breeding, either a Chihuahua or a Great Dane. However, the Chihuahua and the Great Dane cannot be bred back to a wolf because they have lost much genetic information; the codes for a wolf’s traits are no longer present. This loss of information is one of the reasons why many of the newly formed types of dogs have health problems that wolves do not have, for instance Pugs are more susceptible to respiratory problems. The further we get from the original gene-rich “parents” of a created kind the more health problems we can expect. Adam and Eve’s genes contained the coding for all the various shades of skin, colors of eyes and hues of hair known among humans today. You and I cannot go back to that kind of richness in our genes because some genetic information or richness has been lost. The point here is that adaptation in an animal kind is possible but it represents a loss of genetic richness, making the evolution of entirely new kinds impossible because that would require additional and different genetic information.

Evolutionists have only two “tools” they can rely on for changes in animals. One is natural selection and the other is mutations. Natural selection decreases the amount of information in the gene pool of a group of animals, so mutations are their only hope for the kind of new information needed to produce new and different kinds of animals. However, most people know that mutations are usually harmful and a very few are neutral. Plus there is the problem that a type of animal would need to retain the positive changes caused by mutations while they wait through thousands of harmful mutations for the next positive one. It is pure dreams and speculations to expect the few good ones to be kept and all the bad ones to be discarded in a random process.

The concept that God created animals according to their kind becomes very important when we get to the narrative of the global flood (Genesis 6-9). It has a direct impact on how many animals Noah would have had to take with him on the ark.

The next lesson is: God Blessed Mankind