Two Simple Questions

@Pikachu [quote]1. Evolution is the process by which populations of organisms change over time through descent with modification.[/quote]

Descent? The process by which populations of organisms change over time with modification doesn't contradict the Biblical narrative.

[quote]2. Yes, if one holds that animals were all created at around the same time in more or less their present form.[/quote]

Problematic due to the word created. Of course that isn't scientific. Best to say life (plant and animal) remains as they first appeared without changing into anything else. Therein lies the dilemma. The classification. So, if you classify apes as human, bonobo, gorilla, chimp, gibbon, orangutan what is the basis. No tail, appendix, brain. Those aren't classified as one Biblical kind. They can't reproduce fertile offspring.

"Species: 1. a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial, e.g. Homo sapiens.

2. a kind or sort. "

Not a Biblical kind.

[quote]But also no in that evolution does not suggest that a reptile will make a bird. Rather it says that a reptile will make a reptile that is a little different to itself but largely the same. [/quote]

Not a contradiction of the creation account.

[quote] That slightly different reptile will have offspring that are slightly different to it as well and these small changes compound over hundreds and thousands of generations until so many changes have occurred that the descendant population is now a bird.[/quote]

Speculative at best, but setting that aside, at one point a lizard mates with a bird and produces fertile offspring. It doesn't ever so gradually change into a bird and then hope that another eventually comes along to mate with. It would have to mate with a lizard. As a lizard.

[quote]Also yes one considers the order of creation in Genesis to be accurate.[/quote]

I don't know what you're connecting this with. What order is that?

@AkioTsukino

[quote]The process by which populations of organisms change over time with modification doesn't contradict the Biblical narrative.
[/quote]

You're getting ahead of yourself. That was a description of what evolution is. It's not until 2) that we get to whether or not it contradicts biblical creation😉

[quote]So, if you classify apes as human[/quote]

Uh...not quite.
We classify humans as apes and this is because humans have every anatomical feature which distinguishes apes from other primates. In the same way that humans are mammals and vertebrates, humans are apes.

[quote]They can't reproduce fertile offspring.[/quote]

Neither can a cheetah and a lion or a fox and a dog. Are cheetah and lion not both cat "kind" or fox and dog dog "kind"?
That's why i asked you earlier how you can reliably determine whether two animals belong to the same kind.
At the moment you appear to be applying the biological species concept which has its problems and typically creationist ministries tend to put "kind" at the family level.

[quote]Not a contradiction of the creation account.[/quote]

lol indeed, which i why i began that explanation with "No" 🙄

[quote] at one point a lizard mates with a bird and produces fertile offspring[/quote]

My dude...
No.
See, [i]this[/i] is why i ask you questions about your understanding of evolution.

You're imagining this as a hard line when what it is, is a gradient.
There's not a point at which a scaly, splay-legged lizard mates with a feathered, upright bird. Why? Because evolution occurs at population level. At no point does a basal lizard give birth to a derived bird and that animal has to "hope that another eventually comes along to mate with".

The parent will always give birth to offspring that is largely the same as itself but it may have certain differences which give an adaptive advantage and those changes become fixed in the population.
So what happens when a population ( in this case maniraptoran, theropod dinosaurs) becomes reproductively isolated due to a geographical barrier? That's right: they continue adapting to their environment but now along different lines. The daughter lineage becomes more and more different to the parent lineage. Now the daughter population has dinosaurs that have feathers for display or eg incubation or balance and the population is segregated once again and the new population becomes more specialized still.
Descent with modification.
At no point does a completely different animal reproduce with an entirely new animal. Always it is small, incremental changes that compound over time.

That's the really huge challenge that you have yet to address: At what stage to those changes stop compounding? How? Why?

[quote]I don't know what you're connecting this with. What order is that?
[/quote]

As in birds on day 5 and land animals on day 6.
The fossil record does not reflect this order.

@Pikachu [quote]You're getting ahead of yourself. That was a description of what evolution is. It's not until 2) that we get to whether or not it contradicts biblical creation😉[/quote]

Again, what is descent? Keep up with me. I've already described what evolution is and stated what does and doesn't contradict the Biblical. Evolution is change over time. Doesn't contradict. Evolution as change outside of what the Biblical narrative describes* does contradict and has never been observed.

[b][u]* The Biblical kinds constitutes divisions of life-forms wherein each division allows for cross-fertility within its limits. The boundary between “kinds” is to be drawn at the point where fertilization ceases to occur.[/u][/b]

[quote]We classify humans as apes and this is because humans have every anatomical feature which distinguishes apes from other primates. In the same way that humans are mammals and vertebrates, humans are apes.[/quote]

Doesn't matter if it doesn't contradict. Humans and Orangutans don't breed. It doesn't matter if you see similarities, it only matters if it contradicts the Biblical kinds given above. I don't care if you call humans apes.

[quote]Neither can a cheetah and a lion or a fox and a dog. Are cheetah and lion not both cat "kind" or fox and dog dog "kind"?[/quote]

Don't know. Don't care. I'm not the scientist. Call them what you want. Either they are the kinds described above or not.

[quote]See, this is why i ask you questions about your understanding of evolution.[/quote]

That's your problem. My understanding is zero. Doesn't matter. Stick with the facts.

[quote]You're imagining this as a hard line when what it is, is a gradient.[/quote]

Okay. But the Biblical kinds is given above. Very simple. I don't care about your science. You don't care about my religion. Just stick to the facts.

[quote]There's not a point at which a scaly, splay-legged lizard mates with a feathered, upright bird. Why?[/quote]

Because there wouldn't be any! Either you are saying the two changed enough to breed fertile or you're saying one became the other. In the first case it would be against what we observe and the Biblical kinds and in the second it wouldn't contradict.

@AkioTsukino

[quote] I've already described what evolution is and stated what does and doesn't contradict the Biblical[/quote]

lol...well you asked a question in your Op and i answered it...sorry?
Honestly i'm not really sure what you're pushing back on here🤔


[quote]The boundary between “kinds” is to be drawn at the point where fertilization ceases to occur.[/quote]

So then you place "kinds" at the species level applying the biological species concept.
Well then no worries, such speciation events have been observed both in the lab and in the wild.
Populations of animals which fragment and can no longer interbreed with the parent population is an observed phenomenon.

Or is there more to "kind" then that?
Here's the thing: Either "Kind" is a meaningful description or it is not. If you cannot reliably tell whether two animals belong to the same "kind" then it is a nonsense word with no descriptive power and therefore useless.

[quote]Either you are saying the two changed enough to breed fertile or you're saying one became the other[/quote]

Can you perhaps rephrase that? I'm really not sure what you're trying to say there...

[quote] My understanding is zero [/quote]

Then can i suggest perhaps that you stop leaving off your inquiry at "Don't know. Don't care" ?😉

@Pikachu [quote]Can you perhaps rephrase that? I'm really not sure what you're trying to say there...[/quote]

They fucked and had young which fucked and had young or they magically changed into another.

@AkioTsukino

Yes to the first...and?
I thought i explained in simple terms how fucking and having slightly different young eventually leads, when populations are separated, to very different populations.

Did you have an objection to that process?

@Pikachu Yes. I have an objection to that process. Namely, that you can't show it. Can't demonstrate it, can't test it, don't observe it. No one ever has. Back to where we were before.

@AkioTsukino

[quote] Namely, that you can't show it. Can't demonstrate it, can't test it, don't observe it.[/quote]

Well you're objectively wrong there.
This process is directly observable and has indeed been documented both in the lab and in nature.

What you're objecting to is that this observed and documented process can produce large scale change over long periods of time.

My response to this objection remains the same and is one which you seem reluctant to meet head on.
Perhaps you'll rectify that now:

Since we observe that animals change over successive generations and that changes compound...what do you identify as the demonstrable, testable, observable mechanism by which this process is limited?

Or is it only "I haven't seen it happen before my eyes"?

Because to describe your familiarity with the evidence on this subject in your own words:
" [i]My understanding is zero"[/i].

Hmm.
I don't tend to be so sure i'm right about things for which i declare my understanding to be zero...