RE: Death before the Fall and the extent of the Flood

> A parrot is a bird but not all birds are parrots. I did not say that mice
> or rats(being mammals) would have been included in livestock/wild animals.
> The point I was making is that livestock and wild animals are generally
> mammals. Some people however might raise alligators for livestock. Other
> might raise chickens. If you notice, I also placed another mammal (insects)
> into the flying things category. In general, my point was that "they" had
> some sense of grouping. While ancient knowledge was limited by their
> experience and "technology", people of old were not less intelligent than we
> are, but perhaps smarter than we are. They don't seem to have the
> psychological hangups like over thinking that we do.

I wasn't clear in what I was critiquing. I agree that the Hebrew categories were reasonable ones for them to use. What I meant to criticize was the attempts by antievolutionists to read modern taxonomic categories into the Bible, e.g. by claiming that the purported no death before the fall clause applies only to mammals or that the purported separate creation of kinds means that species/genera/families cannot evolve but evolution within said category is OK. There's nothing wrong with categorizing animals by their style of locomotion if you only want a handy way to label everything.

    Dr. David Campbell
    Old Seashells
    University of Alabama
    Biodiversity & Systematics
    Dept. Biological Sciences
    Box 870345
    Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
    bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com

That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
Received on Fri Apr 22 20:21:10 2005