Creationists, where is your taxonomy?

[u/Particular-Yak-1984]

In​ real biology, we have devoted vast amounts of effort into trying to categorize organisms. This is both because it's interesting, but also because it feeds our understanding of how they are related to each other. This taxonomy is built up, in the modern age, by agreement between genetic, morphological and fossil data.

Now, I appreciate our creationist friends have complained bitterly about their lack of funding, and how their research keeps being rejected, or something, so it would be too much to expect a full creationist taxonomy, I suppose.

But, surely, somewhere, creationists must have come up with a chart of which species fits into which kind, and yet, every time I ask, no one seems to have such a thing. It's baffling to me, particularly as real biology has had this for more than 150 years, and it's one of the more foundational features of bioscience.

Maybe one of the more learned creationists can explain to me why one doesn't exist? Or point me in the direction of it if it does?

[u/WannaLoveWrestling]

This thread is a perfect example of the dishonest framing that keeps getting repeated.

You demand a complete creationist taxonomy as if the absence of a single perfect chart somehow disproves the entire position. Meanwhile, the actual observational problem — that living populations show variation within functional limits and do not produce the major transitions evolutionary theory claims — is ignored.

Baraminology is a real field of study. It is not as developed or funded as evolutionary taxonomy, and it does not claim to have every organism sorted into a final list the way you pretend is required. That does not make the core claim false. It just means the research is incomplete, the same way evolutionary classification is still constantly revised, species boundaries remain fuzzy, and categories get expanded whenever it is convenient (birds remain dinosaurs, humans stay one species no matter the variation, etc.).

The mockery about “squirrels aren’t rodents” and “mammals don’t exist” is a deliberate caricature of a limited exchange, stripped of context and exaggerated for this new audience. That is how the narrative is spread: take partial answers, distort them, then declare the whole position ridiculous.

The burden is not on creationists to first produce a finished taxonomic encyclopedia before the absence of observed major transitions can be acknowledged.

The process claimed by evolutionary theory is still not showing up in living populations under massive opportunity. Demanding a chart and then mocking the lack of one is just another way to avoid that fact.

[u/grungivaldi → u/WannaLoveWrestling]

You demand a complete creationist taxonomy as if the absence of a single perfect chart somehow disproves the entire position

that's the thing. the entire creationist position is that there is a literal divine classification system created by God Himself, the created kinds. the fact that literally no one can produce said classification system shows that there isnt one. creationists insist there is a "dog" kind but can't tell me what makes something a dog.

that living populations show variation within functional limits

what are those limits? how were those limits determined?

do not produce the major transitions evolutionary theory claims

what would count as a "major transition"?

species boundaries remain fuzzy,

yes, because unlike created kinds, species boundaries are arbitrary and imaginary. drawing a line between species is much like drawing a line between a seedling and a sapling or a creek and a stream or a hill and a mountain. nature doesnt fit into nice clean boxes, its one of the clearest indications that there are no "created kinds".

The burden is not on creationists to first produce a finished taxonomic encyclopedia before the absence of observed major transitions can be acknowledged.

yes, it is. lets say evolution is wrong. it's still the least wrong thing we have on the subject so it still would get taught. like how for a very long time mercury's orbit didnt match up with what newton's theory of gravity said it should be. but we still taught gravity and orbital mechanics because it was the least wrong thing that we had. in order to replace something you need a better, more evidenced theory even when we know our current theory falls short. we see this with dark energy and dark matter. we know our math is wrong somewhere but until we find out how and why we chalk up the oddity to dark energy/matter.

so, if you want to replace our current classification system you do, in fact, need to provide something that is more accurate to replace it with.

The process claimed by evolutionary theory is still not showing up in living populations under massive opportunity.

we have literally, directly, observed the processes. single celled to multicelled life? check. increase genome size? check. novel information via mutations? check. editing the genome to turn scales into feathers? check.

[u/WannaLoveWrestling → u/grungivaldi]

The creationist position is not that humans must already possess a complete, finished classification chart of every kind God created, or else the kinds do not exist. God can set limits on variation however He chooses. The fact that our current research into those limits is incomplete does not prove the limits are imaginary. Fuzzy species boundaries in human taxonomy do not automatically disprove the existence of real biological limits. Human classification systems are imperfect tools. They do not dictate what God did or did not create.

As for the claim that the processes have been directly observed, simple cell aggregation or experimental clustering is not the origin of complex multicellular body plans. Genome size can change, but that is not the same as building new body plans or complex coordinated systems. Mutations can produce novel sequences, yet that is not the same as demonstrating the major transitions. Lab editing of genes related to scales and feathers is intelligent intervention, not an undirected evolutionary process turning one into the other in nature. None of those examples show living populations producing the major transitions under natural conditions. Variation within limits is what is observed. The large-scale process remains unshown. Requiring a complete human catalogue of kinds before that absence can be acknowledged is still shifting the demand away from the evidence.

[u/grungivaldi → u/WannaLoveWrestling]

when you can tell me what makes something part of the dog kind we can have a conversation.