In article <nu5rd5hum113f16h5gq6gb1m6vp8gd5
...@4ax.com>, Ye Old One
<use
...@mcsuk.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:25:08 -0700 (PDT), Suzanne
> <leila
...@hotmail.com> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
> >On Sep 5, 8:09 am, TimR <timothy...@aol.com> wrote:
> >> On Sep 3, 11:19 pm, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> > The word "species" is a smaller category than the
> >> > word "kinds." Kinds is more like Genus, or Family,
> >> > or other.
> >> > Suzanne
> >> But there's the logic trap.
> >> The Biblical writers observed and described individual animals. Every
> >> individual animal you see is a member of a species.
> >> Where are you going to find a kind to look at?
> >> How do you know a kind even exists? If it's merely a conceptual
> >> grouping and you can't see one?
> >Well........Linnaeus is the one who used the word
> >species as well as genus, because in the Latin version of the Bible
> >which he seems to have been using, the word "kind" is translated as
> >"species" in the English translation of the Latin Bible. So he was
> >speaking of
> >a "kind" as being a species.
> The word "species" in Latin, literally means appearance or form,
> though it can also have a meaning associated with beauty. It comes
> from the Latin root "specere" 'to look'.
[Draws breath]
Okay, allow me... "species" is a vernacular term of Latin that, yes,
has an etymology from appearance, but actually the etymology is
irrelevant to its use, especially in classical and medieval Latin. It
basically, as Locke pointed out, means "kind" and has no particular
technical meaning in ordinary language. Likewise, "miyn" in Hebrew
means "kind" and has no particular technical meaning in ordinary usage;
the same is true of *all* languages that have a term that is cognate to
"kind", according to anthropological studies of the term.
The term "species" acquires technical meanings in logic, metaphysics,
theology, and currency. These are all relatively distinct and unusual,
with respect to the vernacular meaning. They are not
intertranslateable, and they are very special to the field in which
they are used. In theology, for example, it means the outward
appearance of the Host. In currency it means a small kind of coin. In
logic it means a formal class. In metaphysics it means a part of a
universal. And so on.
When non-biological (and non-theological, etc.) texts use the term
"kind" it means little more than that things are collected together for
some reason. In the case of living things, societies gather things
together in terms of the progeny resembling the parents. The technical
meaning of "species" in natural history before the modern period is
basically that. And, as was once pointed out on this group, one of the
very translators of the King James Bible themselves thought that
species were not fixed.
Linnaeus is *not* the man who introduced the term into natural history.
That was Conrad Gesner or Kaspar Bauhin in the 16th century. He is not
the man who defined it for natural history (in fact he never defined
the term) - that is John Ray at the end of the 17th century. Moreover,
Linnaeus did not think species were fixed towards the end of his
career.
In any case how the term was translated for the Bible is meaningless.
It was just a vernacular term. It didn't have a technical meaning,
either in the Vulgate or in the English version.
> >However, evolutionists today seem to have
> >changed what the earlier form of species was. So, when speaking to an
> >evolutionist, the creationist has to be aware that what an
> >evolutionist means by the word "species," may be different than what a
> >Bible follower may mean by the word "species."
> Since most English speaking christians would not be aware of the Latin
> Vulgate Bible I doubt most ignorant creationists would even be aware
> of it.
> >You know, it's a matter of semantics.
> When talking science the names science uses are important.
> >> While I've never heard a creationist articulate this, clearly a kind
> >> is supposed to be some generic undifferentiated precursor of modern
> >> species. Why, then, is there not a single description of such in the
> >> Bible?
> >A kind does not seem to be identical with today's version of species,
> >but it did mean the same thing as kind, earlier.
> >> I propose we reject the entire concept of kind as anti-scriptural, and
> >> refuse to give it validity by discussing definitions. It is after all
> >> a very modern interpretation, not appearing until Woodmorappe realized
> >> he couldn't fit modern species onto the ark.
> >But you have to deal with reality, and the word "kinds" is definitely
> >in the Bible. Many scientists are Christains and Jews, you know.
> Some maybe, but they would use the scientific terms first and
> foremost.
> >Suzanne
