Birdwatching for creationists
I question that there is a mexican [sic] gray wolf. Subspecies don’t exist. Its [sic] just a wolf. It breeds and would with any wolf anywhere. Any slight difference in colour of fur etc is ireelevant [sic]. I’m sure the shades of this mexican [sic] are as varied as every mountain. In facxt [sic] its [sic] of a kind. This creationist says the dog kink [sic] is the smae [sic] as the bear kind and the seal kind and probably more. Its [sic] a cute doggy. Its [sic] immigrated but hopefully it assimilates and doesn’t ask for interference on its behalf to the loss of American wolves. Hopefully howls in the same way and doesn’t hyphenate its identity. Be a team member and not another team on the bench. – Robert Byers
Sic, sic, sic. I am always amazed when a so-called expert birdwatcher sees a flash go by and announces, “Oh look! That was a boreal chickadee [or a rosy-breasted pushover or whatever]!” That man claims to have 418 life ticks. According to Robert Byers, he is wasting his time: There is no such thing as a species; in fact there are only kinds. Without claiming anywhere near 418 ticks, I have amassed an almost complete portfolio of ticks – I have seen at least one bird of nearly every kind. Herewith a list of kinds of birds:
Sparrow kind, including chickadees, nuthatches, finches, warblers, wrens, and juncos – saw one.
Duck kind, including geese and loons – saw one.
Fowl kind, including chickens, turkeys, pheasants, grouse, and ptarmigans – ate one.
Raptor kind, including hawks, falcons, and eagles – saw one.
Swallow and flycatcher kind – saw one.
Seagull kind, including gulls, terns, and albatrosses – saw one.
Wader kind, including herons, pelicans, cormorants, and plovers – saw one.
Woodpecker kind, including hummingbirds – saw one.
Owl kind – saw one.
Crow kind, including jays, magpies, blackbirds, cowbirds, and grackles – saw one.
Cuckoo kind, including orioles, mockingbirds, and creationists – spoke with one.
Thus, my life ticks include 11 of 11 kinds, if you count the chicken I ate. If there are any other kinds, they are still birds, and they do not live in the United States or Canada, so to hell with them.
Categories:
- Humor
Tags:
- baraminology
115 Comments
I didn’t think Raptor was a kind, I thought it was a nasty.
I was in my Aunt’s garden on Friday and I was surprised to see a pigeon (Fowl kind) zooming along as if it had afterburners blazing. A second later a Kestrel (Raptor nasty) followed…
I once watched a pair of mockingbirds (sparrow kind?) chase a hawk (raptor kind?) out of there area.
But in reality… why the hell are you giving rob this kind of exposure, you’re just encouraging him.
DiscoveredJoys: sometimes it works both ways. One spring we watched a Sharp-shinned Hawk (Raptor nasty) tail-chase a terrorized Blue Jay (Crow kind) down the length of of a shelter belt, and when they reached the end of the hedgerow, they reversed roles, and came back toward us, with the jay in hot pursuit of the hawk.
I kind of like Matt’s taxonomy. Just think: no more hassles with silent Empidonax flycatchers!
This is a perfect system, if you go one step further and just say there is the “animal” kind, and the “plant” kind, you could see everything that has ever existed in nature from my computer chair. A dog, and a fern. That is all that ever has or ever will exist in nature … who knew.
if you go one step further and just say there is the “animal” kind, and the “plant” kind,
which would a dinoflagellate with chlorophyll be?
oh, dammit, sorry, not supposed to ask questions. That’s being a dick!
and that’s bad.
:(
*sulks off to corner*
Kind of mixed up, I should think.
There are serious and knowledgeable people who say that recognizing subspecies is a bad idea. Wasn’t Steven Jay Gould one of them. In my studies I have encountered only two named subspecies. I elevated both of them to full species. So much for that!
I saw this happen with my cat once.
We were in the backyard, just hanging out when Zip! a squirrel goes flashing by and zip! the cat takes off after him up a tree - the squirrel in maximum-flee-mode and the cat bolting afterwards.
Up and out they went till they both ended up on a small outer branch and the chase stopped 20 feet in the air with the squirrel at the end of the narrow branch and the cat 8 inches away.
And they stared at each other for a beat.
And then, you could literally see it on their faces - at the exact same moment they had the exact same thought.
“No way is this branch is big enough to hold up a cat”.
And the world suddenly got very unpleasant for my cat, who that day learned an important lesson. And only part of it was that cat claws don’t allow you to back down a tree.
The cat (stupid pampered pet kind) no longer chases squirrels (surprisingly pointy woodland creatures kind).
Bible-literalistic creationists have a problem defining “kink” - they have to define it so that a human and a chimp are not the smae kink. But they can’t define it so broadly that an eagle and a hawk end up being the smae kink. That would clearly conflict with Leviticus 11. So they waffle and either refuse to define the term or change the definition to suit the argument.
Perhaps RB can explain why he thinks the dog, bear and seal are the smae kink but the hawk and eagle (and the kite and osprey) aren’t.
Animal kind and plant kind? That doesn’t leave mush room for the other fun guys!
(Not to mention the microscopic types…)
Henry J
Can you provide a citation? No? His discussion of smae and fidderent kinks is really interesting.
Ouch!
@ #1: that kestrel is proof of intelligent design =D
A true Coyote-Roadrunner moment.
Kind of mixed up, I should think.
damn that reality!
*shakes fist*
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art[…]016-0199.pdf
I’m so confooozed…
I object. Pelicans are not waders, they must be another kink. Humming birds are another yet. You left out buzzards, but they are arguably in the raptor kink. There is a clearly distinct parrot kink, and they live in the USA, even if introduced and invasive.
But the glaring omission that shows you have no understanding of True Kinks of Birds is that you completely forgot Batkink!
That robert guy (read some of his stuff at the old Dawkins forum) almost convinces me that there must be a god to create something like him. And that he would have an incredible sense of humour. Or is that guy a hypothetical god’s attempt of satire? Anyway, hard to imagine evolution could have anything to do with the likes of him. Amazing.
This presumes that “kinds” are something like orders of birds. My extensive experience with creationists has shown me that kinds are:
1) Always genera 2) Typically families 3) Invariably the same as species 4) Something else, maybe.
Generally within the context of a single argument.
Creationist uber-idiot Jabriol once argued that the cat family constituted a single kind, then later claimed that lions and house cats were different kinds, in the space of the same email. When the contradiction was pointed out to him, his classic reply was, “that you problem, i has define kind”. Always eloquent, our jabby.
The only thing all creationists agree on is that humans are absolutely a different kind than anything else.
In general, I find “kinds” get bigger and more inclusive as you get away from humans. I’m not sure if this is a result of familiarity breeding more awareness of fine distinctions, or simple ignorance of the diversity of the groups they’re stuffing together, or some other psychology. Humans are a “kind” species. The rest of the primates tend to be kinds at genera or there about. The rest of the mammals and the birds tend to be kinds at the family level, though some (like rodents) are often made into “kinds” at the order level. Reptiles are almost always lumped into “kinds” equivalent to orders. Many creationists are fine with all fish constituting one kind, and away from the vertebrates, kinds might often be classes or entire phyla (insects, when creationists bother to remember they exist, tend to be divided as orders).
It’s amusing to hear a creationist who claims there are huge, unbridgeable gaps between humans and chimps, lump guppies, hammerhead sharks, batfish and flounder into the same kind without any qualms.
But, you know, this is all science, right?
Given his response, I wonder what kind he thinks LOLcats are. “I can haz baramin?”
Tulse (or anyone who can), that haz to be a picture. Can u make it?
Peter, will this do?
Part of the Creationist scam is refusing to clearly define what a “kind” is. Is it a genus, a family or even an order? Creationists do not say, so whenever we show that one species gave rise to another, they can always move the goalposts and claim those two species are still of the same “kind”.
Don’t forget Robert Byers is the guy who thinks thylacine are “wolf kind”. Srsly.
If “kinds” are that flexible, you might think he’d have no problem with humans and chimps being the same “kind” but of course he does.
Then there’s the non-flying bird kind.
Are penguins, ostriches, emu’s, Rheas and Kiwi’s all the same kind?
but penguins swim, so maybe they’re fish kind?
Just back from a few laps at the pool. What the hell does that make me?
august including raptor replied define
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