Elephant Genome Study Supports Creation Science
While biblical creationists recognize the established (and not so established) categories such as species, genera, family, and so forth, they also study biblical kinds. Secularists get on the prod about this, preferring their own classification system as "right", but the definition of species is in dispute. Part of the problem there is speciation, hybridization, and interbreeding. Also, the biblical kind is a larger classification than species, more closely fitting with the family level.
A very extensive genome study was conducted among living elephants, and since remains of American mastodon were more than happy to provide samples, those were included as well. The results were startling in several ways. For one thing, Darwin's "tree of life" should have been chopped down and composted long ago, and the study results support that notion. Hybridization and breeding between these big critters was found as well, challenging speciation concepts. Meanwhile, biblical creationists who study baraminology (biblical kinds) see that this supports creation science. Elephants are not the only cause for concern among Darwin's faithful, either. Yippie ky yay, secularists!
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| Credit: RGBstock / Sias van Schalkwyk |
A new study of elephants, mammoths and mastodons show they were all interfertile or capable of hybridization.To read the rest, click on "Elephants and Mammoths Were All One Kind".
Our present world is impoverished of elephants, or “elephantids” as scientists dub the family. Mammoths and mastodons roamed throughout America and Asia, evidenced by the massive fossil beds, where millions of mammoth bones can be found in permafrost. Some in the frozen tundra from Alaska to Siberia still retain soft tissue, organs and hair. These days, the two remaining species of elephants are primarily restricted to Africa and India.
How different are the extant types of elephants from the extinct types, such as mammoths and mastodons? With genomics, scientists can begin to answer the question.