Debate Over! Evolution Wins!

Apparently, the Creationists have caved. It turns out that evolution is responsible for Noah's ability to pack animals onto the Ark. Wait, stay with me here. I swear, this makes some sort of twisted sense in the end. So, over at Kent Hovind's website, there's a wonderful little video that explains the pesky problem that sane people pose to the interesting folks who believe that every last literal word of the Bible is true: How did Noah fit two of every single species (that's 40,000 vertebrates, 4-6 million arthropods, not to mention completely inestimable numbers of bacteria and a whole lot of food for all those critters) on Earth into one boat? Here, they'll tell you:

OK, if you can't bear to listen to that for the full three and a half minutes (you're not alone), I'll just give you the general gist of what they're saying. Apparently, Noah didn't load two of every species, he loaded two of every kind of animal. I suppose that makes sense since Linnaeus didn't formulate the concept of a species till a few thousand years after Noah's mythical voyage. They go on to actually use evidence from Richard Dawkins to support the idea that "kinds" can change over time [sic] into separate species.

See, Creationists have always argued that small changes can occur --microevolution within a species population-- but that there's no way to make new species from old ones. Now, apparently they've moved the bar up to "kinds," which is sufficiently vague enough that it could encompass genera or families. I'm really not sure what this means for the effectiveness of their everything-came-into-being-within-144-hours idea, but apparently God just created a few nondescript "mammals," "insects," and other groups and everything else evolved from them. In other words, the reason Noah could fit every animal in the Ark is that there were fewer types of animals back then. In their own words, the Creationists say:

So rather than differentiating between twenty-seven different species of fox, perhaps Noah only took two foxes on board, which later produced the many species of fox we see today. Then again, perhaps he only took two of the dog-like kind aboard. There is certainly no reason to believe that the many varieties of dogs in the world (including the fox species, wolves, and coyotes) could not have come from just two of the dog kind.

Once again, please spread the word. Creationists now acknowledge that different species can evolve from a single species. In time, we may be able to convince them that the other artificial classifications which humans have imposed upon the natural world are just as mutable.