Foolstroupe,

I admire and appreciate your contribution to many threads, especially those related to science. I wonder if perhaps your irritation with me caused you to respond a bit hastily. I know perfectly well that the reasoning in items 8 and 9 is circular. It is, of course, a tautology. That is precisely the point. The point is that it is not the concept of "survival of the fittest" which differentiates YEC from Darwinism; "survival of the fittest" is merely a tautology, a truth that is true by definition.

Similarly, that all organisms, daffodils and donkeys, clams and cows, mushrooms and men, derive from a single population is precisely what Darwin did claim. I know you know that. Perhaps the word "single" threw you. Sorry if it did. Obviously, the single population would have to eventually divide for speciation to occur. But it was, Darwin said, originally a single population and, indeed, ultimately a single ancestor, from which we all descend. That, in his view, was the "origin of the species".

Kent