Last modified on June 27, 2016, at 15:17

Linnaean taxonomy

Linnaean taxonomy refers to the taxonomic system developed in the 18th century by Carolus Linnaeus wherein life forms are classified according to a ranked hierarchy.

The basic hierarchy (leaving out the sub- or super- ranks, and other more technical ranks) is as follows:

  • Domain
    • Kingdom
      • Phylum
        • Class
          • Order
            • Family
              • Genus
                • Species

Linnaean taxonomy was originally developed as a physicotheological system in which nature was viewed as another testament of God to be read much like the Bible. By seeking to document the patterns of concinnity in Creation, Linnaeus and his peers hoped to elucidate the mind of God.[1] It was not originally meant to describe a system of biological descent, which Linnaeus, a devout Christian and creationist,[2] would have considered shocking.[3] Linnaeus also applied his taxonomy to mineralogy,[4] but that usage has been superseded by chemical classifications.

Evolutionists hijacked the Linnaean system from the Christian founders of biology and tried to adapt it to the Darwinian world view of different species all sharing a common ancestor, a view which is contraindicated by the Bible. However, since the Linnaean system describes a fixed Creation with no way for members of one order or family to move to another order or family, attempts by Evolutionists to introduce phylogeny (the alleged common ancestry of completely different animal species) were bound to be riddled with contradiction.

While the Linnaean system is still in almost universal use for the naming and categorizing of creatures—especially in the form of the binomial nomenclature, where species are given a scientific, Latinate name comprised of a generic and specific descriptor (e.g. the common wombat is known as Vombatus ursinus) -- it has largely been replaced as a framework for describing origins by creation science's baraminology and, in the evolutionist theory, by the theory of cladistic phylogeny.

Later developments since Linnaeus

Over time, our understanding of the relationships between living things has not changed, but the corruption of science by Evolutionists has meant that scientists in liberal universities increasingly believe in phylogeny, the fallacious belief that fossils supposedly show that different types of animal share the same ancestor.

Phylogeny directly contradicts the Bible, which quite clearly states,

Genesis 1:25
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

This discredits the theory of phylogeny by showing that different species of animal had separate ancestors which were created by God on the fourth and fifth days of Creation.

Evolutionists claim that a weakness of Linnaeus' method was that he could only base his scheme on the structural similarities of the different organisms. However, this was arguably a better approach than making unsubstantiated claims that the different animals had the same ancestor. Evolutionists accused Linnaeus of polyphyly, which is the unwarranted inclusion in a taxon of species which did not descend from the same common ancestor. However, since no different species descended from the same common ancestor, it turns out that Linnaeus was right all along.

Despite this, Evolutionists continue to try and make Linnaeus' God-given taxonomical divisions conform to the factually unproven and morally dubious claim that different animals come from the same ancestor by haphazardly transplanting the animals from one taxon to another depending on the latest hypothesis about their ancestry, which not only leads to ambiguity over the nomenclature conventions for various species, but is also bound to confuse the animals themselves.

Originally, Linnaeus established three kingdoms in his scheme, namely Plantae, Animalia and an additional group for minerals. In an unnecessary attempt to alter his theories, early Evolutionists made up three new kingdoms and needlessly moved many organisms in and out of them:Monera, for prokaryotes (i.e., bacteria); Protista, for protozoans and most algae; and Fungi. More recent Evolutionists have invented still more categories, and transplanted more animals into them: Bacteria and Archaea, which contain the prokaryotes, and Eukaryota. These arrangements are constantly being remade and confusingly altered, and are not a clear improvement on Linnaeus' original system, which is still compatible with the Biblical consensus.

References

  1. "Linnaeus' view of nature", Linné On Line
  2. "Faith in the Bible and Creation", Linné On Line
  3. "Carl Linnaeus", biography
  4. "Linnaeus as a minerologist", Linné On Line