There is a common misperception that creationism entails belief in the unique creation of each species. In fact, many creationists accept a secondary origin of species from ancestors originally created by God. In this view, groups of modern species constitute the ‘Genesis kinds’ that God originally created and beyond which evolution cannot proceed.

Two new publications in the CORE Issues in Creation series address this topic at a technical level. One is entitled Genesis Kinds: Creationism and the Origin of Species and is edited by Todd Charles Wood and Paul Garner. In this collection of papers, given at the recent Genesis Kinds conference, six scholars discuss the history of creationist and Christian perspectives on the origin of species, the use of the Hebrew word mîn (kind) from the perspective of biblical theology, the baseline of minimum speciation within kinds inferred from island endemics, the number of proposed kinds from the mammalian fossil record, the occurrence of discontinuity between kinds, and the origin of new species by symbiosis.

The companion volume is entitled Christian Perspectives on the Origin of Species and is edited by Paul Garner. This is a compilation of Christian writings on species from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century, highlighting the diversity of opinions. It represents much of the source material for Paul Garner’s paper given at the recent Genesis Kinds conference. The collection focuses upon those scholars who accepted the evolution of species within limits, but includes readings from the full range of positions. The contents are as follows: 

• Francesco Redi, from Experiments on the Generation of Insects, 1668.
• Carolus Linnaeus, De Peloria (a new English translation), 1744.
• William Herbert, ‘On crosses and hybrid intermixtures in vegetables’, from Amaryllidaceae, 1837.
• Louis Agassiz, ‘Geographical distribution of animals’, 1850.
• Asa Gray, Review of Origin, 1860.
• Fleeming Jenkin, from Review of Origin, 1867.
• St. George Jackson Mivart, from Chapter 11 of Genesis of Species, 1871.
• Erich Wasmann, from Chapter 9 of Modern Biology and the Theory of Evolution Third English edition, 1910.
• Harold C. Morton, from Chapter X of The Bankruptcy of Evolution, 1925.
• Byron C. Nelson, ‘More about the origin of species’, 1929.
• Dudley Joseph Whitney, ‘The origin of species’, 1929.
• Douglas Dewar, from Chapter 2 of Difficulties of the Evolution Theory, 1931.
• George McCready Price, ‘Nature’s Two Hundred Families’, 1938.
• Harold W. Clark, from Chapter 4 of Genes and Genesis, 1940.
• Frank L. Marsh, from Chapter 10 of Evolution Creation and Science Second edition, 1947. 

BCM hopes to offer copies of these publications for sale in the near future. Anyone who would like to purchase them is invited to contact us to express an interest. This will help us to know how large an order to place. 

Details of other CORE Issues in Creation volumes may be found on the website of the Center for Origins Research.