Breeders have discovered, after decades of experimenting, that no matter how intensively they breed plants or animals, they never develop a new or totally different kind. They may cause changes in size, color or other characteristics. But a cow always remains a cow; a grape always remains a grape; a fly always remains a fly.

It now has been definitely established that beyond a certain limited degree of variation from what is normal, living things cannot be changed further without either making them sterile or killing them. Why? Because there is a law that locks them into being what they are.

“ACCORDING TO THEIR KINDS”

God has built into all living things a law to keep basic types separated. That law is what the Bible calls “according to their kinds.”

An example of this is Genesis 1:24, which states: “God went on to say: ‘Let the earth put forth living souls according to their kinds, domestic animal and moving animal and wild beast of the earth according to its kind.’” This is also true regarding all plants, insects, birds, fish and humans.

However, the hereditary makeup of living things does include the potential of variety within basic kinds, which makes life more interesting. But, just as the breeders have discovered, while there may be many varieties of cats, for example, all the varieties forever stay cats and can interbreed only among themselves. The same is true regarding all other basic kinds.

Harold Coffin, invertebrate zoologist from the University of California, states: “Obviously much adaptation has occurred, but has this adaptive change actually caused evolutionary progression from one major category to another? The evidence from science does not support this kind of change.”

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“Plants and animals . . . produce their young from their own bodies and in no other way.” “All life derives from preceding life, . . . the parent organism and its offspring are of the same kind.”​—“Biology for You,” p. 468; “The Encyclopedia Americana,” 1956, Vol. 3, p. 721