Are Crocodilians one thing? Part II

As a general rule, I try to present someone else's position as accurately as possible.  Therefore, I read a lot of creationist materials.  In January, Tom Hennigan posted two more papers on estimating "kinds": An Initial Estimate toward Identifying and Numbering the Ark Turtle and Crocodile Kinds and An Initial Estimate Toward Identifying and Numbering Amphibian Kinds within the Orders Caudata and Gymnophiona.

I have enjoyed reading these papers and they have actually helped me freshen up on my taxonomy.  I have written about these types of papers elsewhere and do not wish to rehash old posts.  You can read The Kind of argument we are having and Avian Kinds for more details.

I just wanted to call attention to two things. A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of blog posts about Carl Kerby in my view misrepresenting a phylogenetic chart. In Are Crocodilians one thing?, I dealt with Kerby's claim that Crocodilians, now called Crocodyliformes, are "one thing."  Below is all the diversity that Kerby allows in this kind.  (Image drawn by Darren Naish and can be found on his blog)

Hennigan chooses to deal only with Crocodylia and this is probably due to AiG's hesitance to speak to fossil kinds in these initial papers.  While Lightner tends to accept broad genetic relationships and create large kinds, Hennigan tends to be more narrow.  While he admits that all Crocodylia may have had a common ancestor, "the kind is delineated at the family level because of their strong cognita, interspecific hybridization reported within (but not across) some families, and the need for more understanding of what the molecular data mean."

In his paper on salamanders, he does the same thing.

Family Plethodontidae is the largest salamander group with 27 genera and 431 species having an average total length of 10 cm...The family is quite diverse, for example, some can ballistically project their tongue to catch prey while others have web feet. Until further research sheds light on why they are so diverse, I default the kind to genus. It is probable that many will eventually be lumped into larger taxa in the future.

 Remember, the diversity is a problem for the "biblical creationist", because they only have the 4000 years since Noah's Ark to account for the diversity.  While Lightner is more willing to appeal to supernatural mechanisms, Hennigan does not wish to go down that route, at least not initially.