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By acts of a Creator. | By naturalistic mechanistic processes due to properties inherent in inanimate matter. |
Creation of basic plant and animal kinds with ordinal characteristics complete in first representatives. | Origin of all living things from a single living source which itself arose from inanimate matter. Origin of each kind from an ancestral form by slow gradual change. |
Variation and speciation limited within each kind. | Unlimited variation. All forms genetically related. |
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Sudden appearance in great variety of highly complex forms. | Gradual change of simplest forms into more and more complex forms. |
Sudden appearance of each created kind with ordinal characteristics complete. Sharp boundaries separating major taxonomic groups. No transitional forms between higher categories. | Transitional series linking all categories. No systematic gaps. |