He kind of wants to throw it out.
In the classification system, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species–humans should not be in the animal Kingdom as "God created man in his own image" (Genesis 1:27). No animals were made in God's image. Humans should be separated out to show this difference.
— Ken Ham (@aigkenham) March 7, 2018
How odd. You know, the classification system he’s complaining about was formulated by Carl Linnaeus, who happened to be a pre-Darwinian Christian who also believed in a literal creation of different “kinds” by a god, just like Ham, but without some of the dogmatic stupidity. He’s the one who put humans in the animal kingdom.
Of particular interest is the fact that Linnaeus classified the human species in the animal kingdom. In different editions, he made numerous modifications to the details, but “man” was now part of the natural world, though distinguished by “his” soul. The term “homo sapiens” to describe our species (literally: “know thyself”) is due to Linnaeus, in the third edition.
The reasoning was straightforward. He thought all organisms were created by his god, beetles, camels, and salmon as well as humans, so he had no reason to separate out Homo sapiens as a distinct, exceptional creation event, unlike all those other species.
I think Ken Ham’s religious purity has been tainted, and he’s leaning towards accepting a natural history for animals, and is desperately shoring up human exceptionalism as a refuge for his incomplete beliefs.
He’s probably going to burn in hell for that.