From A Storehouse of Knowledge

Baraminology is a recent creation science origins model and classification system — technically, a creationist biosystematic method — consisting of the study of "baramins", or created kinds. It roughly coincides with cladistics, the system used by evolutionary scientists. Baraminology observes the fact that that all animals are descended from the original created kinds, and in the case of land-dwelling creatures, from the pairs taken on Noah's ark. It seeks, among other things, to establish the relationship between different species of the same baramin.

Contents 1 Basis 2 Relationship to evolutionary taxonomy 3 Examples 4 Terminology 5 See also 6 Bibliography 7 References

Basis

The creation account in Genesis one repeatedly says that God created living things to reproduce "after their kind"^[1], and this is taken to mean that each "kind" of living thing is genetically isolated from other "kinds".

Baraminology is based on the idea that even though creatures do not evolve in an unlimited way, they were designed with an ability to adapt to their environment. This ability is not open-ended (per evolution), but within the limits of their design.

Baraminologists attempt to determine the original "created kinds" from research into whether or not different organisms are able to reproduce with each other. However, this criterion has limitations, in that it only works for sexually-reproducing species, and failure to reproduce may be due to two groups within the same baramin having varied enough that interfertility has been lost.

Relationship to evolutionary taxonomy

Baraminology has much in common with evolutionary taxonomies. Once in existence, a species will always produce descendants with similar characteristics. Those characteristics may change with time enough that the old species may eventually be recognized as a different species from the original organisms, or the descendents may eventually diverge into a number of distinct species. Species may also become extinct.

Except for the occasional argument from the Bible or theology, baraminology also uses the same range of criteria as evolutionary taxonomy, such as hybridization, ontogeny, lineage, structure (morphology) and physiology (function), fossils in rock layers, and ecology.

The main difference between baraminology and evolutionary taxonomy is the expectation of what will be found, within the limitations imposed by the imperfections of the fossil record. Baraminology expects the ancestry of all living things to be traceable to the species created during Creation Week, whereas evolutionists expect to be able to trace the descent of all living things to a single, first form of life. On that basis, the evidence capable of distinguishing the two is most likely to be the fossil record of the organisms deepest in the geological column.

Examples

There have been very few barminological publications, so there is nothing even remotely approaching a consensus covering all organisms. The determinations that have been proposed tend to be roughly at the level of biological families, such as the cats, the dogs, the bears, the horses, or the turtles. The expectation is that the final number of baramins may be a few thousand.

Terminology

Baraminologists have introduced the following terms to describe different concepts in baraminology. These terms are not taxonomic levels, nor are they necessarily actual classifications.

A baramin is the original created kind

A holobaramin is an entire group of organisms which are descended from the original created kind. For example, wolves, coyotes, jackals, dingoes, and domestic dogs may constitute a holobaramin.

A monobaramin is a group of organisms which are descended from the original created kind, but not the complete set of such organisms. For example, dingoes and domestic dogs would be a monobaramin.

An apobaramin is a group of organisms that may comprise more than one created kind. For example, baraminologists believe that God probably created more than one kind of cat, in which case all cats taken together would comprise an apobaramin.

A polybaramin is a term for a group of creatures thought to be from a single created kind, but which are not. That is, it describes two or more groups which have been mistakenly classified as a single group.

See also

• Discontinuity systematics

Bibliography

• Creation Biology Society (formerly BSG: A Creation Biology Study Group)
• Drews, Carl, Biblical Kinds, Copyright 2008, Updated: September 27, 2011.—Compiles an extensive list of biblical uses of bara and min. Concludes "The Biblical usage of miyn and bara contains nothing that opposes the idea of biological evolution."
• Frair, Wayne. What are the Genesis “kinds”: Baraminology—classification of created organisms. Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 2 (September 2000), pp. 82-91.
• Wood, Todd Charles, A baraminology tutorial with examples from the grasses (Poaceae), Journal of Creation 16(1):15–25, April 2002. HTML PDF.
• Wood, Todd Charles, Wise, Kurt P., Sanders, Roger, and Doran, N., A Refined Baramin Concept, Baraminology Study Group, 25 July 2003.

References