OBJECTIVE:Ministries

It is part of our mission here at OBJECTIVE: Creation Education to bring understanding of Creation Science to the masses who are unable to learn about true science in the Secular controlled media and education systems. In this article, I will introduce to you a new advancement in Creation Science terminology that you will be seeing used more often in the future.

Creation Scientists often talk about kinds when referring both to the original creations of the Lord and those that were preserved from the Flood on Noah's Ark. Evolutionists attack this discussion by claiming that kinds is an undefined and loose term. To an extent, the Evolutionists have a point; the word kind, while understood perfectly by Creation Scientists when used in its Scriptural sense, can lead to confusion among the general audience due to its loose usage in non-technical speech. This confusion is what the Evolutionist unfairly takes advantage of when trying to disparage Creation Systematics, or the classifying of created organisms. Realizing this, Creation Scientists -- led in 1990 by Kurt P. Wise and Walter ReMine -- have developed a new terminological system whose goal is to aid both researchers in their research and the general population in its understanding of Creation Science findings. This new system is called Baraminology.

Baraminology is based on the concept of the baramin, a term that is synonymous with the Biblical kind. The word barmin was coined in 1941 by Frank Lewis Marsh from the Hebrew words bara (create) and min (kind). A baramin is a group of organisms -- those both known and unknown to science and both extant and extinct -- who share a genetic relationship through common descent from an organism originally created by the Lord during the Creation Week. For instance, humans are a baramin that includes all the known races (and any obscure or extinct races) which originated via genetic descent from the offspring of Adam and Eve.

Baraminology lets us discuss clearly the Creation model of the diversity and diversification of life. This model is termed Discontinuity Systematics. Unlike the incorrect Evolutionist model that supposes that life forms a continuous lineage from Mushroom to Monkey to Man, the Creation model -- supported by science and the Bible -- shows that the pattern of life is marked first and foremost by discontinuity. When we step back and look at all the life on the planet, it is clear that we can group the various species into distinct baramins, and that the spaces between these baramins are discontinuities that no amount of Evolutionist fantasizing can bring together. Humans (one baramin) do not form a continuity with apes (another baramin).

Terminology

To help us further in our goal of clear understanding of the Lord's Creation, we may also employ more specific baraminological terms, as illustrated in the following example baraminogram:

Unlike the racist philosophy of Evolutionism which holds that the tribes of Man are diverging into different unhuman species, Creation Science shows that a Human will always be a Human (and a dog always a dog) and baraminology is used to express this finding. The holobaraminic barrier is inviolable as it is the only natural division that represents the hand of God and not the destructive force of post-Fall entropy. Apobaramins, monobaramins, and polybaramins are all artificial groupings that were coined for practical purposes such as ecological studies and farm management.

Holobaramin

A Holobaramin is a grouping that contains all organisms related by descent, not excluding any. For example, Humans are a holobaramin, but a group containing only Caucasians and Negroes is not a holobaramin since it excludes Mongoloids and other races. Another example would be Dogs, which is a holobaramin since wolves, coyotes, domesticated dogs and other canids are all descended from two individuals taken aboard the Ark, and there are no other creatures that are genetically continuous with them. This term is synonymous with the use of baramin above and is the primary term in baraminology.

Monobaramin

A monobaramin is an ad hoc group of organisms who share common descent. Caucasians and Negros are a monobaramin, as are any group of specific members of a holobaramin such as wolves, poodles, and terriers or the humans Tom, Dick, and Harry. Holobaramins contain monobaramins; for instance, wolves are a monobaramin of the Dog holobaramin.

Apobaramin

An apobaramin is a group of holobaramins. Humans and Dogs are an apobaramin since both members are holobaramins. A group containing Negros and wolves is not an apobaramin since both members are monobaramins.

Polybaramin

A polybaramin is an ad hoc group of organisms where at least one of the members must not be a holobaramin and must be unrelated to any or all of the others. For example: Humans, wolves and a duck are a polybaraminic group. This term is useful for describing such hodgepodge mixtures of creatures.

Archaebaramin

An archaebaramin is the originally-created individual(s) of a given holobaramin. For instance, Adam and Eve form the archaebaramin of the holobaramin of Humanity.

Neobaramin & Paleobaramin

A neobaramin is the living population of a given holobaramin, whereas a paleobaramin represents older forms of a given holobaramin. Neobaramins have undergone genetic degradation from their perfectly created forms (archaebaramin) and so may differ from their paleobaramins in notable ways. For example, the neobaramin of Humanity has a much shorter lifespan and greater prevalence of genetic diseases than the Human paleobaramin (i.e. Adam lived for 930 years and his children could interbreed without fear of deformity).

Baraminic Demarcation

In order to determine if a given group of organisms form a holobaramin or if they are monobaraminic, baraminic demarcation must be evaluated. This process involves four foundational concepts (definitions taken from "A Refined Baramin Concept", Wood et al., 2003 Baraminology Study Group.):

Biological Character Space

A theoretical multidimensional space in which each character (e.g. height or color) of an organism comprises a dimension, and particular states of that character occupy unique positions along the dimension. A single organism is therefore precisely defined by a single point in the multidimensional space.

Potentiality Region

A region of that biological character space within which organismal form is possible. Therefore, any point in the biological character space that is not within a potentiality region describes an organism that cannot exist.

Continuity

describes the relationship between two organisms which are either in the same potentiality region, or linked to each other by a third, such that transmutation between the two is theoretically possible.

Discontinuity

describes the relationship between two organisms which are in disconnected potentiality regions, such that transmutation between the two is impossible.

Therefore, the discrete, divine creation of a given organism -- and hence the existence of God -- can be proved mathematically simply by using Dembski transformations in biological character space to derive the ReMineian tensor (which is beyond the scope of this overview article).

Cryptobaraminology

In order to expand on the work of Marsh, Wise, and ReMine and apply baraminology to my own field of expertise -- searching for the Lord's hidden creations -- I am proposing a new baraminological term: Cryptobaramin.

A cyrptobaramin is a holobaramin that is currently hidden from Mankind. By hidden, I mean that members of the baramin in question have not been seen since some time after the Flood by all but a very few people, if any. Notable examples include the pterosaurs (the saraph), sauropods (of the Behemoth apobaramin), and plesiosaurs (Leviathans).

Expanding on this systematic innovation further, a cryptomonobaramin is a group of organisms within a holobaramin that have become separated from their kin after the Flood and lost to Man's knowledge. For example, the yeti is a cryptomonobaramin of the ape holobaramin.

An individual member of a cryptobaramin or cryptomonobaramin is known as a cryptid -- a term already current among cryptozoologists, and which will be adopted by what should from hereon be known as cryptobaraminologists.

Cryptobaramin and cryptomonobaramin are provisional terms: a cryptobaramin can become a holobaramin, and a cryptomonobaramin a monobaramin, if the baramins in question are brought into the light of Man's knowledge with full scientific documentation. For example, it is the hope of Project Pterosaur to one day turn pterosaurs from a cryptobaramin into a holobaramin (or an apobaramin, should evidences show multiple pterosaur holobarmins).

(The derived terms cryptoapobaramin and cryptopolybaramin may also be used to describe their respective cryptobaraminological situations. Take note though: both terms should only be used when all members of the groups are cryptobaraminic in nature; if there are any members that are not hidden, then the terms semicryptoapobaramin and semicryptopolybaramin should be employed to avoid confusion.)

Lastly, unlike Secular species concepts that require physical specimens of the "species" for proper classification, baraminology can encompass cryptobaramins that are known only through scriptural exegesis. Thus we can discuss whether the Biblical reem (more popularly known as a "unicorn") is a cryptomonobaramin of the horse holobaramin, or if it represents the cryptobaramin known as ceratopsia, which includes the more genetically decadent triceratops. This puts baraminology well ahead of competing Secular systematics.

Conclusion

As you can see, the Evolutionist canard that Creation Systematics is based on an undefined term is entirely false. In this short article alone, we see defined fourteen terms that Creationist Scientists regularly use to classify organisms according to the Biblically sound Creation model (and I have proposed an additional seven terms that will undoubtedly be soon adopted).

To learn more about baraminology:

"Baraminology -- Classification of Created Organisms"

By Wayne Frair, Ph.D, Originally published in CRS Quarterly, Vol. 37, Num. 2, Sept. 2000.

"A Quantitative Approach to Baraminology With Examples from the Catarrhine Primates"

By. D. Ashley Robinson and David P. Cavanaugh, CRS Quarterly, Vol. 34, Num. 4, March 1998. "In this report we examine some quantitative methods which may be applied to a variety of biological data to empirically estimate the identity of holobaramins."

"The Current Status of Baraminology"

By Todd Charles Wood, CRS Quarterly, Vol. 43, Num. 3, Dec. 2006. "The creationist biosystematic method of baraminology has grown significantly in the past decade."

Baraminology Study Group

Begun in 1996 for the purpose of developing baraminology, the BSG now includes meetings, papers, hybridization databases, and baraminological software based on Robinson and Cavanaugh's baraminic distance method as detailed in their 1998 paper "A quantitative approach to baraminology with examples from the catarrhine primates" (CRSQ 34(4):196-208).