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In creation biology, Baraminology is the effort to classify created kinds. The term was devised in 1990 by Kurt P. Wise from the Hebrew words bara (create) and min (kind). The term "baramin" was coined by Marsh in 1941 to represent the different kinds described in the Bible in the Genesis descriptions of the creation and Noah's Ark, and the Leviticus and Deuteronomy division between clean and unclean. Baraminology has also been termed discontinuity systematics.
Baraminology aims to use four terms to distinguish groups of organisms: holobaramin, monobaramin, apobaramin, and polybaramin.
- Holobaramin — A holobaramin is the set of organisms that belong to a single baramin. In other words, it is a group of organisms that (1) shares continuity (meaning that each member is continuous with at least one other member) and (2) is bounded by discontinuity. In this sense,universal common descent in the theory of evolution would suggest that there is only one holobaramin covering all organisms. Among creationists, humans necessarily form a holobaramin, since in creationist conceptions they were created specially and would not share ancestral or genetic relationship with other animals. Evidence to the contrary is explicitly rejected.
- Monobaramin — A monobaramin is a group of known species that share continuity without regard to discontinuity with other organisms. That is, it may be either part or all of a holobaramin. So, for example, dogs could be seen as a monobaramin from the holobaramin of the dog kind which also includes wolves.
- Apobaramin — An apobaramin is a group of known species that are bounded by discontinuity without regard to internal continuity. That is, it may be one or more complete holobaramins. For example, all plants together would form an apobaramin since (in creationist theory) they were not a single kind of plant at the moment of their creation (at least fruit-bearing plants and grass can be distinguished) but there is no single holobaramin that includes both plants and animals.
- Polybaramin — A polybaramin is an artificial group of known species that share continuity with organisms outside the group and discontinuity occurs within the group. That is, it consists of parts of two or more holobaramins and should be avoided, as it is comparable to a polyphyletic taxon in conventional systematics. For example, the mammals currently alive in North America would form a polybaramin.
Demarcation of baramin
The question of determining the boundaries between baramin is a subject of much discussion and debate among creation biologists. A number of criteria have been presented.
Early efforts at demarcation
Hybridization: The traditional criterion for membership in a common baramin is the ability to hybridize and create viable offspring. In Evolution, Creation, and Science, Marsh, who coined the term baramin, asserted that that hybridization was a sufficient condition for being members of the same baramin. However, he asserted that it was not a necessary condition, as observed speciation events among drosophilia had been shown to cut off hybridization. In 1993, German creation biologist Siegfried Scherer presented two sufficient criteria for membership in a baramin: the ability to hybridize, or the shared ability to hybridize with a third organism.
The hybridization criterion was challenged in 1993 by creation biologist Remine. Remind argued that hybridization criteria were insufficient, because while organisms that could hybridize could be categorized as being part of a common baramin, organisms that could not hybridize were not necessarily of different baramin. Thus the definition was vague and not particularly useful.
Remine proposed instead that a holobaramin by defined as "a complete set of organisms related by common descent." This definition, while unambiguous, cannot be applied, however, because the actual line of descent cannot be observed today. Further, it was criticized because it failed to account for the possibility that more than one of each kind was originally created; according to his definition, two identical bacteria created by God would have been of different baramin. Finally, it excluded the first generation of organisms from the definition, because the first organisms, as created, were not related to each other.
Contemporary criteria for demarcation
In 2003, the Baraminology Study Group developed and refined the baramin concept with four new concepts:
- Biological character space is 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 is 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.
In determining continuity and discontinuity, creation biologists emphasize the importance of applying a holistic dataset in determining whether there is significant similarity between two organisms. Hybridization is considered to be determinative evidence that two organisms exhibit holistic and substantial continuity.
In light of the foregoing concepts, the group clarified the baraminological definitions as follows:
- A monobaramin is a group of organisms that share continuity, without regard to other organisms;
- A polybaramin is a group of organisms that share continuity and discontinuity with other members of the group;
- An apobaramin is a group of organisms that is bounded by discontinuity, without regard to the internal continuity of its members.