-Baraminology-

(Classifications and Catagorizations of organic life)

Kinds:

"A category, family and lineage encompassing admissible varietible and distinguished members yielded from the kinds original created living entity."

Created kinds in creation biology, are organisms that share a common ancestry. The phrase was coined from the Genesis account of the creation week during which God created many kinds of organisms. They are also referred to as "kinds," "original kinds," "Genesis kinds," and more formally by creation scientists as baramin. Baraminology is a rapidly growing field of creation science involved with the identification and study of the created kinds.

In contrast to the evolutionary principle of common ancestry, creation biologists argue that all life on Earth is not related to one ultimate single-cell but that life was created in a finite number of discrete forms, which subsequently underwent speciation and massive genetic change over millions of generations.

Since created kinds refer to common ancestry they are analogous to the clade. Baraminology, or the effort to classify life according to the created kinds, is thus the creationist equivalent of cladistics.

It is very important not to confuse the "created kind" with species. Although animals like the fox and coyote might be considered different taxonomic species, they are still the same "kind" of animal. The created kind is thought to be more often synonymous with the "Family" level of classification in the taxonomic hierarchy; at least in mammals; and occasionally it can extend as high as the order level.



Baraminology:

"Classifications of living things augmenting from original created kinds exclusively concerning the science of change over time and subjective variations due to adaptation and reproduction".

Baraminology is a creationist system for classifying life into groups not related by common ancestry, called "baramins". Its methodology is founded on a literal creationist reading of "kinds" in Genesis, especially a distinction between humans and other animals. Other criteria include the ability of animals to interbreed and the similarity of their observable traits. Baraminology is a subfield of creation science. The taxonomic system widely applied in biology is Cladistics, which classifies species based on and emphasizes objective, quantitative analysis.

Baraminology is the study of the ancestry of life on Earth (biosystematics), which draws from the presupposition that God created many kinds of organisms as described in the Biblical book of Genesis. In short, it is an effort to find scientific means to determine which forms of life are related, and which are not. Creationist biosystematics enables us to more clearly view and understand relationships that might not be visible from a naturalistic perspective. Most importantly, it provides another way for us to know the Creator.

The Baraminology Study Group (BSG) has been instrumental in this area of research. The group is involved to further the development and research of this theoretical framework in creation biology within a forum of leading creation scientists in the relevant fields.

Natural kinds:

a natural kind is a grouping of things which is a natural grouping, not an artificial one. Or, it is something a set of things (objects, events, beings) has in common which distinguishes it from other things as a real set rather than as a group of things arbitrarily lumped together by a person or group of people.

If any natural kinds exist at all, good candidates for being natural kinds might include each of the chemical elements, like gold or potassium. Physical particles like quarks might also be natural kinds. That is, they would still be groups of things, distinct from other things as a group, even if there were no people around to say that they were members of the same group. The set of objects that weigh more than 50 pounds, on the other hand, almost certainly does not comprise a natural kind. A person might group those objects together for some purpose like shipping costs, but there is no particular reason that any other person should lump those objects together instead of placing them in some other grouping.

There is considerable debate in philosophy about whether there are any natural kinds at all, and if so, what they are. Philosophers of biology argue about whether biological species, like the Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), are natural kinds. Others debate whether races, sexes, or sexual orientations are natural kinds. Meteorologists classify a number of different kinds of clouds, but it is not clear whether they are really different kinds, or whether those groups merely reflect the classifying interests of human beings.

A more formal definition has it that a natural kind is a family of "entities possessing properties bound by natural law; we know of natural kinds in the form of categories of minerals, plants, or animals, and we know that different human cultures classify natural realities that surround them in a completely analogous fashion"

Cultural artifacts are not generally considered natural kinds. As one author puts it, "they never stop changing, and terms that designate them constitute only what Wittgenstein called 'family resemblance predicates'" This point is more disputed; John McDowell has extensively argued that this opposition between "culture" and "nature" cannot be clearly formulated, and that in any case it ought to lead us to construing cultural products not as unnatural, but as, adopting Aristotle's terminology, a kind of "second nature."

Types of baramins:

 Holobaramin

Holobaramin (holo, from the Greek "holos" for "whole") is an entire group of living and/or extinct forms of life understood to share genetic relationship by common ancestry. It 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 other races. Another example would be Canines, which is a holobaramin since wolves, coyotes, domesticated dogs and other canids are all descended from two individuals taken aboard Noah's 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

Monobaramin (mono, from the Greek for "single" or "one") is defined by Walter ReMine (1993, p. 444) as: a group containing only organisms related by common descent, but not necessarily all of them. (A group comprising one entire holobaramin or a portion thereof). It is an ad hoc group of organisms who share common descent. Caucasians and Negros are a monobaramin, as are any group of a holobaramin such as wolves, poodles, and terriers. Holobaramins contain monobaramins; for instance, wolves are a monobaramin of the Dog holobaramin.

Apobaramin

Apobaramin (apo, from the Greek for "away from") is a group consisting of the entirety of at least one holobaramin. It may contain a single holobaramin or more than one holobaramin, "but it must contain the entirety of each of the one or more holobaramins within it." (Kurt Wise, 1999–2000). A groups consisting of both Humans and Canines are apobaraminic since both members are holobaramins. The term apobaramin is a term useful especially during evaluations of two types of organisms (pairwise comparisons).

Polybaramin

A polybaramin (poly, from Greek for "many") is defined as a group consisting of part of at least two holobaramins. It may be any of numerous mixtures which could contain holobaramins, monobaramins, apobaramins, and individual specimens. It is an ad hoc group of organisms where at least two of the members must be unrelated. For example: Humans, wolves and a duck are a polybaraminic group. This term is useful for describing such hodgepodge