Baraminology

Baraminology is a new field of biology and is the creation science alternative to classifying biological organisms with evolutionary thinking. It is not yet complete, but neither is the evolutionary three or five or other kingdom classification systems. God created by kinds that don't have common parents. He created plants, he created animals, he created people. He created horses, he created dogs, he created lizards, he created fish. Evolutionary based classification systems attempt to connect all kinds and species. The Bible and the creationist work on the Baramin system of classification don't connect the kinds. Here is one drawing to get you thinking about Baraminology and some quotes on the key points. There is still plenty of room for further research into God's taxomony of biological life.

"The Darwinian macroevolution model is represented by a single tree of relationships, every form of life being related to every other form of life (Figure 1). In the baraminic model there is a forest of trees without connecting roots (Figure 2). One of these rootless trees would have branches representing only human diversification, another for canids, another for felids, etc. For people reared on an evolutionary diet, the above menu can be difficult to swallow and digest, because students of biology have been taught to think genetic relationship rather than genetic discontinuity. "

Here is how the Christian researchers are viewing their work in Baraminology:

"It is like there has been a huge snowfall covering the trees to the top, and we are digging down into the snow to identify the connections, the branches, limbs, and trunk. Is there one tree below? Or is it an orchard of separate distinct trees? As the data slowly come into view we will have arguments about what is connected to what, or whether there is discontinuity at a given place."

It sure would be nice for this to have already been figured out, before we study science and biology, but it seems that this process of man taking dominion by naming things in alignment with God's creating of things is still work that needs your generation to flush out the details of.

Try sketching out a few kinds yourself to see how far you get. How far can you get starting with your favorite pet? Penguins? What problems do your notice with the five kingdom system: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species? What problems do you see in discussing a new system of classifying biological life? How far does the Bible go in biological classification? Does body, soul, spirit all need to be part of baraminology characteristics? How would you differentiate a fly from a horse from a eukaryotic cell or person specifically and Biblically?

References 1, 2, 3

Scriptures

1. Genesis 1:11
   And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
2. Genesis 1:12
   And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
3. Genesis 1:21
   And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
4. Genesis 1:24
   And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
5.  Genesis 1:25
   And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
6. Genesis 6:20
   Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
7. Genesis 7:14
   They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.