Created kinds

In creation biology, created kinds are believed to be the original forms of life as they were created by God. They are also referred to as "kinds," "original kinds," "Genesis kinds," and "baramin."

In contrast to the scientific principle of common ancestry, creation biologists argue that all life on Earth is not related, but that life was created in a finite number of discrete forms, which subsequently underwent speciation and microevolution of the original created kinds is acknowledged. However, creation biologists assert that the created kinds constitute definite boundaries beyond which evolutionary processes cannot occur.

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

Mainstream science rejects the idealization of "created kinds" and creation science in general as a pseudoscience. This is mainly because the scientific evidence for common ancestry and the relationships of lifeforms in the biosphere corresponds most closely to evolutionary biology theory rather than to creation according to Genesis.

Definitions

The concept of the "kind" originates from a literal reading of Genesis 1:12–24:

And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind … 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 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.

In 1941, creationist writer Frank L. Marsh in 1941 proposed that the Biblical created kind could be defined in terms of reproduction. He argued that as long as two modern creatures can hybridize with true fertilization, the two creatures are descended from the same kind. This idea has been adopted to support the practice of baraminology, the attempt to classify created kinds. Creation scientists posit that kinds are a form of clade, in that a posited kind displays evidence for common lines of ancestry among its member organisms. The few creationists who work to make the classifications have not so far come up with a consistent set of rules for establishing when this criteria is met. As such, kinds do not coincide with any particular level of taxon. In some cases, such as humanity, kinds coincide with species or genus. In other cases, such as Felidae, they may be equivalent to the family level of taxonic classification.

Microbiologist and creationist Siegfried Scherer refined the criteria to state that if two creatures can hybridize with the same third creature, they are all members of the same "basic type". Thus all members of a ring species would be members of the same basic type. Scherer also updated Marsh's explanation of true fertilization:

Two individuals belong to the same basic type if embryogenesis of a hybrid continues beyond the maternal phase, including subsequent co-ordinated expression of both maternal and paternal morphogenetic genes.

There is some uncertainty about what exactly the Bible means when it talks of "kinds". The original Hebrew word used is min, which is used to describe a variety of organisms. Russell Mixter, another creationist writer, comments that

One should not insist that "kind" means species. The word "kind" as used in the Bible may apply to any animal which may be distinguished in any way from another, or it may be applied to a large group of species distinguishable from another group ... there is plenty of room for differences of opinion on what are the kinds of Genesis. [1]

"Creation scientists" posit that the defining element of kinds is creationist-approved evidence for common lines of ancestry among the organisms in the posited kind. The few creationists who work to make the classifications have not so far come up with a consistent set of rules for establishing when this criteria is met. As such, kinds do not coincide with any particular level of taxon. In some cases, such as humanity, kinds coincide with species or genus. In other cases, such as Felidae, they may be equivalent to the family level of taxonic classification.

Kinds in the Tree of Life

The creationist "kind" is assumed to be based upon an idea that life in the past exhibited greater genetic diversity and heterozygosity than life today, in the form of "kinds" analogous to the liger. Thus, the kinds were created with the innate ability to vary a great deal, and subsequent evolutionary processes are merely the means by which that innate ability to vary is expressed.

The phylogenetic tree is similar in form and function to the evolutionary tree, but bears two important differences.

• First, while the evolutionary tree traces life back to a single cell or population of single-celled organisms, the creation biology tree traces life back to a number of unrelated populations of life-forms which roughly resembled the forms of life today.
• Second, while the evolutionary tree credits evolutionary change to an increase in genetic diversity from simpler to more complex organisms, the creation biology tree credits microevolutionary change to the rearrangement and expression of genetic variation that was "built in" to the original kinds;

Change in created kinds is said to take place through degradation of the genome, as natural selection and reproductive isolation, inbreeding, and genetic drift caused lifeforms to adapt to their environment by the loss of capacity to adapt to other environments. Speciation is held to be a side-effect of a degrading genome, and most is said to have occured during and after the rapid dispersion immediately after a global flood that is reported to have occurred in Genesis. This event is said to have caused an extreme population bottleneck which caused the major speciation events taking place within the space of 1000 to 2000 years after the flood.

The following illustration can explain the creationist view of this rapid mechanism for speciation. Imagine a small gene pool in which there are genes for both blue and brown eyes evenly spread throughout the population. In such a situation, some people will be born with brown eyes, and other people will be born with blue eyes. However, if part of the population separates from the main group, and the smaller population has only the gene for brown eyes, then the descendants of that smaller population will have only brown eyes. The characteristic for brown eyes has become "set" in the isolated population.

This mechanism is used to explain a great deal of variation. Many creationists believe that the formation of the races was a result of this process. The population onboard the ark is believed to have been a hybrid population containing the genetic characteristics of all the races. When the population spread over the Earth after the flood, gene pools became isolated. A population with more African features moved south into Africa. A population with more European features moved into Europe. A population with more Asiatic features moved into Asia. Simultaneously, skin color was altered by microevolution, so that northern populations developed lighter skin in order to produce vitamin D in more sundeprived areas, while equatorial populations developed darker skin to protect them from the harmful effects of the sun. As a result of the population isolation as these populations spread over the world, the racial characteristics became "set" in the respective populations, resulting in the characteristic races observable today.

The differentiation of species from original hybrids is the heart of the concept of created kinds.

Boundaries between kinds

Most of the controversy regarding created kinds revolves around the asserted boundaries between the kinds — the position that the kinds are unrelated. Those challenging creation biology often ask what basis creation biologists have for asserting that such boundaries exist, or for determining what those boundaries are.

The project of determining the precise boundaries between the kinds is not easy, because it is in essence a historical project, in which the evidence is strictly limited by the evidence available today. This problem is analogous to the problems in constructing phylogenetic trees, where evolutionary biologists struggle to determine which criteria should be used in determining how life is related.

Creationists generally assert that conclusions about common ancestry should only be drawn if there is substantial evidence to support the conclusion. That is, one should not presume that forms of life are related, but should hold that position only if there is solid reason to do so.

In the absence of the ability to directly observe life in its original form, classification of kinds generally revolves around reproductive compatibility — that is, created kinds are generally seen as having common descent if they are reproductively compatible. Thus, humans and frogs are considered to be different kinds because they are not reproductively compatible at all, while the African and European races are considered to be clearly of the same kind, because they are totally reproductively compatible.

The classification is more difficult when reproductive compatibility is partial, as in the case of the mule, a hybrid of the horse and the donkey which, although viable, is not fertile. While it is possible that the two species descend from a common ancestor due to their reproductive compatibility, it is also possible that they do not, but were created separately with reproductive systems similar enough to create viable offspring, but not similar enough to create fertile offspring.

Other criteria for common ancestry are rejected. The mere fact that organisms are alive is not seen as evidence of common ancestry, because there is no evidence available to refute the possibility that life originated in several unrelated forms. Genetic and physiological similarities are not seen as evidence of common ancestry, because there is no evidence available to refute the possibility that the genetic similarities are a result of a similar design being used on different "kinds."

Since 2001, creation biologists at the Baraminology Study Group have been developing a new method for demarcating created kinds. The new method involves the application of morphological character data to create a "biological character space," which can then be used to determine continuity and discontinuity between species, and ultimately to determine "biological trajectories." This method is discussed in greater detail in the article Baraminology.

Hypothesized kinds

Creationists have proposed a handful of possibilities for the created "kinds":

• Humanity — Creationists reject any and all claims of evidence for a common ancestor between homo sapiens and other great apes. Creationist Sigrid Hartwig-Scherer concluded that H. erectus/ergaster, Neandertals and H. sapiens were members of the same basic type (which corresponds to a monobaramin) Homininae with the fossils called Australopithecus afarensis, A. anamensis, A. africanus, A. robustus, A. aethiopithecus, A. boisei and possibly Ardipithecus ramidus assigned to another basic type, Australopithecinae.
• Felidae — Creationists from Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research have proposed that the original kinds were comparable to the Liger and the Tigon.
• Canidae — Similar to the kind associated with cats, it is proposed that all canines had a common ancestor.
• Camelidae — Including both the camel and the llama, which are reproductively compatible, their hybrid offspring being known as "Camas."
• Crocodylia — Including all the varieties of alligator, crocodile, and gharial.
• Elephants: African and Indian elephants can hybridize yet they are classified in the same genus.

Thus the created kind corresponds roughly to the family, and possibly even the order with the notable exception of humanity.[2]

Creationists also point to known examples of hybridization to argue that the kind is broader than the biological species, and sometimes even than the genus. For example:

• Kekaimalu the wholphin is a fertile hybrid of two different genera, the false killer whale and bottlenose dolphin. Kekaimalu herself gave birth to a calf, showing she was a fertile hybrid. Thus these creatures classified as different genera are really a single polytypic (many-type) species.
• Bos (true cattle) and Bison (American buffalo) can produce a fertile hybrid called a cattalo. Bos and Bison are thus likewise the same polytypic species although they classified as different genera.
• Brassica and Raphanus are different plant genera which hybridize to what has been given a new generic name Raphanobrassica.
• The creationist Don Batten helped create a hybrid of the fruit species lychee (Litchi chinensis) and longan (Dimocarpus longana), again classified as different genera.

A canonical list of kinds has not been constructed and such examples are extremely provisional (with the exception of humans, on which there is a strong creationist consensus).

Creation biology looks to the animals visible in the fossil record (which creationists interpret as having mostly been laid down during the flood) as evidence that antediluvian life was much more diverse than life today. They reject the dating methods of paleontologists and geologists that determine the age of fossils from the order of the fossil record and instead believe that almost all fossils were deposited in a single catastrophic flood event and were sorted out by processes associated with the flood. (See flood geology for more on this topic.)

External links

• Definition of kinds as it relates to this topic
• "Ligers and wholphins? What next?" by Answers in Genesis, a creationist organization.