Aquatic Baraminology

This post will be a bit different from my usual style. It is intended to spark conversation so if you have comments, feel free to leave them and we can have a conversation.  Aquatic baraminology has barely been examined at all. I’ve done a few baraminologies of aquatic organisms and I believe a few others have as well but aquatic organisms have largely been ignored.  This is understandable, given they were not on the Ark.  However, in order to build a viable creation model, we need to be able to account for the baraminology of all organisms, not just those that went on the Ark. With that in mind, here are some questions that need to be asked about aquatic baraminology.

1. Should we expect the same rules to apply to aquatic organisms that we apply to land-based organisms? Given that the Bible uses the same word for both land and aquatic organisms, I think it is fair to say that the same or very similar rules apply to aquatic organisms as to land organisms. If the rules are slightly different, which I do not expect, then how different are those rules and how far can we deviate without undermining the Biblical narrative.

2. Given that aquatic organisms were not aboard the Ark and thus would not have been hit with as harsh a population bottleneck as those inside the Ark, what would we expect the current kinds to look like? It seems reasonable that we would expect an increase in genetic diversity among today’s descendants of the Flood’s aquatic survivors. This being the case, would we expect a more diverse baramin?

3. How do we respond to many aquatic organisms being classified in a much more muddled way than land organisms? For example, the Cyprinid family has four subfamilies classified within it and they are widely diverse in form and function. Given that, in land animals, we view the baramin as being located very roughly at the family level, can we extrapolate that into aquatic organisms? Or do we simply not have enough information currently to make a judgment on that?

4.  Is the vast array of variation within the likely baramins of aquatic organisms the result of created heterozygosity or the result of mediated design? This is a thorny question and it is possible that the answer is both. However, determining which one is more accurate for aquatic creatures will greatly aid future studies of baraminology.

5. Do some aquatic micro-organisms function under the same rules of baraminology that other organisms do? Does their baramin approximate to the same levels as it does in other organisms, or is it much higher or lower? We lack sufficient information at this time to draw that conclusion. Much further study is needed.

As you can see just based on the little information the above questions covered, there is a lot of work still to be done in aquatic baraminology.  The effort is hampered by a number of factors. The first is our general lack of knowledge of undersea life.  It is much harder, obviously, to research organisms underwater than it is to research land organisms.  However, it is also hampered by another issue. Creation scientists are largely focused on land organisms for baraminology, in the few instances that they pursue baraminology. Most of their time is spent producing resources for the general public, which are certainly needed. However, it does take them away from formulating a creation model, and baraminology.

As stated above, the purpose of this post is to spark conversation.  That is why everything has been phrased as a question.  There is far less thinking going on in Christianity and creationism than should be done. Further, baraminology is not a complicated science. People with a basic knowledge of the biological world should be able to perform rough baraminologies using that knowledge.  We desperately need a new generation of creation scientists to rise up and tackle the tough issues.  It is the intention of this blog to help those scientists get their start by causing them to think about issues and potentially motivating them to explore new areas.  I would love to hear your thoughts on these topics. If you have them, feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts and we can all move baraminology forward.