Creationists often refer to “the ape kind,” but relatively few comprehensive evaluations of ape baraminology have been done. Here we use hybridization records and statistical baraminology to evaluate the baramins of living and extinct apes. Hybridization records confirm previous claims that the genus Pan, the genus Pongo, the genus Gorilla, and the family Hylobatidae are each monobaramins. Statistical baraminology using four different character sets yield mixed results. There is tentative evidence to confirm the Paranthropus holobaramin, but clustering of the larger set of hominoids is much less clear. Despite the lack of consistency, we find that certain taxa cluster together frequently and suggest two possible monobaramins from families Hominidae and Pliopithecidae. The hominids Hispanopithecus, Lufengpithecus, Sivapithecus, Kenyapithecus, Ouranopithecus, Pierolapithecus, and Pongo consistently group together, and the pliopithecids Catopithecus, Epipliopithecus, Laccopithecus, and Lomorupithecus also cluster together frequently. We suggest that both of these groups are monobaramins. Additional research will be necessary to further clarify the identity of ape baramins. ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION Over most of the history of the creation-evolution debate, extensive work has been done to support the unique status and special creation of humanity. From Owen’s disputes with Huxley over subclass Archencephala (Huxley 1863; Owen 1865) to Erich Wasmann’s critique of human evolution (Wasmann 1909) to more recent treatments by Lubenow (2004) and Rupe and Sanford (2017), a great number of works have been published in favor of recognizing the unique and un-evolved origin of humanity. At the same time, creationists often speak almost casually of “the ape kind,” yet much less work has been done to identify the nonhuman created kinds most similar to humanity. The generic term “ape” refers to the tailless primates of Asia and Africa. The living apes are placed in the superfamily Hominoidea and two families, Hylobatidae (gibbons, approximately eighteen species) and Hominidae (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans, eight species). Numerous fossil taxa are known from the Oligocene to the present (Begun et al. 1997; Almécija et al. 2021), but the mosaic nature of the fossils hinders inference of higher taxonomy. To illustrate the complexity, 63 named genera that have at one time been referred to Hominoidea are shown in Table 1 along with their proposed taxonomy according to McKenna and Bell (1997), Harrison (2010a, 2010b), Gilbert et al. (2020), Ji et al. (2022), and Pugh (2022). Fossil hominines are generally agreed on, with the important exceptions of Orrorin, Sahelanthropus, and Ardipithecus. The position of Gigantopithecus and Sivapithecus as fossil pongines seems relatively settled as well. Considerable uncertainty surrounds the classification of many other taxa, including the well-known taxa Proconsul, Oreopithecus, and Nacholapithecus. Following the phylogenetic work of Gilbert et al. (2020), we may discern a group of taxa similar to the Miocene Proconsul (so-called “stem hominoids”), a second large group similar to the Miocene taxa Dryopithecus and Hispanopithecus (so-called “stem hominids”), a diverse group of pongines including Sivapithecus and Gigantopithecus, a smaller group of taxa similar to the Miocene taxa Ouranopithecus and Graecopithecus, and the various bipedal hominins, the baraminology of which has been treated extensively separately (e.g. Wood 2010, 2017; Sinclair and Wood 2021). Even these groups, however, are subject to ongoing uncertainty about the precise placement of many of the fossil taxa in question. Adding to this complexity, recent discoveries have expanded our knowledge across the full taxonomic spectrum of hominoids. For example, Ji et al. (2022) report yet another fossil gibbon, Yuanmoupithecus xiaoyuan, just two years after the previous fossil gibbon, Kapi, was announced (Gilbert et al. 2020), which itself was announced just two years after the previous fossil gibbon, Junzi (Turvey et al. 2018). Sufficient fossil material of genus Proconsul has been found in east Africa to allow recognition of a new genus Ekembo (McNulty et al. 2015). Most fascinating of all, a recent report details what is believed to be the first fossil chimpanzee (McBrearty and Jablonski 2005). The time is certainly ripe for a new creationist evaluation of apes. Previous creationist examinations of the apes (usually done as part of human origins studies) have not recognized a single ape kind. Hartwig-Scherer (1998) evaluated hybridization records and distinguished four non human hominoid basic types: Hylobatidae (gibbons), Ponginae (orangutans), Gorillinae (chimpanzees and gorillas), and Australopithecinae (fossil australopiths, based entirely on body plan). Lightner’s (2012) list of mammal kinds places all extant great apes in a single kind Pongidae, distinct from the Hylobatidae, thus P.S. Brummel, and Todd Charles Wood, Core Academy of Science, P.O. Box 1076 Dayton, TN 37321 USA, peter_brummel@ yahoo.com, toddcharleswood@gmail.com 9th 2023 © Cedarville University International Conference on Creationism. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of Cedarville University. Brummel P.S. and Wood T.C. 2023. A Preliminary Evaluation of Ape Baramins. In J.H. Whitmore (editor), Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Creationism, pp. 144-167. Cedarville, Ohio: Cedarville University International Conference on Creationism. A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF APE BARAMINS 9th 2023 KEYWORDS hominoids, primates, paleoanthropology, baraminology
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