[_ Old Earth _] Noah's ark, a feasible study?

[Bryce]

Regaurding the room for animals in noahs ark, the book 'Noah's ark a feasible study' was critisized various times, the most scientific accusations by Glenn Morton in his Talk Origins article;
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodmorappe-review.html
But in John Woodmorappe's response;
http://www.rae.org/pagesix.htm
John puts most of the accusations to rest, but in my reading of his response I failed to see him defend his estimate of 15,754 animals on the ark, this estimate is to me, is incorrect.
-
"Woodmorappe uses the genera as the equivalent of the created kind. Taking one pair from each genera,living and fossil, he lists 7428 mammals, 4602 birds and 3724 reptiles on the ark. This totals to 15,754 animals on the ark. "

In my response:
There are around 5400 species in the class Mammalia alone, about 200 are aquatic, most of which are not marines. That means 12000 mammals had to be present on the arc. Then class Aves, there are 10,000 species of bird, so we are now up to 22000 individual animals on the arc. OK so now we're at reptilia, about 8000 are land dwellers and there are about 200 turtles and 23 crocodiles/alligators. So we're now up to 38000 individuals. Amphibians can't live in salt water, and I'm not exactly sure how they would eat but we are already way pass your estimate. If we bring insects into this equation you get into the millions. Then we have the land molusk, the nematodes, round worms, flat worms, flukes, and other land arthropods. Then we would have to have room for the seeds of the thousands of plant species. Then we would need to account for all those extinct animals which apparently must have existed then too since evolution doesn't happen. Then we can take into account all the land requiring bacteria and fungi.. Mushrooms don't have seeds, but reproduce through sporulation, but I guess they counted them as plants.

Discuss.

 

[Deep Thought]

And even with this hugely increased number of animals/plants/seeds on the ark, the massive variety of species we see today would require hyper-evolution.

Of all the myths, the ark is the most problematic for creationists. They go to extraordinary lengths to explain away all the problems/contraditions, and in doing so, just create more problems.

For example, we have two creationist theories (and I use that term in the non-scientific sense) about mountains.

1. All the mountains on earth were not high before the flood, which means mountains like Mt Everest rose from sea level to over 8km in the course of just a few thousand years. Obviously, this is absurd, as the rate of continental drift would have to have been turbo charged and the resulting collision of the land masses would have caused catastrophic earthquakes. Luckily for the people living in these regions, no such conditions were ever reported.

2. OK, so high rise mountains is clearly silly, so the alternative is the mountains already existed, which means the flood would have to have been 8km deep. Clearly this is also equally absurd, as there is no credible explanation of where all the water came from and went to, not to mention the huge increase in the mass on the earth and the affect it would have had on the rotation.

 

[BobRyan]

"The number of animals " (adult or not) that fit onto Noah's ark is a great story-line for Atheist Darwinist given that we don't actually HAVE a model of Noah's ark or a record of animals OTHER than "the clean animals went in by 7's and the unclean by 2's".

History has shown -- "The LESS data the BETTER it is for atheist darwinist story telling".

But there is an interesting test proposed by Provine suggesting that we measure the diversity in the genome today and the present rate of mutation and extinction rates to add quesswork upon guesswork about the animals 4500 years ago.

Even better would be to take a KNOWN -- like the 8 people in the ark and do it with the human population.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

1. All the mountains on earth were not high before the flood, which means mountains like Mt Everest rose from sea level to over 8km in the course of just a few thousand years. Obviously, this is absurd, as the rate of continental drift would have to have been turbo charged and the resulting collision of the land masses would have caused catastrophic earthquakes. Luckily for the people living in these regions, no such conditions were ever reported.

You are using the standard issue Circular reasoning to support Darwin.

IF you wanted to TEST the Bible account - - you have to START by using IT's conditions.

There are only 8 people on the planet at the end of the world wide flood.

"No people in those regions to VERIFY for you that there are no massive earthquakes after the flood".

in Christ,

Bob

 

[jwu]

You are using the standard issue Circular reasoning to support Darwin.

IF you wanted to TEST the Bible account - - you have to START by using IT's conditions.

There are only 8 people on the planet at the end of the world wide flood.

"No people in those regions to VERIFY for you that there are no massive earthquakes after the flood".

in Christ,

Bob

What traces did these earthquakes leave? What evidence could falsify your rapid mountain formation hypothesis?

 

[Bryce]

"The number of animals " (adult or not) that fit onto Noah's ark is a great story-line for Atheist Darwinist given that we don't actually HAVE a model of Noah's ark or a record of animals OTHER than "the clean animals went in by 7's and the unclean by 2's".

Genesis 6:15 " The length of the Ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits."

The word Cubit comes from the Latin cubitum which refers to the forearm. It was measured from the elbow to the fingertip. This provides a foolproof method of gauging the size of Noah's Ark - at least approximately. [http://www.worldwideflood.com/]
So we at least have an idea of the size, not just the 7's and 2's.

On a debate I was viewing recently on a forum I frequent there was an argument about the possiblility of the ark, this point was brought up ..and for the record he is a biologist
"It is impossible for something that large made out of wood to float, there is ample geological evidence that a flood never happened. It is impossible for every animal on earth to have been decended from pairs, I also wonder if he included hermaphrodites eh? Then it would be impossible for every animal to disperse around the world after being dropped in one spot. The entire thing is impossible and contradicts the phylogenetic relationships between animals which suggests slow geographic process and a different centralized origin for each extant taxa."
Short life spanned insects might even die before they mate.

But I digress,
Is it feasible by scientific standards?

 

[Deep Thought]

"The number of animals " (adult or not) that fit onto Noah's ark is a great story-line for Atheist Darwinist given that we don't actually HAVE a model of Noah's ark or a record of animals OTHER than "the clean animals went in by 7's and the unclean by 2's".

You've summed it up beautifully. You have no model, record or any evidence for Noah's Ark and the global flood.

But there is an interesting test proposed by Provine suggesting that we measure the diversity in the genome today and the present rate of mutation and extinction rates to add quesswork upon guesswork about the animals 4500 years ago.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that the diversity of species we see today could not of happened in 4500 years.

 

[Deep Thought]

1. All the mountains on earth were not high before the flood, which means mountains like Mt Everest rose from sea level to over 8km in the course of just a few thousand years. Obviously, this is absurd, as the rate of continental drift would have to have been turbo charged and the resulting collision of the land masses would have caused catastrophic earthquakes. Luckily for the people living in these regions, no such conditions were ever reported.

You are using the standard issue Circular reasoning to support Darwin.

IF you wanted to TEST the Bible account - - you have to START by using IT's conditions.

There are only 8 people on the planet at the end of the world wide flood.

"No people in those regions to VERIFY for you that there are no massive earthquakes after the flood".

That's a very naive cop out. We would also see the geological evidence of such cataclysmic collisions.

 

[Bryce]

..Bump...

 

[Orion]

Feasible? . . . . . . I would have to "unscientifically" give an answer of "no". Problematic for proponents of a literal world wide flood, . . . .not a problem at all for proponents of the Noah Flood story BEING a story/parable/metaphore.