Freethought & Rationalism Archive

BeamMeUpScotty · 12-19-2004, 03:43 AM

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There is no reason to believe that God would miraculously bring the animals, miraculously and supernaturally close the door, and miraculously and supernaturally send a great flood, but then just leave Noah to his own devices. Sven seems to think it is illegitimate to appeal to supernatural help “that there's no shred of evidence either inside or outside the bible�? for, but I can’t see why. If God wants to do something, has already supernaturally intervened to control animals etc, and has the power to supernaturally make it work, then I can’t see why you would say it is illegitimate to suppose he did somehow make it work.

I see your logic to a point. The only problem is that there is no evidence in the Bible for what you propose. Only your speculation.

My main argument was mathematical. Please refute that using real numbers. How would Noah fit 1.5 million+ animals plus their food for 1 year into such a relatively small space? Where is the Biblical evidence that God "shrunk" the animals. Certainly such a feat would have been noteworthy for Moses to write it down, assuming he's the author of the majority of the first five books.

LP675 · 12-19-2004, 05:31 AM

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Originally Posted by BeamMeUpScotty

My main argument was mathematical. Please refute that using real numbers.

Ok here are the problems I can see

1) Firstly your estimations on an elephant diet are apparently inflated. John Woodmorappe says regarding elephant consumption of hay on page 96 of “Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study�?:

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Both Moore (1983, p.28) and McGowan (1984,p.56) quote fantastically large quantities of hay supposedly required daily by elephants (136 kg and 160 kg respectively). The actual value, carefully determined by experiment, is 28-30 kg (Rees 1982, pp. 195-6). However all this supposes that elephants must have hay, which is far from the case. During the 19th century, many zoos fed their pachyderms small amounts of wheat cakes (Peel 1903, p. 173), leaving the animals in a thin and emaciated condition. One undisclosed zoo kept an elephant alive on less than 2 kg of wheat cake daily (Peel 1903, p. 173). Of course, I am not suggesting that Noah actually fed the animals such meager rations. I only wish to emphasize the enormity of the savings of bulk when medium to large herbivores are switched, in part or in whole, from hay based to grain based diets. In many zoos today, grains are given as supplemental feeds to a wide variety of captive medium to large mammalian herbivores (AAZK 1988; Wallach and Boever 1983, p.778). At other times, grain dominated diets have been successfully fed to a variety of wild mammalian herbivores (Ratcliffe 1965, p. 4), sometimes in pellet form (Blair 1927, p. 29).

2) This means you have problems with your volume estimations. John discussing the volume of food on Ark says on page 97:

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…As shown in the table 1, were all of the requisite 1990 tons of dry matter food equivalent (Table 4) on the ark in the form of settled hay, just over half of the volume of the ark would have been occupied by it. At the other end of the theoretical extreme, were it possible to replace all the bulky feedstuffs on the ark with high-density grain feeds, less than 7% of the ark Volume would have been required to store all the provender for the entire journey

In reality, of course, the actual volume on the ark was between those extremes, but much closer to the smaller value. For instance, suppose that an average of 80% of the putive hay ration had been replaced by hay substitutes. The requisite volume of the ark would then have been 15.4%. At a rate of 90% replacement, it would drop to 11.1%

He later suggests methods for reducing hay density which might get the total volume of the ark space occupied down to 8.9 % (page 98).

3) Finally “1.5 million�? is apparently an overestimation. 16,000 is allegedly all that is needed. Woodmorappe on page 7 says:

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If as the preponderance of evidence (Jones 1972b; Scherer 1993) shows, the created kind was equivalent to the family (at least in the case of mammals and birds), then there were only about 2,000 animals on board the ark (Jones 1973). In such a case it is obvious that there was no problem in housing all the animals on the commodious ark.

However, in order to make this exercise more interesting, I have deliberately made the problem of animal housing more difficult by adopting the genus as the taxonomic rank of the created kind. This necessitates, as shown below, nearly 16000 animals on the ark…

True origins also has an essay on the matter:

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…Thus Noah would have needed comparatively few “kinds�? of land vertebrate. Woodmorappe assumes that each “kind�? would be the ancestor of all “species�? in a modern “genus�?, so only about 16,000 animals would have been on board.�? (True origins summary, http://www.trueorigin.org/arkdefen.asp )

So I suppose this means only one pair of the elephant kind were needed. Not a pair of Asian and a pair of African.

Here is a critique of Woodmorappe byGlenn Morton (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodmorappe-review.html)
A response by Woodmorappe is made here (http://www.rae.org/pagesix.htm - Arrrghh!! my eyes!!!!!)
And a creationist response is also made here at true origins : (http://www.trueorigin.org/arkdefen.asp)

BeamMeUpScotty · 12-19-2004, 06:02 AM

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John Woodmorappe says regarding elephant consumption of hay on page 96 of “Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study�?

I will try to respond tomorrow. As I am ready for bed now. But for now, let me say I haven't read it, but I will try to get my hands on a copy when I go back to the states this week. I am sure I'll have a laugh or 5,000,000.

I don't know when I'll respond, but I'll try to be as vigilant as possible.

BeamMeUpScotty · 12-19-2004, 06:06 AM

No, I'm not going to go to bed right now.

How do you explain how even only 16,000 "kinds" of species were fit onto the ark. That's ridiculous. If I were to build a building, equivalent to the ark in size, I challenge you to fit the largest of the 32.000 animals (even in their "child" form) into such a space.

Cheers and good night.

Chili · 12-19-2004, 06:17 AM

Good job guys! You have me convinced that ark reseachers are looking for God in the wrong place.

Gullwind · 12-19-2004, 08:14 AM

You know, given all the miracles God would have to have performed to make the Flood work as described in the bible (ark dimensions and stability, animal feeding and care, erasing all evidence, etc.), it would have been a heck of a lot easier just to "poof" all the sinners away.

Talk about doing it the hard way.

LP675 · 12-19-2004, 05:37 PM

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Originally Posted by BeamMeUpScotty

How do you explain how even only 16,000 "kinds" of species were fit onto the ark. That's ridiculous. If I were to build a building, equivalent to the ark in size, I challenge you to fit the largest of the 32.000 animals (even in their "child" form) into such a space.

16000 animals, not 16000 species.

I assume you mean “all of the large animals�?.

Why is it ridiculous? If it was so ridiculous I would have thought the True Origins reviewer would have said so.

Have a look at the book if you can.

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Cheers and good night.

Someone in my time zone for a change! (near enough anyway)

Sven · 12-20-2004, 06:29 AM

Others already answered this, but since you mentioned me:

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Originally Posted by LP675

Sven seems to think it is illegitimate to appeal to supernatural help “that there's no shred of evidence either inside or outside the bible�? for, but I can’t see why. If God wants to do something, has already supernaturally intervened to control animals etc, and has the power to supernaturally make it work, then I can’t see why you would say it is illegitimate to suppose he did somehow make it work.

I didn't say that it's illegitimate. You read this into my words.
My position is rather that ignorant goat herders making up the story over the centuries, based on a (probably large) local flood, is a much more reasonable explanation than a global flood which
(1) left no evidence
(2) left lots of problems to be explained which simply are not mentioned at all in the bible - there are only a few verses about this Earth-shattering event, none of which stop for a second and present some explanations for questions which would be obvious pitfalls for people later

Or in five words: It does not make sense.

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But I am not even sure such miracles are necessary. The author of “Noah’s Ark: A feasibility study�? (john Wood-something? ) from memory seemed to think there wasn’t a need to posit all these additional miracles

Woodmorappe is a not even worth a laugh.

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(e.g. extra space inside the ark, spiritual feeding). He argues that there is more than enough room, and sanitization feeding etc can be answered. I think there was a page or two at ‘talk origins’ on it, and creationist replies on ‘true origins’ if you were interested in attacking a well known creationist work on the subject.

Been there, read it. Same nonsensical creationist denial of the obvious as always.

lesyeuxdespauvres · 12-20-2004, 12:20 PM

Eh, plus if all of the animals walked to the ark at normal human walking speed, (~4 mph), it would have taken them (12000/4) hours, walking from the other side of the earth (maximum distance), or 125 days. To whittle this down to the seven days used to get all the animals on the ark, all the animals would have to move at at about 71 mph. Jesus power? Seems improbable to me, but you can explain anything with magic, I suppose. Or you could say all the animals had gathered beforehand due to God's will, but wouldn't Noah have been able to point to the preponderance of non-native animals in evidence of his sanity before the people who mocked him?

Plognark · 12-20-2004, 12:45 PM

I've been down this road before, also using elephants, although I gave them credit that african and asian were close enough to be counted as a mere pair.

Of course, I don't know if elephants are "clean" or not....so I don't know if there would have been two or seven :huh:

Well, anyhow, it even inspired me to make this:

The REAL tale of Naoh and his Ark

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12-19-2004, 06:06 AM	#24
BeamMeUpScotty Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Japan Posts: 17	No, I'm not going to go to bed right now. How do you explain how even only 16,000 "kinds" of species were fit onto the ark. That's ridiculous. If I were to build a building, equivalent to the ark in size, I challenge you to fit the largest of the 32.000 animals (even in their "child" form) into such a space. Cheers and good night.

12-19-2004, 06:17 AM	#25
Chili Banned Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Alberta Posts: 11,885	Good job guys! You have me convinced that ark reseachers are looking for God in the wrong place.

12-19-2004, 08:14 AM	#26
Gullwind Veteran Member Join Date: May 2004 Location: Colorado Posts: 1,037	You know, given all the miracles God would have to have performed to make the Flood work as described in the bible (ark dimensions and stability, animal feeding and care, erasing all evidence, etc.), it would have been a heck of a lot easier just to "poof" all the sinners away. Talk about doing it the hard way.

12-20-2004, 12:20 PM	#29
lesyeuxdespauvres Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: California Posts: 11	Eh, plus if all of the animals walked to the ark at normal human walking speed, (~4 mph), it would have taken them (12000/4) hours, walking from the other side of the earth (maximum distance), or 125 days. To whittle this down to the seven days used to get all the animals on the ark, all the animals would have to move at at about 71 mph. Jesus power? Seems improbable to me, but you can explain anything with magic, I suppose. Or you could say all the animals had gathered beforehand due to God's will, but wouldn't Noah have been able to point to the preponderance of non-native animals in evidence of his sanity before the people who mocked him?

12-20-2004, 12:45 PM	#30
Plognark Contributor Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 14,952	I've been down this road before, also using elephants, although I gave them credit that african and asian were close enough to be counted as a mere pair. Of course, I don't know if elephants are "clean" or not....so I don't know if there would have been two or seven :huh: Well, anyhow, it even inspired me to make this: The REAL tale of Naoh and his Ark

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