Quote:

---

Trust the science.

---

This isn't science, hence their refusal to subject it to controlled testing.

PacifistAg said:

---

Quote:

---

Trust the science.

---

This isn't science, hence their refusal to subject it to controlled testing.

---

If remote viewing is a legitimate and trustworthy method of gathering information then it should be fairly simple to verify. The fact that it hasn't been and those who claim it is trustworthy refuse to agree to a strictly controlled test should make everyone very suspicious of its claims.

This is very hard to estimate. Noah's flood was claimed to have been the result of 40 days and 40 nights of continuous rain…but after the rain stopped, it seems that Noah's plight (and that of all of the animals) somehow slipped God's mind - because the bible says that it was 150 days later when "God remembered Noah" that the water began to recede. If we add the loading and unloading times for the animals - we're probably going to need a minimum about 200 days of food and water.

But what about things that don't live for 200 days? Mayflies only live for 24 hours, Houseflies for 28 days. Even mice rarely live past 6 months in the wild.

Firstly, how many animal species are there?

Estimates are all over the map - anywhere from 1 to 2 million animals - but estimates show that about 85% of all land animals and 90% of all sea animals are still undiscovered…so we really don't know for sure.

Obviously, many of those species are TINY things like beetles and worms - and the number of large species is almost unimportant.

We know that most animals longer than a couple of inches are vertebrates - and there are around 65,000 species of those. About a quarter of them would be fish and marine mammals - it's not clear whether we have to bring a pair of blue whales onto the ark…the story doesn't exclude marine animals - but we probably should. So we're probably going to need about 40,000 vertebrate pairs.

Most vertebrates are fairly small - shrews and voles, rats and mice.

You can probably keep about a male/female pair of small land animals in a cubic meter of space - with enough food and water for 200 days. Some will need less space - but then we need a GIGANTIC container for the elephants, and rhino's - all of the species of deer, etc. A pair of deer with food and water for 200 days - would be a LOT of space. I could imagine 10x10x5 meters for a couple of deer or zebras or whatever - and a big pile of deer food + water…so maybe 500 cubic meters. There are about 10,000 larger vertebrates - and if that's typical then 5 million cubic meters right there.

Let's say 40,000 cubic meters for the small vertebrates and maybe 5 million for all of the larger animals.

What about the invertebrates? We're thinking beetles, ants, spiders, bees, flies…that kind of thing.

Well - right there, the story runs into trouble - you can't keep one male bee and one female bee - because bees can't breed like that - you need an entire colony. Same deal with every single one of the 12,000 species of ants.

Honestly, you'd be better off keeping eggs - but Noah wouldn't have had the technology to preserve them.

So we're going to need 12,000 ant-hills and at least a hundred square meters of foraging space for each one - so we need another million or so cubic meters of ants.

This gets VERY hard.

But onward…the 12 million non-colony invertebrates…well, they don't eat much - and can often go for a long time without food - so I'd imagine you could keep a pair of 'typical' invertebrates in a 10cm x 10cm x 10cm container. You get 1000 of them in a cubic meter if you don't have to get access to them very easily - so 1000 to 2000 cubic meters should suffice for all of the bugs and beetles…nothing compared to the ants and the large mammals.

Well - it's looking like we'll need at least 6 million cubic meters.

If the ship is 6 meters tall - then it's going to need to be about two kilometers long by half a kilometer wide.

But that's barely scratching the surface. You'll need ways to pump air through all of those containers - ways to remove all of the pee and poop.

With just a handful of people doing the work - that would require an almost completely automated system…which would doubtless double the size of the ship.

The story is really disastrously unlikely though.

Having just TWO of each species isn't remotely enough for a viable gene-pool. The resulting animals (including the humans) would be horribly inbred - and the genetic bottleneck would be clearly obvious in the modern genetic codes of all animals…and it's not there.

So in reality, for the story to be true, you'd need at least 1000 of each species…and when you consider the dietary and habitat needs for each one - it rapidly gets crazy.

Another problem is how those species got from the other side of the world to the ark. Most animals never walk more than a few dozen miles in their entire lives - yet they now have to migrate across half the planet. How did the two kangaroos get from Australia…they are terrible swimmers!

We can actually do a 'sanity check' on my numbers for the size of the ark:

London Zoo has 750 species in their collection - spread across all animals - somewhat fairly - and they have an active breeding program for each species. The zoo covers 36 acres - which is 150,000 square meters - and although a lot of that space is parkland - it doesn't include the storage space for 200 days worth of food and water. Let's say we build a 10 meter high roof over it…enclosing 1.5 million cubic meters. That's for 750 species - so 2,000 cubic meters per species. Scale that up to 1 to 2 million species and you need 2 to 4 billion cubic meters - and that's 1,000 times larger than my earlier estimate!

Your missing an obvious point and thus making a mistaken assumption. Nowhere does the Bible refer to species, in Noah's Ark or elsewhere.

Cool

There's no idea so stupid that someone (or even millions) won't believe it.

Jabin said:

---

Your missing an obvious point and thus making a mistaken assumption. Nowhere does the Bible refer to species, in Noah's Ark or elsewhere.

---

"Kind" is even worse for your argument. You'd see an even worse bottleneck with far less genetic diversity. It'd be a death sentence for complex life on land.

Jabin said:

---

Maybe, maybe not.

---

Want to flesh that out a tad?

cityagboy said:

---

Jabin said:

---

I thought that you didn't want to argue YEC stuff because you'd heard it all before?

And, no, I don't want to get in a meaningless argument with you. A history PhD and a retired lawyer have no business arguing the intricacies of microbiology, genetics, and whatever other biology subspecialty may apply. Neither one of us actually knows anything meaningful on the topic.

---

Do you think Noah's ark was a real story?

---

Yes, absolutely.

Jabin said:

---

cityagboy said:

---

Jabin said:

---

I thought that you didn't want to argue YEC stuff because you'd heard it all before?

And, no, I don't want to get in a meaningless argument with you. A history PhD and a retired lawyer have no business arguing the intricacies of microbiology, genetics, and whatever other biology subspecialty may apply. Neither one of us actually knows anything meaningful on the topic.

---

Do you think Noah's ark was a real story?

---

Yes, absolutely.

---

I disagree for many reasons I can go into if you want. But instead convince me I'm wrong. What kind of physical proof do you have to offer? FYI, I won't find" because the Bible says ..."to be convincing.

Quad Dog said:

---

Jabin said:

---

cityagboy said:

---

Jabin said:

---

I thought that you didn't want to argue YEC stuff because you'd heard it all before?

And, no, I don't want to get in a meaningless argument with you. A history PhD and a retired lawyer have no business arguing the intricacies of microbiology, genetics, and whatever other biology subspecialty may apply. Neither one of us actually knows anything meaningful on the topic.

---

Do you think Noah's ark was a real story?

---

Yes, absolutely.

---

I disagree for many reasons I can go into if you want. But instead convince me I'm wrong. What kind of physical proof do you have to offer? FYI, I won't find" because the Bible says ..."to be convincing.

---

I have no interest in trying to convince you that you're wrong. Internet arguments never convince either side that they're wrong.

On the other hand, if you are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm a reasonably intelligent person, and are curious how a reasonably intelligent person can reach a conclusion so diametrically different than yours, and respect my opinions and conclusions without necessarily conceding your own, I might be interested. But I have less than zero interest in engaging in a useless internet debate.

Jabin said:

---

Quad Dog said:

---

Jabin said:

---

cityagboy said:

---

Jabin said:

---

I thought that you didn't want to argue YEC stuff because you'd heard it all before?

And, no, I don't want to get in a meaningless argument with you. A history PhD and a retired lawyer have no business arguing the intricacies of microbiology, genetics, and whatever other biology subspecialty may apply. Neither one of us actually knows anything meaningful on the topic.

---

Do you think Noah's ark was a real story?

---

Yes, absolutely.

---

I disagree for many reasons I can go into if you want. But instead convince me I'm wrong. What kind of physical proof do you have to offer? FYI, I won't find" because the Bible says ..."to be convincing.

---

I have no interest in trying to convince you that you're wrong. Internet arguments never convince either side that they're wrong.

On the other hand, if you are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm a reasonably intelligent person, and are curious how a reasonably intelligent person can reach a conclusion so diametrically different than yours, and respect my opinions and conclusions without necessarily conceding your own, I might be interested. But I have less than zero interest in engaging in a useless internet debate.

---

I'm always curious. Probably the only reason I post here is to learn about thoughts and opinions I'm not familiar with. Sometimes I fail at that and fall into stupid arguments, but not too often. That doesn't mean I'll agree or change my mind, but I'm genuinely curious at what you find convincing.

If it's just your belief that every word of the Bible is true, then don't waste your time. I don't share that belief and hearing that isn't interesting to me. Show me signs of a global flood in geography or geology. Shoe me signs of a genetic bottleneck that line up with your timeline. Something a reasonably intelligent non-christian can believe in and go read more about.

Well, before I can get into the nuts and bolts of the science, I have to explain my world view, despite Quad Dog's protests against that. You and Quad Dog are looking at the same sock that I'm looking at, but I've finally concluded that you guys are looking at it wrong side out.

Like you probably do, I used to believe that science was the paramount source of Truth. After all, experiments can be replicated or they can't. Science, I believed, is based on an ever-increasing amount of verified data, all of which has been checked, double-checked and cross-checked. To the extent that the Bible conflicts with science, then the Bible must give way.

However, I was a corporate litigator, and litigated many cases involving scientific issues. I hired prominent scientists as experts, and successfully cross-examined the other sides' prominent scientific experts. Over time, I grew less confident of the certitude of scientists and science. In every case I was involved, at least one group of prominent scientists, who swore under oath that their scientific interpretation of the facts was correct, was completely and absolutely wrong. How could that be?

And much of which we believe is settled science is not. Most people don't know, for example, that there is zero "science" supporting the science of fingerprints. Everything we think we know about the science of fingerprints is simply based on bald assertions by FBI and police "scientists" without any significant evidence to back up their assertions. Are there other "settled" parts of science that are also unfounded?

Later in my career, when I was more of a corporate executive than a practicing lawyer, I was the lead in an effort to start a major construction project on a tiny island that had been devastated in the 1800s by mining for potash (bird poop). All of the NIMBYs came out against us, and their case was based primarily on two things, one of which was a scientist's conclusion that there was a unique species of lizard on the island that was, by definition, endangered. I hired several other scientists in other related fields of biology to assist us, and they laughed at the first scientist and said she didn't know what she was talking about. I found out, through that process, that the identification of a new species is motivated in large part by career (that first scientist became the head of a major museum because of her finding) and politics (people use endangered species as a political weapon). My own scientist, who was not at all a Christian or creationist, even pointed out that the very idea of species was first developed by a Christian scientist and is antithetical to the Darwinian concept of all critters being an unbroken continuum from the original common ancestor. From a Darwinian point of view, any distinction of one species from another is purely arbitrary.

That is all to say that I came to realize that science, although a powerful tool, is not an indubitable means of finding truth. Science is done by humans, and all humans have biases and make mistakes. In relying upon that vast body of prior science, all we can hope is that there are not too many mistakes, accidental or intentional, in that body.

On the other hand, I came to realize that the Bible is trustworthy, completely so. It all starts with the historicity of Christ himself - his historical presence, his divinity, his death, and his resurrection. If that is true, then everything else is easy. If Christ is in fact the Son of God, and the accounts of his resurrection are true, then God is true, God by definition can do anything he wants, God is trustworthy, and the Bible as God's word is trustworthy. From a critical examination of the historical evidence, I came to the conclusion that everything the Bible says about Christ is true.

With all that as background, my position on science vs. the Bible reversed. If science is not trustworthy, but the Bible is, then when the two conflict, science must have missed something. And we see that proven true frequently. Science says that X in the Bible cannot be true, then more facts come out and skeptics say "nevermind", let's talk about a different apparent conflict.

But that doesn't mean that I ignore science or think that others should either. Science is an incredibly powerful tool, it just doesn't lead us to truth. It certainly cannot lead us to truth in any of the large questions, such as what the meaning of life is, whether this is all there is, or any other questions of philosophy. It also cannot answer any of the ultimate questions of science, such as how did life begin or how did the universe begin. But it can do many useful things for us, such as medicine and technology.

So the foundation in my belief in a literal Biblical flood is based not on a scientific foundation but on a Biblical foundation. However, there is plenty of science to show that the Biblical flood is not completely crazy or anti-science. In another post, I'll just list some of the scientific and other facts that come to mind that support a Biblical flood. Let me caveat, though, that I am not a geologist nor even a scientist, so I won't be able to defend any of the points to any depth. Furthermore, the list will by no means be complete.

Quote:

---

From a Darwinian point of view, any distinction of one species from another is purely arbitrary.

---

Yes. This is the standard, accepted reality in biology. Species are a useful organizing concept, but there is no concrete attribute that defines a species and the line between many species is extremely blurry. It's somewhat arbitrary. This is evidence in favor of Darwinian evolution, not against it.

I agree with a lot of what you posted above about the problems with science. I too have seen experts disagree on pretty basic things in my line of work too. Usually in engineering it's a little easier to ask them to point to the data they are using to find out who is closer to right.

Then your second half of the statements you made started with a whole lot of "ifs" That kind of thing always makes my skepticism spike.

Your problem with science was that you could always trot out another scientist or another source. Basically it's an appeal to authority problem. I've always find the same is true in religion. That you can always find another theologian or another source to find a counter argument. You and Zobel are proving this true on other thread on this board arguing about sola scriptural and what the true church is. Where you see settled religion, I always see split opinions that cast doubt in the whole thing entirely, just like you do with scientists.

Here are some of the facts, scientific and otherwise, that I can think of off the top of my head, that support a worldwide flood:

1. Every culture, or virtually every culture, in the world has a deep and profound tradition of a worldwide flood. Most ancient cultures describe that flood in writing.

2. Many geological features cannot be explained by long duration but only by sudden change. Examples are folding of rock layers seen in almost every exposed geological face. If the rock layers had been laid down over millions of years, they would have dried out and been broken when bent. Instead, the smooth folds are indicative of layers laid down in a water environment and then bent while still wet.

3. Many of our major geological features that were assumed by science for most of its history to have been created over millions if not billions of years are now becoming widely acknowledged to have been created in sudden, catastrophic floods. Examples are the scablands of eastern Oregon & Washington and the Grand Canyon. Virtually every mountain range has something that I think are called "water gaps", which look like valleys or passes to us today but geologists agree were actually cut into the mountains by the sudden release of massive amounts of dammed water.

4. One of the most prominent deep earth geophysicists in the world is a guy named John Baumgardner. He obtained his PhD in geology/geophysics from Berkeley and then went to work at Los Alamos. He developed a deep earth computer modeling program named "Terra" that is used universally by all deep earth geophysicists today. Surprisingly, John is a YEC and developed Terra in order to play around with some of his theories about the geophysical processes that had to have occurred with something as dramatic as a worldwide flood. He has used Terra to show, that under the right conditions, continental drift can change from millimeters/year to a velocity much faster. He calls that fast continental drift "catastrophic continental drift". If I understand his theory correctly, if enough energy is added to the system, the friction of the plates sliding under/into the mantle can liquify the plates enough to accelerate the slide, creating even more friction, and off you go. His theories have been somewhat validated by two findings (I think):

a. deep earth mappings have discovered large cool masses deep in the earth which could represent the former surface plates. If that had happened billions of years ago, the plates should have long since melted and been absorbed.

b. Based on present rates of continental drift, the continents would not have enough energy to push up mountains such as the Himalayas and Andes. Much, much higher velocities are required.

c. Mountains are much, much younger than previously thought. Science magazine had a "Story of the Year" about 10 years or so ago that secular scientists had concluded that Mt. Everest was much younger than anyone had thought. They concluded that it could "be no older than 50 million years", which, in geologist speak, means it happened yesterday.

5. Everyone seems to agree that all or most continents were all part of one super-continent, which I think is called Pangea. Most geologists can point to the rock layer that was supposedly the surface of Pangea at the time of the split. Yet there are layers on top of that layer that also are common to multiple continents. How could that be if the continents had already split?

6. Another geologist named Art Chadwick has done some amazing work, and unbelievably has even had 3 articles grace the cover of "Geology" magazine despite the fact that he is a well-known YEC. He's revolutionized the discipline of dinosaur digs, bringing the technology and procedures into the 21st century. But he's also made some amazing finds that support a world wide flood:

a. He predicted that if there were a world wide flood it ought to have left a clear indication in the geologic column. In particular, he knew that if sediment is laid down in a wet environment, we can tell the direction of the current in which it was laid down. He theorized that if there was a worldwide flood, we should find evidence of continent and worldwide currents, unlike the regional currents and sedimentation we exclusively find today (e.g., sediments in the Gulf of Mexico).

So, over the course of 30 or so years, he begged, borrowed, and bought as many core drillings as he could get his hands on. He obtained tens of thousands of core drillings from all over the world, and put everything from those drillings into a giant database. And sure enough, he found lots of evidence of continent-wide and world-wide currents. Its my understanding that his findings have been peer reviewed by the secular geological community, that he was allowed to present them at an annual meeting of the national Geological society, and that no one has been able to explain them apart from a world-wide flood.

b. Art also conducts a dinosaur dig every summer up in Wyoming. I went up once to participate for a few days. He's found a strata containing literally millions of dinosaur bones, all of which were disarticulated, the strata covers hundreds of square miles, and the strata was laid down in a massive, moving flood environment. I told him that was cool, but what did that have to do with a world-wide flood? He responded that almost all dinosaur fossils are found in strata that was laid down in water, and the traditional explanation is that this was a group of dinosaurs crossing a stream that got caught in a spring flood and were killed and buried. That explanation clearly doesn't work for his dig since it is far too massive. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of individual dinosaurs are represented in the strata. And, as he further explained, they can prove that the sediments originated in the eastern Midwest and were transported to Wyoming. There is no traditional explanation for the dinosaur fossils or the long-distance transport of so much sedimentary material. However, a world-wide flood could provide an explanation.

I could keep going on and on, but that's enough for now.

Sapper Redux said:

---

Jabin said:

---

Maybe, maybe not.

---

Want to flesh that out a tad?

---

Better than any Ken hamm argument