For those of you who don’t know my story of how I became an outspoken Atheist, it pretty much began after I watched the Ham vs Nye debate. I started on Twitter trying to reason with Young Earth Creationists but my attempts fell pretty flat. Young Earth Creationism is a sham and there are few things that demonstrate that better than their attempts to make the story of Noah’s Ark seem plausible.
Traditionally of course their tactic is trying to reduce the numbers and sizes of animals that went aboard the Ark, which of course results in a Super-Evolution within the 4400 ever since the Great Flood Young Earthers claim. This Super-Evolution mind you happened of course without any beneficial mutations.
The reason they try to reduce the numbers of animals is because even they know, that the Ark couldn’t possibly have carried millions of animals. Instead they opt for “kinds” from which all of today’s species descended. According to this article from Answers in Genesis “Conservative estimates” (LOL) indicate that there were about 16.000 kinds on the Ark.
These estimates are anything but conservative. Despite what John Woodmorappe claims, marine life most definitely had to be on the Ark. Why? For the Bible tells us so.
Genesis 7: 4:
For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
Every living substance he has made will be destroyed. This should include the fish and most definitely should include whales. This leads us to assume, that Noah made special aquariums for them. This in principle, isn’t a problem since glass exists since at least about 5500 years but I have a hard time imagining he could’ve built tanks big enough for whales.
Of course with more animals aboard the Ark, we have a corresponding need for more food. In the Zoo of Frankfurt (in Germany) they take care of about 4500 individuals. They feed them over 65 tons of Apples, 36 tons of Carrots, 16 tons of fish and 20 tons of meat, which means 137 tons in total. You can access the original source here though it is unfortunately written in German.
Not only does this raise some serious questions of how Noah got all this food for at least 16.000 animals, it also raises the question how the boat could float.
There are 2 escape hatchets Creationists have: Hibernation and baby animals aboard the Ark.
As far as hibernation is concerned it’s mentioned nowhere in the Bible so positing it would be adding to scripture. Aside from that animals don’t typically hibernate for one full year. It’s not difficult to figure out what would happen to an animal after one year without food: It would die. At least that’s the case if you don’t invoke a Supernatural hibernation, which Woodmorappe posits as a possibility. That’s of course an unfalsifiable Hypothesis but if you posit that, then you likewise throw the attempt of explaining the Flood scientifically out the window, since science relies on methodological naturalism.
This is not to say, that God couldn’t have done, this is to say that the attempt to prove this story scientifically has failed.
As far as taking baby animals goes, the Creationists want to have their cake and eat it too. On one hand they posit a Flood, that still has effects to this day in form Earthquakes etc. and that has split the Supercontinent Pangea apart (yes at least some of them accept Pangea) and that is responsible for pretty much everything within geology, yet want us to believe, that the animals were safe and sound on the boat.
There’s a reason why shaking a baby is considered child abuse. It can cause serious trauma and serious brain injuries and in extreme cases even death. Yet these little baby animals had to endure that every day. Aside from that there are also animals which rely on their mother during infancy. Baby mammals need to be nurtured after all, so the mother had to be on board which is of course unbiblical.
As I hope to have shown, there are serious problems with the scientific case for Noah’s ark as interpreted by Young Earth Creationists. As far as I’m concerned the only way to reconcile it is by either A) Adding to the Bible or B) invoking God, both of which have serious consequences theologically as well as scientifically.
Goodbye from yours truly,
Rene von Boenninghausen @Renevelation
Tarsier Renevelations 