The Origin of Specious Nonsense. Twelve years on. Still going. Answer soon.

oldrnwisr

J C wrote: »

Noah could keep a pair of every animal in the British Isles in one railroad car ... and the capacity of Noahs Ark was equivalent to 569 railroad cars.
http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c013.html

Oh dear, another couple of 1000 posts on and here you are spouting the same crap. You know if you even made the effort to come up with your own arguments rather than copy-paste links like the one above you might come across as marginally less pathetic. Marginally.

The link you cite is so fundamentally wrong on so many levels that I'm surprised even you think it makes for good evidence.

ChristianAnswers.Net wrote:

Most Hebrew scholars believe the cubit to have been no less than 18 inches long [45.72 centimeters]. This means that the Ark would have been at least 450 feet long [137.16 meters], 75 feet wide [22.86 meters] and 45 feet high [13.716000000000001 meters].

This seems like a promising start and yet they go on to state:

ChristianAnswers.Net wrote:

The total cubic volume would have been 1,518,000 cubic feet [462,686.4 cubic meters]

If they can't even get basic maths correct it doesn't bode well for the rest of their claims.
For clarification, the volume in cubic feet is approximately correct, 1,518,750 ft³. However the authors have then multiplied the measurement in cu. ft. by 0.3048 to give them their answer in m³. The correct factor should be 0.0283 (0.3048 x 0.3048 x 0.3048). So their cubic volume in metres is overstated by a factor of 10. The correct volume in metres is 43,006 m³.

ChristianAnswers.Net wrote:

The total available floor space on the Ark would have been over 100,000 square feet, which would be more floor space than in 20 standard-sized basketball courts.

Well, no. The theoretical maximum floor space allowing for a perfectly rectangular structure and two interior decks is approximately 100,000 sq. ft. as stated, 101,250 sq. ft. to be precise. However, firstly, the bottom deck would not have been perfectly rectangular due to the encroachment from a curved hull. Secondly, this measurement also doesn't take into account the restrictions from reinforcing structures necessary in an all-wood vessel. Finally, this figure assumes that all the animals are stored in one large pile with no walkways, pens, feeding areas etc.

ChristianAnswers.Net wrote:

According to Ernest Mayr, America’s leading taxonomist (deceased), there are over 1 million species of animals in the world.

I'm not sure why the authors chose to quote Mayr. Firstly, he's been dead for eight years which means there are better estimates in the literature than relying on his work. Secondly, and somewhat irrelevantly, I think its funny that the authors would rush to use Mayr as an authority given that he was one of those evil atheist evolutionists.
In any case, they're wrong. Our current best estimate (How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean? ) suggests that there are about 8.7 million eukaryotic species. This breaks down to about 2.2 million marine species and 6.5 million land species. Of the land species about 5.8 million are animals. This is 5.8 million species after fish, tunicates, molluscs and all the other spurious crap that the authors decide to list. Oh and while we're on the subject:

ChristianAnswers.Net wrote:

or the 30,000 protozoans, the microscopic single-celled creatures.

Protozoa or more commonly referred to as protista are not a subset of the kingdom Animalia. They are a polyphyletic group which remains within the broad description of Eukarya in that they are unicellular eukaryote organisms. So you can't really count them as exceptions to Mayr's figure.

Oh, and another thing:

ChristianAnswers.Net wrote:

Noah need make no provision for the 21,000 species of fish

Why is that? To be pedantic (or as I prefer, correct) there are 27,977 species of fish. Of these 42.7% or 11,952 species are freshwater fish. So which group did Noah bring on board the ark? Was it the 12,000 species of freshwater fish or the 16,000 species of saltwater fish, because they both could not have survived in the mostly freshwater flood waters. Noah would have to have brought all of the saltwater fish on board the ark. This is mainly due to assuming that the flood waters would have been fresh water. Of course, had the flood waters been salty then all the freshwater fish would have to have been saved not to mention all the clean water that would have to be stored on the ark for the animals to drink. So you're screwed either way.

ChristianAnswers.Net wrote:

Doctors Morris and Whitcomb in their classic book,The Genesis Flood state that no more than 35,000 individual animals needed to go on the ark. In his well documented book, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, John Woodmorappe suggests that far fewer animals would have been transported upon the ark. By pointing out that the word “specie” is not equivalent to the “created kinds” of the Genesis account, Woodmorappe credibly demonstrates that as few as 2,000 animals may have been required on the ark. To pad this number for error, he continues his study by showing that the ark could easily accommodate 16,000 animals.

OK, let's for the sake of argument take Woodmorappe's "padded" figure of just 16,000 animals

How exactly do 8 people water, feed, clean, provide veterinary care and sanitise 16,000 animals?
Let's take food for example. I'll be a bit more generous than most and allow a combined 30 seconds for food and water to be distributed to each animal per day. That's 133 hours of labour per day or approximately 16hrs 40mins per day spent by each person on the ark just to feed the animals.
While we're on the subject of food, how exactly did the ark carry all the food necessary to sustain 16,000 animals for a 376-day journey. As previously mentioned the ark was 43006m³ in volume. The ark was also constructed exclusively from gopher wood which most scholars associate with cypress. Cypress has a density of 510 kg/m³. Assuming a hull thickness of thickness of 10 inches and two decks with a thickness of 0.5m, the unladen weight of the ark is 8,769,211.69 kg. This means that the theoretical maximum cargo the ship could take is 34,236,999.07 kg. If we assume as Woodmorappe does that the average animal is about the size of the sheep, then the mass of the animals alone is 720,000 kg (16,000 x 45). This leaves 33,516,999.07 kg for feed. This of course assumes that the weight of the humans, their baggage, feed and all bedding materials are negligible. So the amount of food per animal per day is just 5.57 kg.

ChristianAnswers.Net wrote:

Assuming the average animal to be about the size of a sheep and using a railroad car for comparison, we note that the average double-deck stock car can accommodate 240 sheep. Thus, three trains hauling 69 cars each would have ample space to carry the 50,000 animals, filling only 37% of the ark.

OK, well let's take a look at this idea then.

Firstly, it should be pointed out that there are strict regulations in place regarding the transport of livestock by rail. For every 28 hours of travel the animals are required to have 5 hours of rest. The reason for these strict regulations is so that the animals reach the destination in a healthy and thus valuable condition. The lack of space on the ark presents real problems for the longevity of the animals onboard:

Live Fast Die Young - The life of a meat chicken

(Note: The link above is a YT video of battery chickens. I don't know about it being NSFW but it can certainly be distressing)

16,000 animals stuck on a boat with only one window (Genesis 6:16) means that the animals would suffer from severe sedentary muscular dystrophy as well as effects caused by the lack of sunlight. It's unlikely that any of the animals on the ark would have lived long enough to produce offspring if the Noah's ark story were correct.

All I have covered here are the facts that the authors of this article have actually got wrong. I haven't even touched the wild, speculative claims they've made, like this:

However, a number of scientists have suggested that the animals may have gone into a type of dormancy.

or this:

In fact, modern shipbuilders say it would have been almost impossible to turn over.

or even this:

Also, many of the 35,000 species of worms as well as many of the insects could have survived outside the Ark.

Come on JC, can't you at least provide arguments that have a remote semblance of plausibility.

Turtwig

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Come on JC, can't you at least provide arguments that have a remote semblance of plausibility.

I'll read the rest of your post later. They take a little while to digest

Quatermain

robindch wrote: »

^^^ Wired.com looks into Ken's "Ark Encouter" and finds that the animals will be in as bad a condition as the finances:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/the-ark-park-needs-to-sink/

To add something on a humanitarian rather than an argumentative level, if that...*thing* is actually constructed and opened, then damn near everyone involved should be arrested for animal cruelty. I tasted bile at the back of my throat reading that.

bumper234

JC

Do you believe everything that's written in the bible? Noah, Adam and Eve, the talking snake, the burning bush, Jesus resurrecting and all of the other stuff?

bumper234

J C

bumper234 wrote: »

... looks more like a 70 year old one to me!!!:)

Delirium

J C wrote: »

... looks more like a 70 year old one to me!!!:)

do you have actual scientific reasoning/evidence behind that comment?

bumper234

J C wrote: »

... looks more like a 70 year old one to me!!!:)

Do you believe everything that the bible says?

swampgas

J C wrote: »

... looks more like a 70 year old one to me!!!:)

I'm sure it could look like Darth Vader to you if that's what you wanted it to be ... after all, why let anything like facts get in the way?

Turtwig

koth wrote: »

do you have actual scientific reasoning/evidence behind that comment?

How long have you been posting here?

Delirium

Jernal wrote: »

How long have you been posting here?

You'd think I'd know better by now :eek::eek::P

bumper234

J C

koth wrote: »

do you have actual scientific reasoning/evidence behind that comment?

Looks like a horse's skull allright!!!!:)

Sarky

That's a no, then.

Delirium

J C wrote: »

Looks like a horse's skull allright!!!!:)

were you confused by the question?

To repeat, do you have any scientific reasoning/evidence to support your claim the skull is only 70 years old?

bumper234

J C wrote: »

Looks like a horse's skull allright!!!!:)

Erm

yes

MrPudding

koth wrote: »

do you have actual scientific reasoning/evidence behind that comment?

He needs his comment to be right. Is that good enough?

MrP

Sarky

His best* tactic is to post something so utterly pathetic and devoid of rational thought that people will look at his posts and quite rightly say "That's pathetic", and then whine that people are calling him names and use that as an excuse to keep posting things that are pathetic and devoid of rational thought.


*"Best" is used in this case as a slightly more flattering alternative to "least terrible and idiotic".

J C

koth wrote: »

were you confused by the question?

To repeat, do you have any scientific reasoning/evidence to support your claim the skull is only 70 years old?

... and do you have any evidence that a horse's skull, that looks like it could have been Shergar's ... is 700,000 years old??:)

sephir0th

I have a serious question here, which is more historically accurate - Noah's Ark, or Santa delivering all those presents?

Absolam

sephir0th wrote: »

I have a serious question here, which is more historically accurate - Noah's Ark, or Santa delivering all those presents?

What do you mean? Santa's not history, he'll be here in a couple of weeks!

sephir0th

Absolam wrote: »

What do you mean? Santa's not history, he'll be here in a couple of weeks!

That's a great point, and I'm sure he'll be spotted on the RTE News on Christmas Eve!

J C

sephir0th wrote: »

I have a serious question here, which is more historically accurate - Noah's Ark, or Santa delivering all those presents?

Both are equally historically accurate ... Noah's Ark was a construction of Noah's mind that delivered salvation from a worldwide Flood ... and Santa is also a construction of the Human Mind that delivers presents to children worldwide.

Happy Christmas!!!:)

bumper234

J C wrote: »

Both are equally historically accurate ... Noah's Ark was a construction of Noah's mind that delivered salvation from a worldwide Flood ... and Santa is also a construction of the Human Mind that delivers presents to children worldwide.

Happy Christmas!!!:)

So is Jesus, The only difference is that Santa has been seen more than Jesus.

Pherekydes

J C wrote: »

Noah's Ark was a construction of Noah's mind...

Now we're getting close! Just one tiny leap [for mankind, but a giant leap for JC's mind] more...

Hint: Do you think James Bond wrote the James Bond novels?

Delirium

J C wrote: »

... and do you have any evidence that a horse's skull, that looks like it could have been Shergar's ... is 700,000 years old??:)

So you've no evidence for your comment.

Gene experts said Wednesday they've been able to unravel the genetic blueprint of a prehistoric horse that lived in Canada some 700,000 years ago, the oldest DNA mapping effort ever attempted.


A dramatic extension of the limits of ancient DNA recovery, the advance re-creates a gene map, or genome, which is roughly 10 times older than the previous record-holder. The feat suggests that ancient DNA may be recoverable from frozen remains almost a million years old, raising the possibility of someday recovering even more ancient gene maps of humanity's primitive ancestors.


Full article here

Pherekydes

koth wrote: »

So you've no evidence for your comment.

Jesus, DNA was never mentioned in the bible!

oldrnwisr

J C wrote: »

... and do you have any evidence that a horse's skull, that looks like it could have been Shergar's ... is 700,000 years old??:)

Well, yes actually.

The horse bone from which this DNA was recovered was taken from a dig in Thistle Creek in Yukon Territory



The bone was buried in permafrost in a region of tephra, fragmentary material resulting from volcanic eruptions. Using fission track dating, the researchers were able to date the find to 560-780,000 year ago.

Gold Run tephra: a Middle Pleistocene stratigraphic and paleoenviromental marker across west-central Yukon Territory, Canada

Ancient Permafrost and a Future, Warmer Arctic

So, that's how we know that the horse fossil is 700,000 years old. So where's your evidence that its only 70 years old.

sephir0th wrote: »

I have a serious question here, which is more historically accurate - Noah's Ark, or Santa delivering all those presents?

Santa, by a mile.

At least in the Santa story we have a core element which we can verify historically. The modern Santa Claus is largely based on Sinterklaas, the Dutch figure.



Sinterklaas is, in turn, based on the figure of Saint Nicholas, albeit a heavily modified account of his life. Saint Nicholas or Nikolaos of Myra as he was originally known was a 4th century bishop in Turkey. He was known for secret gift-giving which is the essential element of Santa Claus. His existence and works are well attested by multiple independent sources. He was an attendee of the First Council of Nicaea as documented in Philip Schaff's "The Seven Ecumenical Councils". His early life is chronicled in Scott Ingram's "Greek Immigrants".

By contrast, the story of Noah's ark is not supported by any historical evidence. No remains of the ark have ever been found. Noah is not attested to anywhere outside the bible and is instead an homage to Ziusudra, hero of the Sumerian myth. As I have detailed previously, most of the story of Ziusudra and its parallel tales Atrahasis and Gilgamesh were used as the basis for creating the Noah story in the first place.

So, ultimately, the Santa Claus story is one which is heavily exaggerated but built on a core historical truth, whereas Noah is a myth at every level.

gaynorvader

oldrnwisr wrote: »

{...}

So, ultimately, the Santa Claus story is one which is heavily exaggerated but built on a core historical truth, whereas Noah is a myth at every level.

Ah here now, credit where credit's due. I'd imagine people built boats that worked in the rain for transporting animals, so there's probably a small kernal of truth in there somewhere.

J C

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Well, yes actually.

The horse bone from which this DNA was recovered was taken from a dig in Thistle Creek in Yukon Territory



The bone was buried in permafrost in a region of tephra, fragmentary material resulting from volcanic eruptions. Using fission track dating, the researchers were able to date the find to 560-780,000 year ago.

Gold Run tephra: a Middle Pleistocene stratigraphic and paleoenviromental marker across west-central Yukon Territory, Canada

Ancient Permafrost and a Future, Warmer Arctic

So, that's how we know that the horse fossil is 700,000 years old. So where's your evidence that its only 70 years old.

I don't believe a word of it. ... and this is what one of the abstracts that you linked to says :-

"Gold Run tephra has been found at Thistle Creek, Sixtymile River, and the Klondike goldfields of west-central Yukon, Canada. It is a hornblende-bearing rhyolitic tephra with thicknesses of up to 10 cm at each site, suggesting a widespread distribution across interior Alaska and the Yukon Territory, given the long distance to the nearest volcanic centre. Old Crow, Flat Creek, and TA tephra beds are stratigraphically associated with Gold Run tephra at our study sites and have distinctive compositions. Gold Run tephra is not accommodated by the current classification scheme for late Cenozoic distal tephra beds in Alaska and the Yukon Territory — a scheme based on the physical and chemical attributes — so that its provenance is unknown."

Which basically says that conventinal science hasn't a clue about how it formed or where it came from (or when it was laid down) ... using conventional geological assumptions.
However, the widespread distribution of the gold tephra is consistent with the wordwide scale of Noah's Flood ... and it's accompanying widespread volcanicity and ability to move vast quantities of material and distribute it evenly over equally diverse areas ... ans so the provenance of the Gold Run tephra is known to Creation Geologists.:cool: