Sunspots 448

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
The Arts: The Piano Guys show how to play a piano in some really unusual ways. It's Christmas music. Warning -- they try to sell you a CD at the end.
Christianity: (And animal husbandry) An article in Wired criticizes the planned Noah's Ark exhibit in Kentucky for not being designed to take good care of the animals that may be exhibited there.
Politics: An eye-opening post "20 things the poor really do every day," with linked documentation. The poor aren't particularly lazy, and aren't particularly on drugs, and aren't particularly likely to vote Democrat.
Science: National Geographic reports on the sequencing of DNA from ancient humanoids, which is remarkable enough in itself, but the results have apparently shaken up the prevailing views of how humans, Neanderthals, and others are related.
The Los Angeles Times reports that lemon sharks return to the place where they were born to give birth themselves.
National Public Radio reports that the US Department of Agriculture hopes to control the brown tree snake population on Guam by giving the snakes access to dead mice which are dosed with acetaminophen (aka tylenol) which is poisonous to snakes, but not to most other animals, including humans.
Wired reports on a parasite that lives in the heads of fire ants, changing their behavior in favor of the parasite, and eventually killing the host ant.

Image source (public domain)

Noah's ark - attempts to build replicas

National Public radio has posted a report on several attempts, some completed, some ongoing, to construct full-scale, or scale models, of Noah's ark. These are in at least three continents, and there is, or has been, more than one attempt in the U. S. I find the report fascinating. There are photos, and links to related matters.

One thing especially caught my eye. It is this, quoting one of the persons leading a replica attempt: "Not only are we thinking through the different kinds of animals represented onboard and how you deal with 12 million tons of waste every day . . ." Twelve million tons? A day? I have trouble imagining how and where that figure came from, if, indeed, the quotation is accurate.

The persons building the ark say that, according to the Bible, the ark was 300 by 50 by 30 cubits. (See Genesis 6) Let's say that a cubit is two feet, which is almost certainly an overestimate, and assume that the shape of the ark was a rectangular prism, that is, that it wasn't pointed on one end, and that the bottom was the same size as the top. Using those assumptions, the volume of the ark would be 300 x 2 x 50 x 2 x 30 x 2 = 3,600,000 cubic feet. If one-quarter of that volume was animals (which would mean that they were very closely packed -- don't forget that there would have had to have been food enough to be turned into waste, and that amount of food would have taken up a lot of room, plus air to breathe, cages, etc.), then there would have been 900,000 cubic feet of animals on the ark. I take that to be generous, for sure. But anyway. A cubic foot contains about 7.5 gallons, so I'll say 8. A gallon of water, and animals are about as dense as water -- most float, or at least don't sink easily -- weighs about 8 pounds. 900,000 x 8 x 8 = somewhat less than 58,000,000 pounds of animals. That's 29,000 tons. There's no way that 29,000 tons of animals could generate twelve million tons of waste per day. Either NPR has misquoted the individual, or the individual hasn't been thinking very carefully.

Here's information on claims that Noah's ark has been found. Here's a post on some questions about the flood.

Thanks for reading.

Has Noah's Ark been found? part 2

Yesterday, I posted about a recent claim that Noah's Ark has been found, and, based on the evaluation of this claim by scientists from Answers in Genesis, a strongly Young-Earth Creationist organization, indicated that that claim is false.

Answers in Genesis is an organization that is fully convinced that the earth is only a few thousand years old, that there was a world-wide flood, and that God did, indeed, cause a large variety of creatures to escape this flood on the ark that was built by Noah and his family. The organization would be very pleased if Noah's ark were to be found. However, they are also opposed to dubious claims of the discovery of the ark, as they put Christianity in a bad light. AiG says that since the Bible says there was an ark, that's all the reason needed to believe it. AiG also says (correctly) that the Bible does not indicate the exact mountain where the ark came to rest, but gives a region for that event -- see my previous post for more information. They also suppose that it is likely that Noah's family would have used the wood from the ark for construction, tools, and fuel, so that most or all of it would have long since disappeared.

An older claim, beginning with a photograph taken from the air in 1960, and pursued during the 1990's, has been made by an organization named Ark Discovery, International. This organization is led by Ron Wyatt, and claims to have artifactual evidence of the Red Sea Crossing, made by Moses and the Israelites, in Exodus, and to have located Mt. Sinai, and to have made discoveries of geological evidence of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Some or all of these claims have been disputed, but I won't discuss those areas.

One claim of ADI is that they have found "anchor stones" in Turkey, and that these stones were attached to the ark to stabilize it. (A better term is drogue stones.) That is possible, I suppose, although the Bible does not mention such objects as part of the structure of the ark, nor does it mention the large wooden keelsons to which they were supposedly attached. 

According to the Wikipedia, Wyatt's claim of having found drogue stones that were once attached to the ark is dubious, at best. A former co-worker of Wyatt's came to believe that they were local in origin, based on his geological findings. (Although he may have changed his mind again on that, shortly before he died.) The co-worker, at first, argued that the stones found a few miles from the supposed site of the ark were drogue stones, because they are mentioned in the epic of Gilgamesh, which contains another flood story from ancient times.

According to the Wikipedia, and also indicated by ADI's own web site, Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research, both prominent Young-Earth Creationist organizations, have dismissed the claims of ADI. (ADI has responded -- see the first link in this paragraph.) I do not consider myself qualified to referee such claims and counter-claims, but believe that the Bible does not need such claims to defend it. I take it that the claims of ADI are most likely false, although perhaps they were made made with the best of motives.

Thanks for reading.

Has Noah's Ark been found?

The Bible tells us about Noah's Ark, a giant structure which, according to the Biblical narrative, carried a few of each of many kinds of animals, while the earth was flooded. Every few years, there are claims that the remains of the ark have been located. I have heard such stories for at least a few decades.

Answers in Genesis is an organization that is fully convinced that the earth is only a few thousand years old, that there was a world-wide flood, and that God did, indeed, cause a large variety of creatures to escape this flood on the ark that was built by Noah and his family. The organization would be very pleased if Noah's ark were to be found. Members of that organization have examined a recent claim that the ark has been found, and are not convinced of the validity of such claims.

Here is a technical article published by Answers in Genesis, in November, 2011. The article, by Andrew Snelling, who seems to have considerable expertise in radioactive dating (I have no such expertise). He concludes that wood samples taken, supposedly, from a structure found in Turkey by a team from Hong Kong are not ancient, but modern. The wood tested was living during the 20th century, according to Snelling. Snelling was, he says, given access to the actual wood testing data, and he presents it in the article. I don't claim to understand the technical details in Snelling's discussion, but the conclusion he reaches is plain: "Given the present C-14 evidence, despite the tantalizing wooden remains the Chinese-Turkish team claims to have discovered on Mt. Ararat, such artifacts CANNOT have come from the Ark. So whatever they have found, they are NOT the remains of the Ark." (Emphasis in original.)

Here is a less technical news article, published by Answers in Genesis in May, 2010, about the same supposed discovery, which indicates that the organization doubts the claim, and questions whether the Ark would be expected to ever be found. The reasons given for such doubts include volcanic activity in the region where the ark is believed to have landed, and the likelihood that Noah and his family would have used the wood from the ark for other purposes.

Answers in Genesis takes the position that what the Bible says about the flood, and the ark, is sufficient. If the ark were to actually be discovered, that would be great, but we don't need such a discovery to believe in the Bible. As far as I can determine, the organization hasn't evaluated any claims of finding the ark since the claim made by the group from Hong Kong in 2010, discussed in this post. I am sure that if any important claims of finding the ark had been made since that time, they would have discussed them in short order.

The organization also points out that the Bible is vague about the location where the ark came to rest, saying, in Genesis 8:4, "the mountains of Ararat," rather than on a specific mountain. See here for that verse, in several versions of the Bible, which are unanimous on that point. The Wikipedia article on those mountains says: "The 'Mountains of Ararat' in Genesis clearly refer to a general region, not a specific mountain . . ."

Tomorrow, I expect, God willing, to post about another alleged finding of Noah's Ark.

In a previous post, I have set forth a number of questions about the story of the flood, which I can't answer satisfactorily. 

In the next post, I consider an older claim that the ark has been found.

Thanks for reading.

Some Questions about Noah's flood

The great flood in the time of Noah was God's flood, not Noah's, but it has often been given Noah's name.

I am well aware that there are debates about the authenticity of the story of Noah, which is told in Genesis 6-10. There are also Bible scholars that believe that Noah was a historical figure, but who doubt that the flood was truly world-wide. (Humans might have been located in a relatively small area at the time of Noah.) I do not have resolutions for such debates. I pose them, and some other questions, below. I'm not sure that any view of Noah and the flood is without serious weaknesses.

1) Why is the story of Noah in the Bible?
Only God can answer that question, of course, but the story emphasizes God's hatred of evil, His love for the righteous, and His concern for not just humans, but for all of his creation.

2) Did Noah really exist?
New Testament passages, as well as the Old Testament, seem to indicate pretty clearly that the answer is "yes". They include at least these: 1 Chronicles 1:4, where Noah and his sons are included in the genealogies of the ancestors of the Hebrews (Noah is also listed in the genealogy in Luke 3); Isaiah 54:9, where God, through Isaiah, promises comfort to the Israelites, as He made a promise to Noah; Ezekiel 14, where the prophet lists Noah as an example of righteousness, along with Job and Daniel; Matthew 27, where Jesus compares the surprise that will attend His return with surprise at the destruction in the time of Noah (this is repeated in Luke 17); Hebrews 11, where Noah is listed as one of the heroes of faith; 1 Peter 3, where Peter speaks of Noah (I'm not clear on the meaning of that passage); and 2 Peter 2, where Peter uses the story of Noah as a warning to the wicked, and a comfort to the righteous.

3) Was the flood world-wide?
Maybe. Maybe not. The description says that it covered the whole earth, but 1 Kings 10:24 says that the whole earth came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Surely not inhabitants of the New World? Australia? Daniel 8:5 says that, in a vision, Daniel saw a goat coming across the whole earth. Perhaps, in both these cases, especially the first, the whole known earth is meant. Perhaps not. Perhaps that is what is meant in the case of Noah's flood. I don't know. There are Bible scholars who believe it was world-wide, and those who don't.

Added May 19, 2020:
A Christian geologist, who believes that there really was a Flood in Noah's time, gives reasons why he is not convinced that that flood was really world-wide. He also does not believe that it was responsible for the many geological phenomena that some Young-Earth Creationists claim that it was.

4) Where did all the water come from? Where did it go after the flood?
Especially if the flood was world-wide, there is no good natural answer to that question. There doesn't seem to be enough water to cover the mountains all over the earth. God could, of course, have specially created the necessary water, and removed it after the flood. If the flood was local, the amount of water required would have been much less, depending on where humans were living at the time. Some have suggested that they were living in a large valley, which, after the flood, became the Mediterranean, or the Caspian, Sea.

5) Where is the geological evidence for the flood?
Although some claim that there is geological evidence for a world-wide flood, few, if any, academically trained geologists believe this. One practicing geologist, trained by young-earth creationist geologists, came to doubt that the geological evidence was there, and asked some other geologists, also trained by persons who believed in the influence of the flood, how what they had learned about the flood from this training was useful in searching for petroleum. None of them could give a positive response.

6) If the flood wasn't world-wide, why didn't God just tell Noah to go somewhere else?
I don't know. He was a witness of God's righteousness while he and his sons were building the ark, and perhaps God's mercy wanted his work, and his righteousness, to bring about repentance in his neighbors.

7) Were there any dinosaurs on the ark?
See previous post.

8) What happened to all the plants that were exposed to water for a long period of time?
This page attempts to answer that. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

Added July 10, 2020: Here's an article on the distribution of plants and the flood. For example, there are no cacti in the Old World, which is hard to explain, if there was a world-wide flood which could have distributed seeds around the world.

9) What happened to the salt-water fish during a world-wide flood?
This page answers that, or tries to. Maybe that answer is correct, maybe not.

10) How did slow-moving animals, like sloths, and some turtles, get to the ark, and how did they get back after the flood, if it was world-wide?
God may have started them earlier than, say, zebras, I suppose.

11) How about amphibians (frogs, salamanders, and the like), which would have been expected to dry out if they had to travel long distances over land?

12) Presumably the ark was built in the Middle East, or in East Asia. How did animals from North and South America, and Australia, get to the ark, and how did they get back after the flood, if it was world-wide?
It is possible that there were land bridges between all the continents, that aren't there now, but this flies in the face of the geologic evidence, and scientific evidence is part of God's revelation to us (Psalm 19, Romans 1:20).
It is possible that God directed their footsteps (or flight), and transported them to the vicinity of the ark, and back. Note that, especially in Australia (and other smaller isolated land masses) there are animals that don't live anywhere else. Did they leave the ark and go straight home, without leaving any offspring behind?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions for sure. Some people claim to. Perhaps they are right.

See my previous post on the question of whether or not dinosaurs are still alive.

Thanks for reading.

This post was slightly edited on December 27, 2016 and January 19, 2017.

See also these questions, raised by a different blogger.

Added on August 3, 2017: For further material on the flood (not by me) see this post, which is part of a series of five. You can easily access the rest of the series from it.

December 13, 2017: I quote from an article by Caspar Hesp:
In a YEC global flood scenario, it is problematic to explain how all marsupial descendants and fossils could have been constrained to the Americas and Australia, before and after dispersion from the Ark of Noah. Post-Flood hyperspeciation after a single migration cannot be invoked because the variety among marsupials is too extreme to be categorized as a single “kind” or “baramin”.

For an in-depth, and very critical, analysis of YEC's view of the Flood, see this article.