The Post-Noah's Flood Period is Explained by Evolution

Well, sure. That is the line they teach people.It didn't rain just any old water for forty days. It rained magic water.Magic water is amazing. It does anything YECs need it to do.Need to raise mountains? Magic water does it. Need to form the Grand Canyon in a year? Magic water. Need to make tons of sandstone turn into limestone into marble into jade in a matter of weeks? Magic water. Need to raise every island in the Pacific Rim up from the ocean floor, split the Americas from Eurasia and move them halfway around the planet, zoom the Indian subcontinent at supersonic speed across half a hemisphere and slam it into Asia hard enough to raise the Himalayas? Magic water does that, too.Need to change the entire chemical make-up of earth's atmosphere? Magic water. Change earth's gravitational pull? Magic water. Change the speed of light? Magic water can handle that, too.It does everything. All in one year.Do you need it to do all this while not burying Noah, dunking any creatures floating around on their vegetation mats, or disturbing any of the human settlements already established in South America, the Indus Valley, Egypt and China? Magic water does that, too. The Flood is global and catastrophic, except when it's gentle.Magic water does all this and vanishes without a trace. It leaves no ugly earthquake, lava, and tidal wave problems you would normally have within centuries of such an upheaval. It doesn't even leave mildew. No bathtub ring.Magic water. It can do anything.______Edited by Archer Opterix, : html.Edited by Archer Opterix, : brev.

In scientific matters, having religious beliefs that relate to the subject matter is a bad pretext for doing science. You know from the get-go that you are biased. However, while being biased puts one in a poor position to evaluate the evidence properly, it doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility of one coming to an accurate conclusion.
When I evaluate your idea for explanatory and predictive power I have some problems, all of which may have already been addressed in the thread. All the evidence we have (and there's lots) show that modern mammals (including humans) and dinosaurs didn't coexist in the world at the same time. That's a problem with your hypothesis; it doesn't explain the evidence we find. I'm a little unclear about your idea of the post flood evolution that occurred. Are you proposing that (a) the animals on the Ark started off as a base for evolution that would eventually lead to speciation creating the great biodiversity we oberve today, or (b) that the Ark animals pretty much represented the biodiversity we observe today and have only undergone microevolutionary change to different varieties and such?
If you believe that (a) happened, the scientific issue you face is that great evolutionary change and speciation doesn't occur in a few thousand years (it would have had to occur in a few thousand years because you said you take the Bible to be literally correct).
If you believe that (b) happened, then you have to accept that Noah fit at least 4 million different animals on his Ark! (About 2 million species have been identified and estimates about how many unidentified ones exist run from about 2 million to almost 100 million)
As you can see, your claims don't seem to fit with the evidence. Also, if you're idea were true, we could predict that genetic bottlenecks would be found for all animals a few thousand years ago. This however, is not the case.and finally back to something you said at the very beginning: It certainly is possible that God could have created life on the Earth and allowed it to evolve. But from a scientific biological perspective, we don't see his traces in the world so that he evers needs to be postulated.
Not all people have made the assumption that "God's Creation" couldn't evolve. Many theists these days have seen the mounds of evidence in favor of evolution piling up over the years so they have opted to accept the position of theistic evolution.
For others though, modern biological discoveries clash with their interpretation of the Bible which cause them to believe that evolution isn't real. Modern science and a literal translation of the Bible don't always jive so well.

Yes you are right, neutral is the correct word. I have since changed it.

I asked a group of younger children one day, how could Noah get dinosaurs on the ark with him. With all the many species and sizes, wouldn’t they be too large or eat too much? After thinking awhile, and coming up with some pretty funny answers, one little girl raised her hand and said, “what if he took small ones?” I thought this was brilliant. Truly out of the mouths of babes.“Small ones” or “babies” perhaps? The Brachiosaurus, one of the largest land dinosaurs, hatched from an egg the size of a football (about 18 inches or so). I imagine it was pretty small the first year of its life. Do you honestly think Noah, having to fill an entire ark with all those animals would find the biggest ones? Juvenile animals of any kind are usually less aggressive, they are smaller, they eat less, which also means they crap less, and typically they tend to sleep more.I think everyone is stuck on the storybook pictures of Noah and the ark, and have that image burned in their mind. They see the ark on a hill with a rainbow in the back, and all these full sized animals lined up, two by two boarding the ark. If you take the scripture literally, like you said, then read this:"You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female” -Genesis 7:2 NKJThat is plenty of “critters” to repopulate the earth quite rapidly. Also remember, Noah and his family, had to eat. Rats and mice breed very fast. One single rat can give birth to 20 young a year, that’s 4 to six every 4 to 5 weeks. A single elephant can breed at any time during the year and can give birth between the ages of 14 and 45. They typically have a new calf every 5 years. If you run these types of numbers, 4,500 years is plenty of time to have quite a large population of everything."Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.”- Genesis 6:20 NKJDid you also consider, that elephants and mammoths are in the same “kind” category? Sort of like horses and zebras can procreate and different types of insects can crossbreed.A “kind” or “sort” as the Bible says is simply just that. I believe that all “dogs” came from a common ancestor . a DOG. That is a “kind”. Though there are many breeds, they are all still dogs. Most dogs can breed with any other dog. Also if you take the Bible literally as you say, “every creeping thing of the earth” means every creeping thing. God didn’t say of “some” creeping things.Hope I helped you think about it more.Bible Search and Study Tools - Blue Letter BibleDinosaurs on Noah's arkhttp://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4747http://www.zoomdinosaurs.com/...inosaurs/anatomy/Repro.shtmlhttp://www.cheltenham.gov.uk/...ies/templates/ourservice.asphttp://www.panda.org/faq/response.cfm?hdnQuestionId=20720...

Hello to you, too, DbaF!! Welcome to EvC! Don't you think that might have been a little problem for thia Noah guy? All those smallish critters having population explosions? A far bigger problem is the 65,000,000 years between the last non-avian dinosaur and the first Homo sapiens. And many of them really need their mommies to survive, too."Hope I helped you think about it more."

There are many thousands of reasons the flood story doesn't work.Just one, but a rather serious one--There is no scientific evidence for a global flood 4,500 years ago.It does no good to make up stories of how the animals could eat, or crawl, run or fly back to their proper places, nor how they all fit onto the ark, or any of the rest if you can't find evidence of a global flood at the appointed time.A flood that large should be noticeable! Where's the evidence?

Welcome! Please don't make stuff up. Many juvenile animals eat more than adults or an equivalent amount ... they need to put on a lot of weight. And wherever did you get the notion that juveniles tend to sleep more?

Thanks for your response."There are many thousands of reasons the flood story doesn't work."Is this a fact or your opinion? I could say "there are many thousands of reasons why a flood story does work.""Just one, but a rather serious one--There is no scientific evidence for a global flood 4,500 years ago."A more correct assessment is that there is a raging debate between creationists and evolutionists as to whether or not a global flood actually happened. Depending upon your world-view, you will lean one way or another toward evidence proposed. There is evidence on both sides of the argument."It does no good to make up stories of how the animals could eat, or crawl, run or fly back to their proper places, nor how they all fit onto the ark, or any of the rest if you can't find evidence of a global flood at the appointed time. A flood that large should be noticeable! Where's the evidence?"Again, you can find evidence if you look. Here are some sources for BOTH sides.Scientific Evidence for a Worldwide Flood – Earth AgeThis website is frozen.Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd editionGlobal Floodhttp://www.trueorigin.org/arkdefen.asp

I apologize, I should have re-checked my text. I should have said infant animals not juveniles

Hello to you too Coragyps!I like the acronym! DbaF! I like to think for myself based on my world-view and by scientist and research that lead to a different conclusion. Irregardless, this is not a thread discussing when dinosaurs existed in relation to humans, it was merely an observation that it was possible to fit them on the ark. ...and many don’t! Man is quite capable of taking care of any animal.

I wonder which of Noah's crew drew the short stick and got to 'take care' of the three species of human lice and the guinea worm? Wonder who got to have smallpox, syphilis, HPV and the clap? After all, none can survive to reproduce without a human host. Edited by anglagard, : change title

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

Nice try. But you can't just bend evidence around to suit your position.There is no evidence for a global flood about 4,500 years ago. If there had been such a flood, you would expect to find evidence of that flood everywhere, including your back yard.Now, I do archaeology for a living. I have poked into the ground in hundreds of "back yards" and in many of those places have been able to put together a cultural chronology backed up by radiocarbon dating and other evidence. And in all of those excavations there has been no trace or a flood at the appointed time. You go from 6,000 to 5,000 to 4,000 years just fine, there is no break which would be caused by a flood.Now there is no way you can interpret those facts any other way; creationists can only deny them.Another example: in southern Alaska there was a partial skeleton found in On Your Knees Cave. It was radiocarbon dated to 10,300 years ago. The mitochondrial DNA matched 40+ living descendants stretched from California to the tip of South America. There was no discontinuity and replacement with the mtDNA patterns of Noah's kin.I have a similar example from my own work, just a bit older than half that age but still pre-"flood" in age. Again, no discontinuity and replacement with Near Eastern mtDNA types.The evidence is just not there for a global flood at about 4,500 years ago and no amount of worldview can make the flood magically appear. And no amount of denial will make the evidence against the flood magically disappear.

As far as proof of a global flood, I only cited sources, I did no “evidence bending” but rather let other people who are far more fluent in this field, help explain the possibility of one with their evidence. The fact that you are a paid person in the field of archaeology, I have a respect for your view, however, I simply showed sources of other people who “do archaeology for a living” saying there is evidence to the contrary. There are also many arguements by scientist, on the problems of radiocarbon and potassium-argon dating. I don’t agree that dating specimen can be as accurate as some claim based on many arguments. I can come up with sources if you like, but Im kinda in a hurry today. I’ll let you have that argument with them. As for me, I will interpret evidence on both sides of the argument, the best I can. There are many interpretations of evidence, otherwise there would be no argument. I would love for you to site this source so I can read it! Please know that I have an issue with exact dates. I would never argue the time of a global flood(4500 years), only that with the evidence presented, I believe there was one. Wouldn’t mind seeing this either if you have a paper written. Send me a link if you have one. On the contrary, your worldview has everything to do with how your interpret evidence. If you are an atheist, you will see evidence supporting the absence of a God, if you are a believer in a God, you would find the same evidences, supporting your belief in a creation. Nevertheless, all these papers and research are out there. These are reputable people who are experts in their field. Ill let you review their evidence for yourself and argue it with your own.

Abstract of the article on On Your Knees Cave (the full journal article is available for a fee, or the journal will be found in many major libraries): AbstractI prefer not to link to my own article.Your doubt of science and your belief in a global flood does not constitute scientific evidence. I suspect that no amount of evidence would faze your belief in that flood because your belief is not based in evidence.Scientists have piled up an immense amount of evidence that the global flood never happened and you just shrug that off as a "worldview" problem.You should just admit that you are following your belief and not make any claims that it is based in science.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

"And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every [sort] shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep [them] alive with thee; they shall be male and female." Gen 6:9 NKJI appreciate the slight humor in taking care of lice, however if you read the scripture it says “all flesh” which would not include bacteria,virus, or insects.