Food for Noah's Ark survivors.

DoddyWell I think I would even settle for that but it seems no creationists will touch this topic at all. I wonder if there is any creationist literature deals with it at all?

CreationWiki sources their info from here:Woodmorappe, John, 1996. Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study. Santee, CA: Institute for Creation Research, pp. 153-162Also, a quick Google search reveals these pages: Survival of Plants in the FloodHow did fish and plants survive the flood?Chapter 14: Could fish and plants have survived?All of which say similar things. I'll quote the latter:

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Many terrestrial seeds can survive long periods of soaking in various concentrations of saltwater (Howe, 1968, CRSQ:105-112). Indeed, saltwater impedes the germination of some species so that the seed lasts better in saltwater than freshwater. Other plants could have survived in floating vegetation masses, or on pumice from the volcanic activity. Pieces of many plants are capable of asexual sprouting.

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Many plants could have survived as planned food stores on the Ark, or accidental inclusions in such food stores. Many seeds have devices for attaching themselves to animals, and some could have survived the Flood by this means. Others could have survived in the stomachs of the
bloated, floating carcasses of dead herbivores.

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The olive leaf brought back to Noah by the dove (Gen. 8:11) shows that plants were regenerating well before Noah and company left the Ark.

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Edited by Doddy, : fixed quote

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur SchopenhauerHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!

Goddidit, Goddidit!Is it just me or does that automatically put someone on the bottom of the food chain?

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CreationWiki sources their info from here:
Woodmorappe, John, 1996. Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study. Santee, CA: Institute for Creation Research, pp. 153-162

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It would take many pages of threads to discuss the nonsense in that book, but is is clear that Woodmorappe is often writing about thing of which he has no personal experience and his claims about plant regrowth is one of them.

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Many terrestrial seeds can survive long periods of soaking in various concentrations of saltwater (Howe, 1968, CRSQ:105-112). Indeed, saltwater impedes the germination of some species so that the seed lasts better in saltwater than freshwater. Other plants could have survived in floating vegetation masses, or on pumice from the volcanic activity. Pieces of many plants are capable of asexual sprouting.
Many plants could have survived as planned food stores on the Ark, or accidental inclusions in such food stores. Many seeds have devices for attaching themselves to animals, and some could have survived the Flood by this means. Others could have survived in the stomachs of the
bloated, floating carcasses of dead herbivores.

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The olive leaf brought back to Noah by the dove (Gen. 8:11) shows that plants were regenerating well before Noah and company left the Ark.

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This is a classic example of one of YEC's favorite logical fallacies, the fallacy of hasty generalization. The fact that the seeds of some plants can survive some time in water does not mean that enough plants could have survived the flood to repopulate the earth's ecosystem. But this is an easy thing to test. Why not take a wide variety of plant seeds and some plant cuttings and swirl them around in salty water for several months and then throw them onto some ground that has been under salty water for a few months and see what grows. I think I know why "Creation Scientists" will not do that experiment.Another problem is that there wouldn't be much topsoil in many places after the flood supposedly rearranged all the world's geology.Of course one wonders how insect pollinated plants could have prospered with all or a least most insect species wiped out by the flood.Randy

I read once that this experiment was conducted by Charles Darwin himself. No idea where it was reported, though.

Now, remember that not all plants produce seeds. Also, currently most plant species around the world are very sensitive to environmental changes. A typical houseplant like the spider plant dies if you let the temperature drop down to 60 or so for a few days.Anyway, moving away from plants, currently there are many species of animal that require daily basking in sunlight to live. A classic example is the iguana, which requires a daily dose of 5-7 hours or so of sunlight to digest its food. Rain for 40 days and 40 nights would have meant no sunlight at all for this poor creature. How did the iguana and similar creatures survive the flood?

Indeed he did. He and Hooker had a mild on-going disagreement over the length of time a seed immersed in salt water could remain viable. Hooker, a botanist, espoused the then-conventional view that nothing could survive more than two weeks. Darwin, never adverse to challenging conventional wisdom (ABE: at least when it was relatively safe to do so), set out to conduct a series of experiments between 1855-57 to determine whether this was true or not. This was not as trivial a point as it may apppear - it was a key piece of supporting evidence that would permit (or deny) the possibility of common ancestry of plants found on isolated oceanic islands. Anyway, to make a long story short, Darwin discovered that three quarters of the seeds he tested were able to remain viable after immersion in salt water for four weeks - overturning the conventional wisdom at one go. The results were published in the now-long-defunct Gardener's Chronicles.As an interesting side note, Darwin discovered another problem while conducting the experiments - most of his seeds sank (IOW, couldn't be transported by ocean currents)! In all, he discovered that only about 14% of the seeds he tested could be transported by water without ill effects. This prompted a whole 'nother slew of experiments - looking at ducks' feet for seeds trapped in mud, pideon crops, etc - to find another possible mode of transport. And THAT worked. Those who say Darwin was just some whacked-out atheist looking for a way to deny God should look deeper at Darwin-the-scientist.Edited by Quetzal, : No reason given.

I would like to see more discussion on the idea of saline sensitivity being a post-flood adaptation. It seems like a blatant wishful thinking to me, but how would one refute this claim?

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur SchopenhauerHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!

xEdited by Joe Meert, : No reason given.Edited by Joe Meert, : No reason given.

Please come back.

I've been thinking on this...and relearning all my plant biology.You can't just seal the cell from water, because then it won't grow. So osmosis will be a factor. In order to prevent plasmolysis, the internal osmolality of the seed cells would need to be as high (or higher) than the salt concentration of the water.Initially I thought this would quickly cause cytolysis in fresh water, but then I remembered the cell wall would probably prevent that (as I said, I'm rusty on plant biology). So, I'm left with one alternative.No doubt seeds could have survived in salt water, and many species seeds (and their leaves and roots) do, but in order to ensure the internal osmolality of the seed cells, more solutes (in the form of nutrients, or perhaps excess sodium) would need to be tolerated in the cell. I doubt seeds can utilize active transport, because they have no energy source (they don't photosynthesise).The problem is, that having such internal concentrations would hardly be good for the plant (extra nutrient requirements for one...I'm sure there are other reasons, but I'm not a botanist). So, the selection pressure against such high concentrations is quite large, so those plants that lived away from salty conditions would have quickly lost this adaptation.Furthermore, if the seeds were isotonic with the floodwater, and the specific seed germination conditions that sidelined mentioned in his OP, this would result in many seeds germinating underwater, because a seed will germinate when it receives water.Lastly, if these complex germination patterns only appeared after the flood, it would appear to contradict the creationist notion of evolution causing the loss of information and being unable to form ordered patterns.That's my ramblings on the matter anyway. Anyone with more knowledge of plants is free to correct or elaborate on what I said.Edited by Doddy, : clarificationEdited by Doddy, : expanded further

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur SchopenhauerHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!

DoddyIt is wonderful how much effort is poured into hypothesizing ways in which it could be considered that plants escaped the obliteration of the flood. When we realize that these various hand waving excuses have to account for the survival of an estimated 350,000 species of plants {not to mention the symbiotic interplay of plants and insects as well} in contradiction of the passage in the bible At the same time the supposed purpose of their efforts is to find a means of explaining the apparent absurdities in order to maintain the notion of a biblical view not in contradiction of the facts.

Side, it's already been established that plants aren't living things. Now, if you want to go through this route, ask if kankaroos are living things, since someone here claimed that they survived the flood and drifted to australia on floating matts of vegetations when the bible clearly said

Or at least, that the authors of the bible didn't think so. It really made perfect sense to imagine an olive tree submerged for a year and then resuming normal growth once it received sunlight.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur SchopenhauerHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!

Tazmanian Devil As the context of the verses show the face of the ground included that which was a part of the ground so I think I could validly argue that the plant life was included as well.Regardless, the nature of the flood imposes insurmountable barriers to the survival of animals due to the lack of sustainable plant life of any sort.The lack of response seems to indicate that creationists are quite content to leave this thread well alone.