The Flood and predictions.

There is something that has been touched on in many threads here at EvC, but that if IIRC, we have never discussed in depth.If the Biblical Flood happened, what evidence would we see in the genetic record?Of course, there is not one flood story in the Bible but rather a hodgepodge mixture of several different myths, but basically they all agree on a few things.

• the only humans left were seven (or eight) members of one family.
• there were only two (or four depending on whether the number is of individuals or pairs) of unclean critters.
• there was either 2 (or four see above) or 7 (or fourteen see above) of clean critters.
• all the other animal life was killed off.
  

Based on those factors, what should be seen in the genetic record?Would we not see signs of a genetic bottle neck where variety is reduced to only a few possible varieties and in humans to one maternal line, that occurs in EVERY species living today and all pointing to the same time period in the VERY recent past?Suggest either The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy or Biological Evolution.Edited by jar, : appalin spallinEdited by jar, : put comma in right place

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

jar A complete extinction of the survivors since no new plant food source could possibly be grown in time to feed said animals. Indeed what is not often mentioned is that there were no vegetation or trees brought on board,nor flowering plants nor mushrooms.
Soil would be incapable of supporting vegetation so farming is completely out the door. I would say a slow death by starvation for the non meat eaters initially followed by starvation of the predators after they ate all of the survivors.I always wondered where the dove would have found an olive leaf to bring back to the ark. Since the soil could not possibly have been suitable for the growth of a plant after all life forms had been destroyed not to mention the ruining of the soil from the "flood".

To see if any of our bio folk can help.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

I have discussed this with many creationists in the past. Some have suggested "microevolution" on a vast scale to produce the millions and millions of species we see today. In the fish on noah's ark thread, even though my first comment about the fish microevolving into everything including dolphins was in jest, I actually took that from a creationist I spoke to some years before almost word for word. Some creationists do believe in a hyper-microevolution that happened shortly after the landing of Noah's ark after the flood. They also believe that the hyper-microevolution stopped so we shouldn't observe any more speciation.Any resident creationist want to talk about this?

Of course this "hyper-microevolution" is microevolution only be the worthless definition offered by creationists (which amounts to "any evolution I'm prepared to accept"). By more reasonable standards it is hyper-macroevolution, starting from an extremely impoverished base stock. And it would exaggerate the genetic bottlenecks.I can see why a creationist would be unwilling to discuss this. It's very difficult to see how they can deal with it.

They might have a chance to come up with a very creative explanation, though. Here is what I proposed. Noah took onto his ark 2 of each kind. So, would the following list be somewhat accurate?(1) 2 spiders - micro-evolved into the thousands of arachnids (including tarantulas) we have today.(2) 2 elephants - micro-evolved into rhinos, hippos, girraffes, etc. (they're all the same "kind").(3) 2 horses - micro-evolved into zebras, deers, cattle, etc.(4) 2 dogs - micro-evolved into all canines, hyenas, and other relatively dog-sized creatures.(5) 2 cats - micro-evolved into lions, leopards, tigers, etc.(6) 2 apes - micro-evolved into all apes and monkeys we have today.(7) 2 rats - micro-evolved into all rodents and marsupials.(8) 2 ants - micro-evolved into all insects we see today... and beetles... and daddy long legs.(9) 2 worms - micro-evolved into the thousands of species of flatworms and earthworms we have today... and basically everything else that looks like worm.That's all I can think of off the top of my head right now. Feel free to add to the list of possible candidates for the original "kinds" and their subsequent offspring species within their "kinds".

The thread is about what we should see in the genetic record if the Biblical Flood happened. Please, can we try to head back to the topic?Edited by jar, : No reason given.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Assuming that this was a global flood, and not merely a local flood, the exotic animals of Australia would not exist, and there would be no Australian aboriginals.

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Let's end the political smears

Likely true, but I'd really like to keep this limited to the genetic record. Is there something in the genetics of Australian Animals that we can see?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Sorry. I know Australia pretty well, but I'm not a biologist so I can't point to specifics in the genetics.

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Let's end the political smears

Still looking for input. Is the prediction made in Message 1 reasonable and is there any way there could have been a Biblical Flood without leaving such evidence?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

I'm not a geneticist (where's Mammuthus when you need him?), but from my experience with highly reduced, isolated populations, inbreeding depression would be a significant factor in the viability of the remaining individuals post-Flud. Assuming any population was able to survive at all beyond a generation or two, let alone for a few thousand years. I would say that:1. there are almost no taxa able to survive with a population of only 14 individuals for more than 50, let alone the standard MVP 100 or 1000. Most estimates of MVP 1000 for vertebrates (see, for instance, Reed, et al, 2003) range from as few as 500 to as many as 7000 or more individuals. For reference, "MVP 1000" refers to the Minimum Viable Population necessary for the species to endure for 1000 years in the face of inbreeding, drift, and stochastic (i.e., "bad luck") events, etc. In other words, you probably wouldn't have to worry about genetic traces of the event because there probably wouldn't be any critters - including humans - alive today more complex than cockroaches.2. Since there have been recent examples of populations that have rebounded (cheetahs, condors, and elephant seals, for instance) from near-total extinction, we might be able to use them as an example of what to look for. In each case, substantial genetic (i.e., allelic) homogeneity is glaringly obvious (see, for instance, Menotti-Ramond and O'Brien, 1993). The "signal" might get obscured in some rapid-generation or rapid-adaptive species, but I'd venture to guess the majority of taxa you looked at would show clear signs of a bottleneck - all of which would coalesce to around 4500 ya.Hope this helps.

Thanks, that is kinda what I expected.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Noah's Ark is an overblown story about something that did happen. A guy rode out a flood on the Euphrates river, on a barge. Said flood was pretty big by the river's standards, story is told over and over....and it becomes Noah's Ark.Ever play telephone? How the message changes as it gets passed down? Same concept.People who believe the bible is literal make my head spin.