100 Categories of Evidence Against Noah’s Flood

molbiogirl writes:

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Can one of you do the maths to figure out just how much smoother and smaller the Earth would have to be in order to allow the available water to cover it to flood depth?

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Well, that doesn't really have a good answer because there is no one way to have everything underwater. F'rinstance, a very simple calculation would be to take the amount of water that we have and have it as a shell of water say 1 meter thick and then determine the radius of the earth underneath it.The volume of a sphere is 4/3*pi*r^3. Thus, the volume of a shell would be 4/3*pi*r^3 - 4/3*pi*(r-1)^3 = 1.3*10^18 cubic meters. Solving for r:4/3*pi(r^3 - (r-1)^3)=1.3e18
r^3 - (r^3 -3r^2 + 3r - 1) = 3.1e17
3r^2 -3r + 1 = 3.1e17
3r^2 - 3r - 3.1e17 = 0
r = 3.2e8Well, that's pretty much about the radius of the earth right now. All you'd have to do is shovel all the land into the ocean and you'd do it. The reason why you wouldn't have to do too much is because we don't have that much dry land and we don't have that much water.But all that said, it really doesn't matter how shallow the oceans are and how smooth the planet is: So long as there is any dry land anywhere, there is geometrically not enough water to flood the planet for if there were, then the planet would already be flooded. That's what makes a global flood impossible: You either are flooded or you never can be.The amount of water that is suspended in the atmosphere is sufficient to raise sea level by about an inch. The rest of the water is already at the lowest point and thus cannot be used for a flood.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Hi back atcha, Buz. I'm glad were all having such a good time... you making stuff up -- what an imagination! -- and the rest of us avidly exploring the breadth and depth of all the holes in your various improvisations.Okay, I'll keep playing with this one about the teeth, because you missed my big point when you said: Well, sadly, the dinos did not get that chance to evolve into carnivores, what with there being no room for them on the ark and all. But you failed to address the fact that the particular ones with carnivore-like teeth actually did go around biting other dinos (and digesting parts of them as well, based on stuff found encased within their rib cages). I couldn't find the specific example of the t-rex biting a triceratops (I recall reading that and seeing the photos in a Discover magazine issue some years ago), but I did find this case involving things biting (and presumably digesting chunks of) pterasaurs -- my thanks to National Geographic for not charging a fee to access this information. God says they didn't do that before the flood! Dr. Martin made that clear! So go ahead and admit it: the flood wasn't about human transgressions against God. It was about the sins of the carnivorous dinosaurs! I don't understand why this hasn't become central to the Judeo-Christian canon for all denominations. The evidence is so blatant.I'm starting to wonder if there might have been something really strange about those dinosaurs... why has God suppressed all mention and evidence of them? Maybe they were onto something. Well of course! It was a dino that spoke to Eve about that whole apple thing. I think the dinos must have been pretty smart, over all (though not all of them were smart enough to obey the will of God, obviously -- of course, the same is true of people), and perhaps it's not inappropriate that some of our current depictions of these extinct creatures show them talking.Ah, it's just too much fun. Thanks, Buz.Oh, and you do keep talking about lots of volcanoes, and higher atmospheric pressure, and rapid radioactive decay, all of which make for hot times in the old ecosphere (not to mention other toxic and life-threatening side-effects), and then the sudden cooling and the freezing of the ice caps. Here's an idea: as soon as the flood was over, the earth's orbital radius suddenly increased by... whatever it takes to settle the books for thermal balance. Has anyone proposed that yet? I suppose shrinking the sun (with concomitant reduction in its output) would work as well -- what the heck, why not both?We're on a tour of God's Circus and Amusement Park, where anything is possible. What more could we ask by way of enlightenment?

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

Given an average continental elevation of 1,750 cubits above current sea level, and an average ocean depth of 8,102 cubits below sea level, the land masses would have to be "smoothed" to a maximum of 493 cubits above said datum. This would cause the sea level to rise by 508 cubits giving the requisite 15 cubit inundation of Gen. 7:20.Mechanism: Really big bulldozer.Edited by lyx2no, : Add info.Edited by lyx2no, : Rounding error

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KindlyI've been off doing my bit to save the world, and it totally sucked.

Given that this thread is in one of the science forums, claims should be supported with both evidence and argumentation, not just argumentation.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi folks. I appreciate the lively responses with the problems you all have raised. This lays out the work cut out for me to do. With my limited science knowledge it will be necessary for me to resort to some help from Mr Google but I'll give it my best shot.Rather than responding to each, hopefully this will be a one-fits-all response, after which there will likely be plenty of new responses to deal with. THE UNKNOWNS:1. How much more atmospheric pressure a canopy would exert upon the planet.
2. The effect upon earth as this pressure was suddenly significantly reduced via the flood.
a. Would it cause the earth to expand a tad?
b. Would it affect the earth's magnetic field?
c. How much would it affect the properties of the air which living organisms live by?
d. What effect would it have on subterranean water?
e. How much volcanic activity would it release?
f. Would it decompress pressure on the earth core so as to expand and crack tectonic plates etc?
3. How much does science itself lend credence to the canopy hypothesis? I suggest a reading of this link which has more than the above segment which I've copied.
4. How much would the hyperbolic oxygen effect have on longevity and size of plants, animals and insects? (the quote below from the same link) 5. How would all of the above skew modern dating methodology?That's it for now.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Cute. So you'll continue to ignore all of the mathematics and problems we've demonstrated. Your canopy scenario has ben ripped apart, and yet you're going to ignore nearly all of the points by failing to address any specific posts, instead providing a "one size fails all" post filled with more of your speculative musings with no evidence to back up your bare assertions. You haven't explained how the canopy could even exist as a stable structure without blotting out the sun completely. Pressure is the least of your worries. Why is the pressure relieved? Why does the canopy disappear and never return? Why is this water exempt from the water cycle that all of the other non-subterranean water on the planet is subject to? Lowering air pressure will not cause the Earth to expand. The Earth is not a balloon. ...what? What does water have to do with the magnetic feild of the Earth, wich is generated by the fluid motion of the molten iron core of the planet? And what does the magnetic field have to do with any aspect of the flood myth? Well, when the water comes down you'd have a near-100% humidity level globally. The increased pressure that you're mentioning would ave mostly negative affects or none at all. Look at places on Earth right now, like the Dead Sea, that have a very high air pressure due to its low altitude. Nobody there lives to be 800 years old, and carnivores don't magically eat plants. "Subterranean water" is an awfully general term. For the water locked in rock, there couldn't possibly be any effect at all. But you're likely meaning to say "would subterranean water be squeezed out of the "fountains of the deep" by the falling rain?" The answer is "that's ridiculous, unless you're really proposing that the rocky crust of the Earth is as elastic as a sponge." "Squeezing" porous rock doesn't tend to do much, Buz. Obviously you don't have even the barest, Jr. High level comprehension of volcanism. Floods do not cause volcanoes to erupt. The pressure involved in a magma chamber from the weight of rock already dwarfs the pressure gained by dumping a bunch of water on the surface. Water, after all, has a MUCH lower density than rock, and magma chambers are already buried pretty damned deeply.Of course, if you're trying to mention catastrophic plate tectonics again to explain continental movements and billions of years worth of geological change squeezed into the time period of the flood so that we still see the world as we see it today, well...that's a scenario that's been thoroughly torn apart many times here. You'd wind up liquifying the surface of the planet with that much energy, and you still have no mechanism by which the tectonic motion would suddenly accelerate for a year and then stop before the waters recede. ...what? Do you seriously think that even the crazy amounts of water you're proposing will have an effect on the Earth's core? It's molten goddamned iron, Buz, buried under multiple miles of rock already so compressed as to be relatively pliable.Once again you're speculating on wild fantasies without providing mechanisms or evidence for your claims. You're saying "maybe a flood could do this," but you have no idea how, and you don't have even a faint grasp of the topics you're bringing into the equasion. It doesn't. Any person whos taken even a Jr. High school level of geology and meteorology could tell you your position is total bollocks with just a little applied mathematics. But then, you like to ignore math and evidence, don't you Buz. Why don't you try addressing the rebuttals we've all made to your silly fantasy rather than repeating even more delusional bare assertions? 1) Im not going to do your homework for you. Either post your position in your own words or admit you don't even comprehend the articles you're putting forth as "evidence."2) Increased oxygen in the atmosphere in the past is well-known, and has nothing to do with your canopy scenario. Neither does rapid climate change. We expect rapid climate change to have occured after volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts, like the one that likely killed the dinosaurs.While we know that the air pressure and oxygen content of the atmosphere were higher in the distant past, we also know that the sun was not blotted out by a few million extra cubic miles of water hanging out in a global cloud canopy. We also know that we do not have enough water on the planet now to accommodate your scenario, and that the sort of geological change required to have a "flatter" Earth prior to the flood is completely impossible for a hundred different reasons.Your cut-n-paste does nothing to support your position, Buz. Wait, stop right there. "concurs with the biblical model of the early earth?" In what way? I don't recall a Biblical passage regarding increased oxygen content or giant dragonflies. I remember astounding longevity - but human beings don't suddenly live longer in higher-oxygen environments. If we did, we'd all walk around with oxygen tanks and live to 800.There's a giant leap here from "increased oxygen contend and bigger critters in general" to "zomg teh Bible it iz true!" None of the longevity or flood-based claims you or anyone else have made actually cause or result from an increased oxygen content in the atmosphere. You certainly have never proposed a mechanism by which a vapor canopy would increase oxygen content.Your scenarios, as always, fail. Even a broken clock can be right twice a day. Biblical claims (like the global flood) have been utterly refuted a thousand times from a hundred different angles usind dozens of different tactics. You don't have anything more than ignorant speculation, Buz. It wouldn't. Radiometric dating is unaffected by the oxygen content of the atmosphere, or by air pressure, or by large amounts of water. Radiometric dating works by ratios of decaying substances and their products.Again, an argument from total ignorance. You just don't know what you're talking about, Buz.Now, feel free to ignore all of this as usual, and repeat yourself after a few other posters take their turns ripping your positions to shreds. Don't worry about supporting your arguments with any sort of evidence, or proposing mechanisms to tie your ideas together. Ignore all that silly "math" stuff. The Bible is infallible, so you have to be right.Right?

So you're proposing that your mythical "vapor canopy" exerted enough pressure to compress the earth? *boggle* That kind of pressure would be enough to make sure Noah and his family were squished flat.

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soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

Hi Buz,I don't really have much time, so I'll restrict myself to responding to point #4. You follow this with a quote about giant insects, specifically dragonflies. The giant dragonflies are quite real, indeed here's one, it's call Meganeura monyi it lived during the Carboniferous period and it had a staggering 75cm wingspan. The reason why creatures like this could grow so large was indeed because the atmosphere was more oxygen rich back then, but there is a problem with your interpretation of these facts.Insects no longer grow this large because they employ a very inefficient means of breathing, through little tubes called spiracles. The oxygen rich atmosphere allowed them to become giants, because this inefficiency didn't matter with oxygen in such rich supply. The modern atmosphere restricts their size to more modest proportions, because the spiracles can't oxygenate such large bodies efficiently enough.None of this applies to vertebrates or plants. Vertebrates do not have their size potential reduced by low oxygen levels, therefore they would not grow larger or live longer in such an atmosphere.As for plants, they don't need high levels of oxygen either. They prefer carbon dioxide, as any gardener will tell you. Increasing the oxygen levels wouldn't make them any bigger.Using the giant insect fossils that are found by hard-working palaeontologists to support your fantasies strikes me as dishonest, since these fossils come from an age some hundreds of millions of years before the dawn of humanity and have no connection to the flood myth. You are hijacking somebody else's hard work, in order to prove something that they never intended it to prove and that it indeed does not prove. Nice try though.

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Mutate and Survive

To handle some bits that others haven't covered.1) depends on the amount of water .2) Unless the "vapour" was VERY high (implausably so) the pressure on the Earth is not likely to change much. It'll weigh about the same and the pressure on the Earth itself will therefore be about the same whether it's vapour in the air or liquid on the surface.3)
a) Lowell's findings (abstract) are no use to you until integrated into a YEC view. The YEC view greatly compresses the Pleistocene - and the carbon dates used by Lowell. Lowell's results only cover the most recent period of glaciation, leaving the others to be accounted for. There is no clear link to any "vapour canopy"b) The presence of larger-than-expected quantities of hydroxyl also needs more examination. Without an understanding of the reasons why the amounts were unexpected we certainly cannot assume that the "vapour canopy" is the solution.
Fortunately the complete article is online And surprise, surprise your creationist source misrepresents it.
It does NOT claim that there is excess hydroxyl in the atmosphere. It claims that there are "patches" of water appearing in the atmosphere, and these lose some of their substance as a trail of hydroxyl radicals. That hardly supports the "vapour canopy".c) If there is a connection between increased oxygen content and the "vapour canopy" it has not been produced. Higher pressure does not increase the oxygen content of air.So, as it stands, not one of your examples actually supports the "vapour canopy". All you have is the assertions of a source that has been proven to be unreliable.

Unless you have ice caps that you can melt. If you've got a smooth surface to the earth with just one bump forming a piece of land in the middle-east on which all the people and all the land animals are living, then a world wide flood is possible.It requires enough water trapped in the ice caps to cover the highest points on the land, which means the "mountains" can only be a few hundred feet high, and this scenario cannot explain the post-flood earth as it is now, so it's no use to creationists. But basically, the earth heats up, melting the ice caps, then cools down, reforming them, and a world-wide flood has come and gone without adding any water to the system.Interestingly, a completely smooth earth would always be flooded, so the tectonic activity has to counterbalance erosion, and keep it nicely rumpled. If it didn't work that way, we'd still have gills.

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In October 2006 Science Daily publicized a study led by Arizona State University staff entitled "Giant Insects Might Reign If Only There Was More Oxygen In The Air." The article claims, "The delicate lady bug in your garden could be frighteningly large if only there was a greater concentration of oxygen in the air, a new study concludes. The study adds support to the theory that some insects were much larger during the late Paleozoic period because they had a much richer oxygen supply, said the study's lead author Alexander Kaiser. The Paleozoic period...was a time of huge and abundant plant life and rather large insects -- dragonflies had two-and-a-half-foot wing spans, for example. The air's oxygen content was 35% during this period, compared to the 21% we breathe now, Kaiser said." This research concurs with the biblical model of the early earth.

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Interestingly enough, I made a challenge to the local creationists on another site dealing with such a problem. The moron argued that since Co2 was higher, it was the reason that arthropods got so big. I then challenged him to provide the chemical equations for ATP production with Co2 as the input gas rather then O2. It's been DAYS since he posted.How does that even SUGGEST anything related to a Biblical model of the early Earth? Furthermore, why isn't everything bigger due to more oxygen? Why didn't humans grow much larger with more oxygen to fuel larger bodies?Creationists will say anything to support their belief regardless of if it makes sense or not.

I appreciate those who took time to read the link and to respond to points in it. As I said, being unable to articulate the science of this I needed to rely on much on the link wording.I've been out of town most of today and am quite busy doing some spring work outside during this window of nice weather here in upstate NY. Please bear with me until I can get back to responding to those who addressed the specifics of the link, either directly or to my statements regarding it.Thanks for your patience.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

A little bit of advice:1) Don't rely on other peoples arguments if you can't understand them.2) Creationist sources are frequently unreliable.3) Learn to vet your sources. You can find all sorts of rubbish on the web. Try to pick out reliable sources. If there aren't good reasons to assume that it is reliable check out its claims elsewhere - including looking for important references (If the page makes that more difficult than it should be, by say omitting the titles of articles it cites be wary).

Buzsaw writes:

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THE UNKNOWNS:

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1. How much more atmospheric pressure a canopy would exert upon the planet.

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Incorrect.I bet you fell for the joke:Which weighs more: A ton of feathers or a ton of lead?The answer, of course, is "Neither. They both weigh a ton."In order to flood the earth, we need five miles of liquid water in order to cover Mt. Everest.It doesn't matter if that water is in liquid or gaseous state with regard to how much it weighs and how much pressure it exerts on you: It's the same amount of water.Human beings can barely survive the pressure when only 300 meters down. You want to put them five miles down?

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2. The effect upon earth as this pressure was suddenly significantly reduced via the flood.

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Incorrect: This is simple physics. In order for the water vapor to condense, you'll have a huge fluctuation in temperature. Don't you remember my primer on thermodynamics? All you need to do is determine the amount of energy required to get the water from its current temperature to the condensation point, then the amount of energy to condense it, and then how much energy is required to drop the temperature from that point to whatever final temperature is needed.But let's ignore the temperature drop of the water vapor to the condensation point. Let's just look at the energy required to condense water:Q = LmFor water vapor, L = 2.27 MJ/kgNote the units: MEGAJoules. Water stores a huge amount of heat.In order to flood the earth, we need on the order of 10^9 cubic miles of water. That's about 4e21 kg of water. That means, in order to condense the water, we will be dumping on the order of 10^28 J of energy.That energy has to go somewhere (First Law of Thermodynamics).The largest nuclear blast was on the order of 10^17 J. That means we need to dump 10^11 largest nuclear blasts we have ever seen onto the earth in order to take it out of the water to condense it.One hundred billion 58-megaton bombs exploding all over the surface of the earth. Note: A 58 mega-ton bomb is 6000 times more powerful than what we dropped on Hiroshima.To condense the water would melt the surface of the earth.

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a. Would it cause the earth to expand a tad?

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No. Whether the water is liquid or gas, it still weighs the same.

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b. Would it affect the earth's magnetic field?

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No. The magnetic field is a function of the iron core of the earth rotating.

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c. How much would it affect the properties of the air which living organisms live by?

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We know that quite well:It would kill everything as the surface temperature of the earth would soar to well over 600 K. The pressure would crush us like grapes.

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d. What effect would it have on subterranean water?

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Again, this is simple physics. It wouldn't change anything.

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e. How much volcanic activity would it release?

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It would melt the surface of the earth.

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f. Would it decompress pressure on the earth core so as to expand and crack tectonic plates etc?

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No. Whether it is liquid or gaseous, it weighs the same.

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3. How much does science itself lend credence to the canopy hypothesis?

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Absolutely none.You really don't know anything about the most basic physics, do you? This is all high school stuff.

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4. How much would the hyperbolic oxygen effect have on longevity and size of plants, animals and insects?

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Actually, it would kill you. That's part of the reason that we cannot survive below about 300 m of water: The oxygen in the air becomes toxic. That's why deep divers have helium mixes: You have to reduce the oxygen content of the atmosphere so it won't kill you.

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5. How would all of the above skew modern dating methodology?

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Absolutely none. Radioactivity is not affected by pressure. Pressure is an effect of proximity. Radioactivity is a nuclear force that is carried by the W⁺, W^-, and Z particles.I mean it, Buzsaw: You really don't know anything about physics, do you?I really want an answer to this question: Have you ever had any formal training in physics? I mean real physics that you need calculus to figure out where you did the experiment of suspending a pendulum from the ceiling so you could directly calculate G (the constant of universal gravitation), where you recreated the Millikin experiment to directly measure the charge on an electron, where you measured the spectral lines of hydrogen, that sort of physics.Again, that's high school level stuff. How much physics do you know?Edited by Rrhain, : A couple of bad sentences made it through.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

bluegenes responds to me:

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Unless you have ice caps that you can melt.

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The amount of ice on the earth is negligible compared to the amount of water in the oceans. 97% of all the water in the earth is in the oceans. About 2% of the water on the earth is in the icecaps and glaciers.Plus, we need to put the water ABOVE the icecaps. We have dry land above the level of the icecaps.

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Interestingly, a completely smooth earth would always be flooded

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I know. That's my point. Since we're talking about GLOBAL effects, then the earth is either always flooded or never can be. If there were enough water to flood the earth, then it would be flooded right now. Since it is not flooded, then it is geometrically impossible to do so.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.