Noah's ark found ?!?

Initial reaction:1) the article is horrid. It barely gives any information at all.2) This:

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There’s a tremendous amount of solid evidence that the structure found on Mount Ararat in Eastern Turkey is the legendary Ark of Noah, said Aalten.

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Representatives of Noah's Ark Ministries said the structure contained several compartments, some with wooden beams, that they believe were used to house animals.The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds none have ever been found above 11,000 feet in the vicinity, Yeung said.

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So...they found a wooden structure, with fasteners that predate metal nails, on a mountain. It's high up, man-made, and made of wood.And they rule out anything other than Noah's fucking Ark because "none have ever been found above 11,000 feet in the vicinity?!"What. The. Fuck.And it has "compartments." Why do you think it was holding animals? Even if it were, why do you jump to "Noah's fucking Ark" rather than "it's an old barn from a high-altitude community?"This whole thing screams confirmation bias.Oh...and who is this? Some prestigious archeological institution?

quote:

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Representatives of Noah's Ark Ministries...

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Red flag! Big fucking red flag!Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

I'm accusing them of confirmation bias because they are not even entertaining the idea that a wooden structure in that location could be anything other than exactly what they were looking for, and because I know that they have an extremely large personal investment in finding it. I'm accusing them of confirmation bias because a discovery like Noah's Ark would throw everything we think we know about science on it's ear. That means this is an "extraordinary claim," and it needs more than "lol, older than nails, made of wood, in the right place, hur hur" to back it up - I;m sorry, that's just not extraordinary evidence, and it doesn't support their hypothesis more than the hypothesis that someone constructed a completely mundane wooden structure at a higher elevation than other construction in the area. They shouldn't have announced this. This kind of discovery needs to be verified by an independent, well-established institution. Preferably multiple such.This is like finding a wooden cup in some archeological site in the middle east and claiming "I have found the Holy Grail!" It could just, you know, be a wooden cup where you expected to find something more special.

A quick Google search turns up the story we're discussing, a bunch of Christian websites, and other people asking who the hell he is.Let's just say I wouldn't be surprised to see this guy as a guest on Coast to Coast AM with George Noorey, right after famous psychic Silvia Brown...

*cough* Bullshit *cough*

I've gotta say...if I found a wooden structure with compartments roughly the size of a small to medium barn, my first instinct is "It's a barn, stupid. Maybe a residential structure." But I certainly don't jump to "It's a boat!" or worse, "it's the ARK!"

As with any group, "the creationist side" is not a single homogeneous group.However, while professionals can be wrong, they at least back up their conclusions with evidence and allow their findings to be checked by other parties.Amateurs are usually wrong, simply because they haven't the faintest clue what they're looking at. Would you rather have John Smith who works at the diner up the road diagnose your medical condition, or would you rather have a doctor do it? Would you trust the data security and computers of your large business to your dentist, or would you hire an IT professional?We trust trained archeologists when they comment on archeology more than, say, a group of "amateur" archeologists who think they're akin to Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark, because that training involves learning proven techniques and valid forms of reasoning to make reasonable conclusions. I'm sorry, but being armed with the Bible, wishful thinking, and what you've seen on TV doesn't qualify one to search for Noah's Ark any more than I'm qualified to investigate a murder just because I've watched a bunch of CSI.Nobody claims professionals are infallible. They're just a lot less fallible with respect to their own field than people who lack their years of training and expertise.

Very few of us "foam-at-the-mouth Atehists" would claim that teh Bible contains zero historical fact.It makes too many references to actual nations, real geography, verifiable historical events, and real rulers to say that it has absolutely zero value of a historical nature.However, those who are [i]rational,[i] Atheist or otherwise, also tend to focus on the fact that containing some historical validity does not in any way corroborate other, unverified claims. Just because Jericho actually existed doesn't mean that the Biblical story of its destruction was in any way accurate, any more than the existence of Troy makes the Illiad an accurate historical document.

The problem is the major events that aren't supported by evidence.Things like a global flood.
Things like 6-day creation.
Things like, oh, the entirety of Exodus.Many (note - NOT all) of the Bible's more mundane historical claims have been verified. But those do nothing at all to support the extraordinary claims.It's not a matter of how many copies have been found. It;s a matter of what events can be verified. Some things can be verified by finding 3rd-party references in separate documents (things like who ruled where when, etc). Other things cannot be verified with documentation alone. It doesn;t matter how many people say or said there was a worldwide flood, for example, if the evidence of the Earth itself (as well as the existence of cultures that predate the supposed flood with no historical break) proves conclusively that no such thing ever happened. It doesn't matter how many copies of Exodus one finds, for example, if no Egyptian documents ever show anything remotely resembling the traditional Hebrew account, no evidence can be found of a massive population of nomadic Hebrews can be found in the desert they supposedly wandered for 40 years, etc.Each individual event in the Bible is a separate claim that x happened. Mundane claims require only mundane evidence. When independent sources all agree, then mundane claims are verified with a decent level of confidence because mundane claims exist in harmony with the pre-existing picture of history we've already developed from the sum total of available evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence because they diverge drastically from a well-supported current understanding of events.The extraordinary claims of the Bible (the flood, 6-day creation, the existence of a deity, the existence of an afterlife, the resurrection of Jesus, the curing of leprosy, mass Hebrew slavery in Egypt, the Plagues of Egypt described in Exodus, the escape and wandering of the Hebrews, the conquest of Canaan, etc) are not well supported....by either corroborating documentation or archeological\geological\biological evidence. The validity of some of the mundane claims in no way whatsoever gives additional validity to the unsupported and separate extraordinary claims made, just as the valid mundane claim in teh Illiad that Troy existed in no way supports the existence of a man who was invulnerable to harm except in his heel.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Flood was a real event as described in the Bible: This is valid reasoning. If the entire world has just been flooded for a year, there will be no shelter available. Any homes or other buildings would have been destroyed. Even after disembarking, the Ark would have been the sole source of shelter until new structures could be built, and would very likely be cannibalized for materials (even fuel for fires) once new shelter had been constructed.The Ark would have been needed as shelter for quite some time, because a global Flood would ruin existing supplies of wood and other building materials. All of the trees would have been killed and left as driftwood for the entire event, possibly buried under sediment. Noah and company may have been able to find a cave for shelter, but the Ark, having already served as effective shelter for both the family and innumerable animals would have made a perfect barn and living structure for continued use as (presumably) the ecology magically begins to recover. Let most of the animals out for their magical cross-continental migrations, but keep most of the domesticated animals like cows, goats, sheep, etc for food and the re-establishment of agriculture.As Noah et al work on more permanent structures or at least prepare to leave the landing site, the Ark would have represented a massive amount of recoverable resources. You could try to re-use the wood either for construction or for firewood, since other wood sources would take decades to be replenished. If metal was used, it would be especially valuable, as post-Flood there would be no mining/smelting infrastructure set up for acquiring new metal - a process that would also take significant time given the number of people involved and their other challenges and priorities.Even if we assume the Flood myth to be true, there is still little reason to expect that we would ever actually find the Ark itself. It's far easier to support or falsify the Flood myth by looking at biology, archeology and geology to find broken cultures, sudden extinction events, genetic bottlenecks, global sediment deposits, etc.