In several threads, Jar has brought up the genetic bottleneck argument against the biblical flood and it appears to me to be a slam dunk of an argument. So I thought it was worth expanding on it and teasing out the details.
Perhaps we should start with when creationists think the flood happened (my bold).
When was Noah’s Flood? 1,981 years to AD 0 plus 967 years to the founding of Solomon’s Temple plus 480 years to the end of the Exodus plus 430 years to the promise to Abraham plus 75 years to Abraham’s birth plus 350 years to Shem’s 100th birthday plus 2 years to the Flood. The Biblical data places the Flood at 2304 BC +/- 11 years.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/...v4/n1/date-of-noahs-flood
So this is about 4,300 years ago. (Maybe other dates around that time will be claimed but a bottleneck should still be apparent.)
Because all existing species have descended from so few individual so recently, their genomes should be very, very similar to each other - simply because all members of the same species would be close cousins.
Species that we know have undergone a bottleneck, such as the elephant seal and the North American bison - which were hunted to near extinction - and the cheetah, which appears to have also gone through a bottleneck 10,000 years ago, show this genetic fingerprint. In the cheetah's case their genetic variance is so small that their immune systems have so much in common that skin grafts aren't rejected between individuals.
Jar's argument goes that if all animals and plants on earth (with the possible exception of some fish which may have been able to survive salinity changes) were reduced to either pairs, or sometimes a few more of each species (I don't see how 'kinds' could make a difference) we would see the bottleneck fingerprint in pretty much every plant and animal alive today.
But we don't. And because we don't it's not possible that virtually every species on earth was reduced to two or three individuals only a few thousand years ago.
This is rather a unique situation; the proof does not rely on having witnesses around thousand of years ago, partial archaeological records, 'inferences' or any of the usual escape clauses of indirect evidence, it's repeatable, direct, clear, present and obvious.
So what's wrong with it?
Bottlenecks and founder effects - Understanding EvolutionPopulation bottleneck - Wikipedia
Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
™ Version 4.2
