Existence of Noah's Ark

Actually since life hasn't been here for the whole 4.6 gyrs it would be more like 3 per year.I think the 8 billion number is high if you only work with multicellular creatures but a few species per year sounds like a low number. A very low number.The estimate is that a spieces lasts about 5 million years. ( I think that is based on the fossil record so it would not include single celled examaples.)If our current diversity is the norm and we have 10 to 100 million multicellular organisms here now then we would get from 2 to 20 turning over a year. That seems very low considering the tendancy of things to evolve when there is any selective pressure at all.And it is still a very small number on a percentage basis too.

Yes and no.Do you think we would see all of 2 or three species of beetle appearing when we haven't even counted them all yet?We see speciation and new species arising. Even if we watched every birth of every organism it would be hard to draw the species line precisely. It isn't a 100% yes or no thing.There are a few billion multi cellular organisms on the planet. They are all a bit or a lot different form each other. Some can succssfully interbreed almost all of the time, some not so much, some rarely and some not at all. As the relationships change we get more and/or different species. You tell me how we'd catch them in the actual act of appearing.There have been examples given. It is happening. The exact rate isn't known any more than the actual number of species is known very well.I suppose one could try to figure out from what has been observed and the number of places we have looked and the total number of existing organisms what the figure would be. It would be pretty rough though.Given what is seen, the speed with which some species have popped up and the changes in the environment a few (or even 100's) of new species a year isn't out of line.What woud you estimate the number to be?

A more obvious answer is that they have generations that are measured in minutes or hours.However, there is a problem with speciation there. How do you decide you have a new species in asexual organisms?You're also somewhat right with the complexity (whatever the heck that is ) note. It seems to me anyway that a more complex organism will have a harder time speciating. Something I've been very surprised to learn from posters here is that we've seen a number of one generation speciation events in complex organisms. So it does happen and more frequently that I would have ever expected. Easily enough to give us a few new species a year when spread over 10's of millions of complex organisms.

RR needs to be clearer about what he is saying but I think it goes like this:When it rains very hard the water can not run off fast enough so there is some "back up" of water even on a slope.That isn't being answered directly enough.There is some back up of course but RR doesn't seem to be willing to say what happens when the 40 days of rain stops. Would the water stay on the slopes for a year???RiverRat, you lack of detailed thought in this is causing people to dismiss it with the same degree of hand waving you are doing.It should be obvious to you as it is to everyone else that this is wrong. While it is possible for the surface of a slope to have considerable water on it when large volumes are being dumped on it it can't last. In fact even while the rain is pouring down the water will run off the surface in streams and torrents not as some sort of smooth pseudoflood spread over the surface. It will be concentrated.
In addition, you haven't given a moments thought to what happens on day 41, 42 and so on of the flood. Without doing the calculations I'd suggest that within 24 hours all the steeper slopes would be effectively dry.If you want to say that the Bible is very wrong on this then you can start writing your own version of the flood. However, the ONLY source you have for your ideas is the Bible and if you are going to try to prove it WRONG you leave yourself in a funny spot.

whatever, you are so totally out of your depth here (pardon the pun) You are so far from knowing enough it is hard for you to post a line without messing it up and it gets very tiresome to reply. (which is why you see little of me).Space may have a low temperature but it has a very small specific heat. (google that -- it means space can't cool things off very well -- space stations require ways to get rid of heat since it is hard to do in a vacuum bottle -- remember the picture you were shown).