• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Determining the Ark Kinds

Last edited:
Cainkane1 said:
Apparently Moses was able to put the dna to good use and repopulate the earth. Then he took the kangeroos to australia and the jaguars to south america.
Click to expand...

Nice of him... me I would have just dropped them off at the nearest 7-Eleven. "Find your own damn way home, I need a glazed doughnut....."

I guess that's why he is one of the Chosen People and I am just an atheist with a sugar problem.
 
Cainkane1 said:
Some Christian groups are saying that the ark contained dna of animals and not the actual animal except for the meat variety of edible animal. Apparently Moses was able to put the dna to good use and repopulate the earth. Then he took the kangeroos to australia and the jaguars to south america.
Click to expand...

You mean Noah.

Oh and the kangaroos rode to Australia on flotsam. The continents were much closer together then; that's how they made it without starving.
 
ChristineR said:
You mean Noah.

Oh and the kangaroos rode to Australia on flotsam. The continents were much closer together then; that's how they made it without starving.
Click to expand...

:eek:

How far do continents move in a few thousand years?

My theory is that they could jump much better back then. :)
 
Here is what I was taught by my instructors in Bible College.

A) All animals that were alive at the time were represented by a member of their 'kind' on the ark. This doesn't mean that all species would have been represented. Since there are fossils of 'dwarf elephants' for example, it can be assumed that such an animal could have been used to represent all 'elephant kinds', but that other species within that group (wooly mammoths, for example) would have been excluded.

This argument extends, of course, to dinosaurs. You didn't need to load every dinosaur species onto the ark, you only needed to load a 'kind' that represented a particular group of species.

2) After the flood waters receded, the animals were released, and started to breed. God kick-started the process of speciation by deliberately causing animal offspring to develop rapidly in very different ways (thus, our dwarf elephant survivors had babies who were Indian elephants, African elephants, etc.). This was not evolution...it was a deliberate process controlled and guided by God, because obviously the narrow range of species on the ark were not well-suited to fill every environmental niche on the newly-washed planet; and God, to ensure their survival, adapted them to fit within particular niches.

However, this was a brand new planet. Prior to the Flood, there had been relatively little surface water (it was all trapped underground, and/or in a permanent cloud layer...the flood was a result of all that stored water being released on the planet at once)...but now, it was everywhere. This affected climate, plant life, etc. Thus, some animals (such as dinosaurs) who previously had thrived, were found to be unsuitable for this new environment. In the past, some criticisms were leveled in regards to "why would god let them go extinct, instead of simply adapting them like he did other animals"...but now, with the discovery that birds are the ancestors of the dinosaurs, Creationists like to point out that that's exactly what God did...he adapted them into birds (this ignores the fact that birds represent only one 'kind' of dinosaur...and many other 'kinds' did, in fact, go entirely extinct).

This answers questions about things such as why the Bible only mentions animal kinds that existed locally...why not any mention of koalas, kangaroos, lemurs, etc.? The answer is simple...because those modern animals are a result of God's 'rapid re-development' program

C) Prior to the flood, the world consisted of one giant continent. After the flood, the release of the previously stored waters, coupled with the new weight of massive amounts of water on the surface, caused sudden and spectacular shifting of lands, leading to our separated continents today. This also answers how Koalas got to the ark from Australia (they didn't...they were represented by a 'kind' that wasn't a koala), and how they got to Australia from the ark (their ancestors from the surviving 'kind' ended up on the chunk of land that then split and became Australia...and god then changed them into koalas).

I wish to make it abundantly clear (if it is not already so) that today I consider this a bunch of complete and utter bullcrap. In fact, even back in the days when I was a fundamentalist Christian, I found this argument to be terribly lacking. There are so many holes in it that it truly boggles the mind.

But I had classmates who bought it hook, line, and sinker.


ETA: I've known others who've made similar efforts to define the 'kinds' on the ark. Inevitably, they begin with the assumption that the Biblical story of the flood is true...and thus, the total number of 'kinds' must be small enough to fit all of them onto the ark (the question of how they fed all those animals for a year before they finally got off the ark is either unaddressed, or answered with the handy "god provided for them miraculously" argument). It is impossible for there to be more kinds than could fit on the ark, so it is a fact that there could not be more than that number.

So, pretty much the way it works is like this. First step, determine approximately how many 'kinds' would have fit on the ark. Second step, look at all animals that have ever lived, and group them together so that they make up the same approximate number of 'kinds'. If there are some groups that don't fit too well, just lump 'em all together anyway, and say that any obvious differences between then are a result of God's enhanced speciation program after the flood.
 
Last edited:
geni said:
Well on paper it should be fairly easy. Work out how many species you can have on the ark. Work out the total amount of genitic variance that exists in the groups of species you feel you have to include (you may chose to skip fish and bacteria for example). Devide up that genitic variance into as many groups as you have space for and pick the best known example of each. Adjust for theological reasons (humans and great apes being the same type will not end well). Ajust for PR reasons (telling kids there were no lions on the arc just cat kind is a great way to kill off your religion after one generation) and there you go.
Click to expand...

Yup, on paper it is easy. Try and get the damn thing to float on water, that's the tricky bit. Never mind 'kinds', these idiots have never explained the mechanics of the bloody boat keeping afloat.
 
Krikkiter said:
:eek:

How far do continents move in a few thousand years?

My theory is that they could jump much better back then. :)
Click to expand...

That's a theory too. The continents moving is of course a distortion of the whole continental shift theory which took millions of years. It's kind of typical of creation science to "borrow" a real theory and add a detail which makes it absurd.

As Wolfman says, a lot of it comes down to "God can make unlikely things happen," but it gets so ridiculous that you have to ask why God made a flood in the first place when he could just have teleported all the people he didn't like and all the animals he wanted to make extinct to Australia and let the starve to death.
 
As part of the Ark Encounter Project at Answers in Genesis, a research effort has been initiated to provide information necessary for the best possible reconstruction of the animal kinds preserved on the Ark. This initial paper outlines the basic rationale that will be used and the underlying justification for it. The biblical text provides strong evidence for each kind being a reproductive unit. Based on this and biological evidence that reproduction requires significant compatibility, hybridization will be considered the most valuable evidence for inclusion within an “Ark kind.” The cognitum and statistical baraminology are discussed as they are relevant to this venture. Where hybrid data is lacking, we have chosen to use a cognitum method. Using current taxonomic placement as a guide, pictures and/or personal experience with the animals will be used to find obvious groupings. If the grouping seems excessively high taxonomically, the family level may be used as the default level to avoid underestimating the number of kinds on the Ark. Results from statistical baraminology studies and other information will be used where appropriate. It is hoped the result will be a valuable resource for future studies in baraminology.
Click to expand...

Ah, the cognitum.

Basically, just going back to the practice of eyeballing various species and coming up with what seems to make sense.

The "cognitum" is a concept in creation taxonomy that groups animals according to the perceptions that humans have about those creatures. I have been a fan of the idea of the cognitum since I first heard about it from Sanders and Wise's paper at ICC. The goal is to develop a standard of taxonomy based specifically on human perception, and not at all on other standards such as genetic data or morphology.

I found this idea extremely intuitive. There is obviously the Biblical reason that Adam was given to naming each kind that God created. Therefore, perhaps God gave Adam (and by extension the rest of us) the power to discern important relationships. It is interesting, for instance, that even children can usually tell, from a simple drawing, the difference between a cat and a dog, despite their relatively similar morphology, combined with the simpleness of the drawing. The same child can, at least by Sanders and Wise's paper, look at a more bizarre representative of the cat family and still identify it as a cat.

But, I think there is another point worth looking at. When there is a debate about the phylogeny of a species on whether it should be grouped according to its morphology vs. its DNA sequences, how is such a decision decided (or for that matter, when any two trees are in conflict)? I think few people think about how tough a question this is. No one saw the type of animals who were the current animals' ancestor. Therefore, we must lean on secondary evidence. But if the secondary evidence is in conflict, there seems to be some sort of a faculty in the human mind that makes such discernments. It is neither perfect nor consistent, but nonetheless it is there.
Click to expand...
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
Do you pronounce "barmy" as "bee-ess"? :D
Click to expand...

No, barmy as in...

barmy balmy (Slang)
adjective
1. stupid, bizarre, foolish, silly, daft (informal), irresponsible, irrational, senseless, preposterous, impractical, idiotic, inane, fatuous, dumb-ass (slang) This policy is absolutely barmy.
2. insane, odd, crazy, stupid, silly, nuts (slang), loony (slang), nutty (slang), goofy (informal), idiotic, loopy (informal), crackpot (informal), out to lunch (informal), dippy, out of your mind, gonzo (slang), doolally (slang), off your trolley (slang), round the twist (Brit. slang), up the pole (informal), off your rocker (slang), wacko or whacko (informal), a sausage short of a fry-up (slang) He used to say I was barmy, and that really got to me.
insane reasonable, sensible, rational, all there (informal), sane, of sound mind, in your right mind
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
No, barmy as in...

barmy balmy (Slang)
adjective
1. stupid, bizarre, foolish, silly, daft (informal), irresponsible, irrational, senseless, preposterous, impractical, idiotic, inane, fatuous, dumb-ass (slang) This policy is absolutely barmy.
2. insane, odd, crazy, stupid, silly, nuts (slang), loony (slang), nutty (slang), goofy (informal), idiotic, loopy (informal), crackpot (informal), out to lunch (informal), dippy, out of your mind, gonzo (slang), doolally (slang), off your trolley (slang), round the twist (Brit. slang), up the pole (informal), off your rocker (slang), wacko or whacko (informal), a sausage short of a fry-up (slang) He used to say I was barmy, and that really got to me.
insane reasonable, sensible, rational, all there (informal), sane, of sound mind, in your right mind
Click to expand...

:) Sounds like creationism to me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom