Noah's Ark

[Akhenaten]

He's had another go, this time with a "full-sized" version, but same deal, more-or-less. This one is built on a hull made of 25 steel barges linked by a steel frame. It's supposed to be seaworthy, but I think you'd have to apply a fairly specific definition of 'sea' to make this true.

I'd normally be inclined to say this guy is demented, but there appears to be another possibility.

Actually, this ark is not the first that Mr. Huibers has built. He first began dreaming of an ark in 1992, shortly after a heavy storm lashed the coastal region north of Amsterdam where he lives. His wife, Bianca, a police officer, opposed the idea.

“She said no, but by 2004 I had built a smaller ark, 225 feet long, to sail through the Dutch canals,” he said. It became a minor sensation. He charged adult visitors $7 to board it.

“More than 600,000 people came, in about three years,” he said. He said he made about $3.5 million, enough to clear a profit of $1.2 million.

Link to New York Times article (with slide show)

 

[Garrette]

He's had another go, this time with a "full-sized" version, but same deal, more-or-less. This one is built on a hull made of 25 steel barges linked by a steel frame. It's supposed to be seaworthy, but I think you'd have to apply a fairly specific definition of 'sea' to make this true.

I'd normally be inclined to say this guy is demented, but there appears to be another possibility.





Link to New York Times article (with slide show)

Ah. I missed that in my googling.

Beyond being built on barges, it also has a steel frame. I think those two facts are plenty to scupper the idea that this is a replica of the biblical ark, even ignoring the fact that the new one is still not made of gopherwood (Swedish Pine instead) and that it hasn't floated yet.

I still wish fundies would do better research before making these claims.

 

[pakeha]

He's had another go, this time with a "full-sized" version, but same deal, more-or-less. This one is built on a hull made of 25 steel barges linked by a steel frame. It's supposed to be seaworthy, but I think you'd have to apply a fairly specific definition of 'sea' to make this true.

I'd normally be inclined to say this guy is demented, but there appears to be another possibility.

Actually, this ark is not the first that Mr. Huibers has built. He first began dreaming of an ark in 1992, shortly after a heavy storm lashed the coastal region north of Amsterdam where he lives. His wife, Bianca, a police officer, opposed the idea.

“She said no, but by 2004 I had built a smaller ark, 225 feet long, to sail through the Dutch canals,” he said. It became a minor sensation. He charged adult visitors $7 to board it.

“More than 600,000 people came, in about three years,” he said. He said he made about $3.5 million, enough to clear a profit of $1.2 million.

Link to New York Times article (with slide show)

Like.
600,000 people in about 3 years.
Coffee shop clientele out for giggles?

 

[Ladewig]

I still wish fundies would do better research before making these claims.

If there were good at doing research....

 

[Akhenaten]

Like.
600,000 people in about 3 years.
Coffee shop clientele out for giggles?

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[CORed]

Wouldn't we be able to verify a genetic "bottleneck" that occurred on the order of 5-10k years ago?

What about animals not known to science yet? I think Armadillos are restricted to the new world just for one example (there are going to be thousands of others obviously...).

Hell, what about inbreeding depression? Ectotherms require on the order of 50 individuals to side step this problem.

How did he maintain dangerous animals? Cobras, Rattlesnakes, Dealing with rattlesnakes is tricky for me and I have years of experience and good tools to do so, etc.
(Oh wait, Rattlesnakes are new world, completely unknown to the old world).

True, but there are vipers, cobras, and many other venomous snakes in the old world.

What about birds? Yeah they can fly, but they will need a place to land and rest. Bats too.

Let's not even get into the insects....
Periodic Cicadas would have been tough.

Oh, and Polar Bears would have been tricky. Elephant Seals too....

...and on...and on...and on...

The Ark story is one of the dumbest things ever.

 

[pgwenthold]

True, but there are vipers, cobras, and many other venomous snakes in the old world.

Yeah. And so in the 6000 years after the flood, those vipers, cobras, and other venomous snakes rapidly evolved into rattlesnakes and made their way, en masse, to the new world, leaving none of them behind.

I really love the idea (necessary, to make this work, btw) that rattlesnakes evolved from vipers, cobras, and/or other venomous snakes in the course of a couple thousand years. The best part is that it comes from the same people who claim that evolution can't be true.

 

[Rincewind]

I recall a brief discussion with a former colleague some time ago.

She was claiming that the biblical flood story was 100% true.

I asked how did 8 people build such a massive structure?

Surely the early bits would be rotting before they could finish. so they'd be continually building for ever?

She said that obviously, they got help.

I tried to imagine a job interview:

Noah: I'm planning to build a huge Ark, and I need lumberjacks, carpenters, boatbuilders, hauliers, ropemakers and loads and loads of other folk.

Interviewee: What's an ark? I build tiny fishing rafts.

Noah: It's a massive boat.

Interviewee: How's it steered?

Noah; It isn't.

Interviewee: Okay. How much sail does it take?

Noah: None.

Interviewee: So - it just floats? Hopefully?

Noah: Yup. That's what God told me.

Interviewee: Right. What's this ark for?

Noah: Well, God's going to flood the earth and destroy all life, except for anything on the ark.

Interviewee: Wow, great! So I get to be saved as well?

Noah: No. You're going to drown. But I will pay time and a half for overtime.


She stopped talking to me after that...


But - really, is that sick, or what?

 

[rwguinn]

Was there even that much Gopher Wood in that part of the world at that time? The place looks pretty barren of large trees... (Insert vision of Paul Bunyan logging the Saharan Forests)
What happened to all the trading vessels on the Med at the time the rains hit?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Was there even that much Gopher Wood in that part of the world at that time? The place looks pretty barren of large trees... (Insert vision of Paul Bunyan logging the Saharan Forests)
What happened to all the trading vessels on the Med at the time the rains hit?

Aha!! More evidence that Noah built the ark! There is not that much gopher wood because Noah used it all to build the ark.

 

[shadron]

Then if Noah sees land he can go to it rather than waiting for all the water leaving the earth. Imagine if he had ended up in the middle of the ocean.

He would also have to go around the world leaving special animals in special places, like the kangaroo in Australia.

Oh, no, I was assured that since scientists hypothesize a raft carrying monkeys from Africa to South America is the commonly held reason for New World Monkeys, then there should be no problem with a raft of marsupials (they tend to band together, don't you know?) threading the Black Sea, Bosporus and the Med, down the coast of Africa, 'round Cape Horn and fetching up on Australia's western shore. Or maybe several such rafts, though that might strain credulity a bit.

 

[I Ratant]

I'm wondering about herding the grizzlies and polar bears to the Middle East, and then back again to the North Pole and Western Hemisphere.
I betcha a buncha those guys would be -surleeeee-!

 

[davefoc]

The scaling problem can be dealt with by building smaller boats and roping them together with flexible connections. It's now clear how Noah built the oild tires to be used as bumpers between the vessels though.

As to the kangaroo problem: Now you're being silly. Noah didn't need to go to Australia to get the kangaroos, wombats, koalas, etc.

Kangaroos did not need to travel continents to get to the ark. Today kangaroos only live in Australia. But prior to the flood, kangaroos and other animals most likely lived near Noah’s home.

http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/kangaroo.html

 

[Akhenaten]

As to the kangaroo problem: Now you're being silly. Noah didn't need to go to Australia to get the kangaroos, wombats, koalas, etc.

http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/kangaroo.html

Jesus wept, there's some concentrated stupid on that page.

Prior to the flood, the earth may have been one large landmass. Australia did not exist in its present location. Our present continents are shaped as a result of re-disposition of flood sediments, and receding flood waters.

After the flood there were land bridges (because of a lower sea level) that connected many of the continents.

Years later, the glaciers started to melt and the water level rose. This caused many land bridges to disappear

So the sequence of events is:

Pangea --> proto continents with glaciers which apparently formed underwater --> an un-ice age which caused the glaciers to melt --> modern continents.


But wait, there's more . . .

Some polar bears actually enjoy warm temperatures. And can survive in either warm or cold.

How do people who are so abysmally stupid manage to find the internet?

 

[Dinwar]

Prior to the flood, the earth may have been one large landmass. Australia did not exist in its present location. Our present continents are shaped as a result of re-disposition of flood sediments, and receding flood waters.

Wow........

Floods are depositional and erosional events, I'll give them that. However, even big floods don't redistribute THAT much sediment. Besides, continents aren't massive piles of clastic sedimentary rock--at the base there's felsic granites, which cannot be formed by redistributing dirt.

Besides, WHERE DID THE WATER GO? To flood the Earth, you need by definition more water than the oceans can handle. Where did it recede to?

After the flood there were land bridges (because of a lower sea level) that connected many of the continents.

The sea level oscillated?! Remember, this is HUNDREDS OF FEET per oscillation in the rock record--meaning multiple tides, roughly the size of SKYSCRAPERS, every day.

Years later, the glaciers started to melt and the water level rose. This caused many land bridges to disappear

Read literally, this is to transgressions, with one regression: the flood, the water receding and going into glaciers (?), the glaciers melting. Go to Hocking Hills in Ohio and you'll see about a dozen.

Some polar bears actually enjoy warm temperatures. And can survive in either warm or cold.

Well, to be fair, it's not the temperatures that bother polar bears. It's diet. They actually don't have very strong teeth--they high-grade when they eat, basically eating the soft bits and avoiding hard stuff (it's an issue with scull morphology)--and they have very limited diets. And there's the polar bear/brown bear hybreds. ~shudder~

 

[steve s]

Prior to the flood, the earth may have been one large landmass. Australia did not exist in its present location. Our present continents are shaped as a result of re-disposition of flood sediments, and receding flood waters.

They're caving in and admitting that plate tectonics is real. The evidence for it is so overwhelming that they know they'd look like total idiots if they denied it. But they want us to believe that it all happened within the last 6000 years.

It's like how they used to deny any amount of evolutionary change, but now they allow for "micro" evolution within "kinds."

Steve S

 

[shadron]

Prior to the flood, the earth may have been one large landmass. Australia did not exist in its present location. Our present continents are shaped as a result of re-disposition of flood sediments, and receding flood waters.

After the flood there were land bridges (because of a lower sea level) that connected many of the continents.

Years later, the glaciers started to melt and the water level rose. This caused many land bridges to disappear

All in only a couple thousand years, too. Someone at the Naropa Institute in Boulder predicted in 1997 that by 2001 Denver would be seafront property (seas to the west - an amazing thought all its own). That amounts to just about the same sort of change rate.

 

[Akhenaten]

Some polar bears actually enjoy warm temperatures. And can survive in either warm or cold.

Well, to be fair, it's not the temperatures that bother polar bears. It's diet. They actually don't have very strong teeth--they high-grade when they eat, basically eating the soft bits and avoiding hard stuff (it's an issue with scull morphology)--and they have very limited diets. And there's the polar bear/brown bear hybreds. ~shudder~

Live and learn, eh? I didn't know that.

Thanks.

Just so the arkonauts don't get swelled heads though, allow me to post the rest of their polar bear 'explanation':

Some polar bears actually enjoy warm temperatures. And can survive in either warm or cold.

This is intelligent design on Gods part.

Many cars have both heaters and air conditioners. This is not because of Evolution, but because the guy who designed them was pretty smart. Knowing that some cars would be transported to warm and some to cold climates.

Now I feel all smart again.

 

[Lucian]

The scaling problem can be dealt with by building smaller boats and roping them together with flexible connections. It's now clear how Noah built the oild tires to be used as bumpers between the vessels though.

As to the kangaroo problem: Now you're being silly. Noah didn't need to go to Australia to get the kangaroos, wombats, koalas, etc.



http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/kangaroo.html

I'm not sure about the kangaroos, but I know for a fact* that there were penguins in the Garden of Eden. If you scroll down on this page, you can see one such Penguin of Paradise at the Creation Museum. Notice also that Adam is embracing a sheep, which is hiding Adam's nakedness.

*Not a fact.

 

[Akhenaten]

"Originally posted by Whacko"

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