If a purported miracle gives an indication of the
mechanism – as is the case with the flood story – then one might expect the
evidence left behind to be consistent with that mechanism. But when narrative and evidence is closely examined there is much that does not seem to add up.
Consider now three articles
[4] – available on the internet – that strongly criticize the flood story as interpreted by AIG/ICR. The following bullets are my words but the ideas are redacted from those articles. They represent only a small subset of the objections concerning the veracity of the YEC interpretation. I would encourage you to read the articles in their entirety, to get a clearer sense of the arguments employed.
Critics’ objections to the flood story as understood by YEC apologists:
· “all living creatures” into the ark means:
o species now extinct must be included.
o insects, arachnids, worms, bacteria, amphibians etc., that we usually don’t think of, must also go into the ark.
o all aquatic creatures including whales, jellyfish, fresh-water fish, mollusks, coral, etc. must be preserved in the ark as most water-resident life could not survive the sediment-filled waters of a YEC-style flood event.
· Gathering the animals probably must be attributed to miracle, otherwise:
o Some land animals would have to swim oceans.
o How would they bring their various special diets with them during the long journey?
· Ark space issues:
o YEC estimates on the number of animals vary, trying to get the total down as much as possible. But the various totals either ignore large categories (like extinct or marine animals) or they think a representative sample (a “kind”) can, post-flood, produce the genetic variety we see today. But to get present diversity from a single “kind” pair would constitute massive post-flood evolution, far exceeding anything we observe.
o Non-animal space: food for about a year, water for at least part of that time (after the rain stopped), flooring, compartments, human living quarters – would consume a significant percentage of the Ark’s capacity.
o storage for all kinds of plants/seeds because almost nothing would regenerate on its own post-flood from outside the ark after the amount of postulated violence, then sediment deposited.
o The ark had 1,518,750 cubic feet maximum (assuming a rectangle), perhaps half consumed for non-animal purposes. Even a very low example figure of 50,000 animals (at 2 or 7 per “kind” this doesn’t represent many species), would give an average of 15 cubic feet per animal. However, one critic states the number of species that would have to have been alive (to provide the fossil diversity found) would be more like 1.87 million species – of which at least a pair of each would be required.
· Loading the ark: 7 days and, even if we assume a low figure of 50,000 animals, then 1 animal must be loaded every 12 seconds – from gangplank to cage.
· Boat limitations: A 450 ft long boat exceeds the physical limit of wooden boat design. 300 feet is an upper limit before structural deformation and instability is inevitable. The longest known wooden ship ever built (19th century) was 329 feet and was found to be an untenable design. Thus 450 feet challenges the laws of physics.
· Caring for the animals:
o How would special food be obtained by Noah for some animals – e.g. eucalyptus leaves for koalas, bamboo shoots for pandas, plankton for whales, etc.
o The amount of turbulence during the voyage (given the presumed catastrophic external activity) would have been very harmful to the animals’ health (let alone structural integrity of the boat).
o
Even considering a low figure of 50,000 animals, if all eight of the crew worked every day, 16 hrs/day, then each individual animal would wind up with about 1 hour of attention during the entire year. This would not have kept them fed/watered and their waste removed.
· Sediment depth post-flood averages 1 mile, some is essentially 100% fossil (e.g. chalk). If even only .1% of that sediment was considered to be from animals, the living equivalents would cover the entire earth to a depth of 1 ½ feet.
· To deposit as much sediment as YEC estimates the ratio of water to sediment would be 2:1. That much thick muddy water would kill virtually all marine life.
· The
Karoo Supergroup (southern Africa) has an estimated (from fossil count) 800 billion animals. All would have to have been alive at the flood, per YEC assumptions. This would amount to 21 per acre on average for the entire planet. But they wound up in one location so the density would likely have been greater. And that’s just one fossiliferous geologic formation.
· Repopulation:
o If the entire Phanerozoic portion of the geologic column was deposited during the flood year, very little plant life or seeds would have survived for re-growth so post-flood Noah would have to replant across virtually the entire planet.
o The world’s food chain would have collapsed. The animals, e.g. carnivores, would have nothing to eat except each other or year-old rotting carcasses.
o How will the pairs stay together to mate and with sufficient success to repopulate? You would expect them to run away randomly upon disembarking.
o Some animals need special circumstances to mate – environment, presence of others of the species, etc.
o How would animals cross oceans to get to their present locations?
There may be plausible answers to some of these objections. And miracle obviously comes into play for some of the actions beyond just the flood water itself. But not all miracles are equally plausible. And some consequences of literal thinking here seem very problematic.
