Excellent criticism. But I don't think it will get you out of your
problem.Unless you heat treat the sealed container, you will get anaerobic
bacterial fermentation I believe. This is what they do to make wine and
beer!
Secondly, without heat treating you might get botulism in your containers.
There is sufficient moisture in the grains and other foods for the bacteria
to live. Modern canning techniques would be required, then you might solve
this problem.
Joe wrote:
>>Iron ore and clay deposits: enough raw materials could have been
brought in the ark to last a few years, possibly a decade or two.
After all, how quickly could 8 people be expected to wear out
their tools and kitchenware anyway? To find the buried deposits
in the post flood world, go back to the creation account. Why did
God put the stars in the heavens? For "signs" and "times"!!! What
does that mean? the most sensible thing to me is - Signs tell you
where you're at, and times, well, what time IS it anyway? the
stars were put there so people could navigate and know what time
it was (at least within a few days anyway). So in the 120 years
prior to the flood, deposits of useful minerals were located and
charted by means of celestial navigation, then re-located and dug
up in the decades, perhaps centuries after the flood. As has
already been mentioned, Noah lived 359 years after leaving the
ark. <<
There are more important things to put on the ark than iron ore or clay. Food
and water for one. The difficulty with the load on the ark depends upon how
many animals you put on the ark and how large the ark is. Assuming a global
flood, just a few thousand years ago, the problem is nightmarish.. What I
calculate, I calculate as if the animals needed to eat and carried on normal
activities. If God did everything miraculously, as He certainly could have
done, then all this is out. But the problem is that Young earth creationists
do not use the aspect of miracle to avoid the objections very often so if
they don't use itin this case, here are the problems with the ark. A further
discussion of this issue can be found in my book.
Whitcomb and Morris, suggest that there were 35,000 animals (average size of
the sheep) on the ark.(See Genesis Flood, p. 65-69). They state that the ark
was equivalent in capacity to 522 railroad cars. They assign 13% of the
ark's volume for the cages but he has them packed in quite tightly as if they
were on a stock railroad car.
A sheep has about 1.5 times the body mass of an average human. (Encyclopedia
Britannica II, 1982, p. 12) Using this fact we can deduce several facts about
what needed to be on the ark. A human passes 1.5 liters of urine per day
("Excretion, Human", Encylcopedia Britannica, 7, 1982, p. 35 and 40.) and the
average dailey stool of a human is 250 grams (.25 kg) (see Software Toolworks
Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1992, "feces") Scaling these up to the size of the
sheep, it means that around 2.25 liters of urine per day are produced and
.375 kg of feces are produced per animal. Thus multiplying by 35,000 means
that 78,750 liters of urine per day and 13,125 kg of feces must be removed.
Since most of the ark would be below the water line, this means energy must
be expended to raise this mess up and out. This is almost 2 tons of feces
per person in the ark! And this does not account for the weight of the
urine.
Now over the 370 days on the ark, this represents the cumulative
production of a volume of urine equal to 70 percent of the ark's capacity.
They would be unable to drink the water outside of the ark because it would
be as salty as the sea under most models of the flood. Remember, Whitcomb
and Morris, (P. 128) suggest that the continents were uplifted after the
flood which means that the sea water IS the flood water. Thus since the sea
water is too salty for almost all land animals, it would have been too salty
for them on the ark. Thus, in order for them to survive, 70 percent of the
ark's volume needed to consist of water. Thus between the animals and the
water we now have 83 percent of the ark occupied.
The following is a little gross. For various observational reasons,
(flotation) feces vary in density between values less than 1 gram / cc to a
little over. So let us assume that the feces are 1.5 gram per cc and this
will underestimate the volume required to store the food. Since there are
13,125,000 grams per day this is 8.75 million cubic centimeters of feces per
day. Over the 370 days there would be 3.2 billion cubic centimeters of dung
produced. If the food was of a similar density then 10 percent of the ark's
volume must be for food. So now we have 93 percent of the ark's volume
accounted for.
But wait. What about AIR? There are 39.5 million liters in the volume of
the entire ark. 93% of it is now occupied with food, water and animals
leaving only 2.7 million liters of air. Man respires oxygen at 200
milliliters per kg per hour. Since only 20 percent of the atmosphere is
oxygen then applying this to sheep we have .2 * 155 kg= 31 liters / hour /
sheep. Multiplying by 35,000 sheep= 1,085,000 liters per hour of oxygen
required. To get this much oxygen, the animals must breathe in 5 times that
much volume. So the volume of air respired each hour is 5,425,000 liters.
But we saw that only 2.7 million liters remain. 2.7/5.4=.5. The oxygen in
the ark would be used up in about half an hour. Everyone dies.
If you want to take iron ore and coal on-board the ark, you exasperate the
problem and suffocate everyone in an even shorter time.
I do not present these calculations to say that there was no flood. All I
say is that the flood Christians commonly envision, is impossible unless God
did it all miraculously. In my opinion, it would be better to say this than
to say that we have scientific answers which support the Biblical account. A
local flood, with fewer animals needed on the ark is much more rational than
what is needed for a global flood.
Joe writes:
>>After all, how quickly could 8 people be expected to wear out
their tools and kitchenware anyway? <<
After shoveling 2 tons of manure per day, those iron implements may not last
too long.
Joe wrote, I believe in response to my criticism that a person on the post
flood earth, searching for ore would not be able to find his way home:
>> To find the buried deposits
in the post flood world, go back to the creation account. Why did
God put the stars in the heavens? For "signs" and "times"!!! What
does that mean? the most sensible thing to me is - Signs tell you
where you're at, and times, well, what time IS it anyway? the
stars were put there so people could navigate and know what time
it was (at least within a few days anyway). So in the 120 years
prior to the flood, deposits of useful minerals were located and
charted by means of celestial navigation, then re-located and dug
up in the decades, perhaps centuries after the flood. As has
already been mentioned, Noah lived 359 years after leaving the
ark. <<
Knowing what time it is within even one day does not help you locate yourself
on the surface of the earth. In order to locate yourself along the longitude
with an accuracy of 1 mile, you must know what time it is to an accuracy of 1
minute. To locate yourself with 1 mile in latitude you must be able to
measure the position of the north star to within an accuracy of 1/60th of a
degree. This type of accuracy would probably not have been available to Noah
et al. It certainly was not available to his descendants until after the
1300's.
Joe wrote:
>>Health: Since I haven't seen a whole lot of YEC explanation for
certain things here on the reflector I'll just open myself up for
all sorts of scorn and ridicule by mentioning some YEC dogma.
According to some YEC literature I have read, the atmospheric
pressure and oxygen content was considerably higher pre-flood
than it is today. many of the large dinosaurs have been found to
have lung capacity inadequate for survival in today's 14.7 psia,
21% O2 atmosphere. The YEC literature speculates that pressure
was at least double what it is today and O2 somewhere between 30%
and 40%<<
Oxygen becomes toxic at certain pressures greater than today's. If one is
going to postulate a higher oxygen content one needs to be sure you are not
poisoning the world. Secondly, for every 1% that oxygen rises in the
atmosphere you get a doubling of the chance for lightening caused fires.
High oxygen content in the atmosphere leads to more forest fires and thus to
a lower content of oxygen in the atmosphere.
Joe wrote:
>> Furthermore, they speculate that the Waters Above the
Firmament was actual liquid water, held up there by frozen
Hydrogen. This arrangement explains a number of things regarding
health as well as the flood itself. First, the water barrier
keeps out harmful UV from the sun and the hi O2 makes is hard for
alot of harmful bacteria to survive. this is why lifetimes were
so long in the pre-flood world.<<
Jody Dillow, a young-earth creationist who believes in the canopy examined
the radiation idea for a connection to longevity. He wrote:
>>"Experiments have been conducted in which mice were placed hundreds of feet
below the ground to shield them fjrm all comsic radiation. There was no
indication of an increase in longevity in either the parents or their
offspring.
"So it appears that canopy theorists have been in error when they
appealed to the shielding effect of the canopy as a direct explanation for
antediluvian longevity. Furthermore it seems incorrect to postulate that
increacesed levels of radiation after the canopy precipitated had any direct
bearing on the decrease of longevity. This is true because the levels of
radiation experienced today are insufficient to have any effect and are of
the wrong kind, that is, mostely ultraviolet instead of x-rays, and gamma
rays." Joseph C. Dillow, _The Water's Above_, Moody, 1981, p.170
Secondly, the solid hydrogen canopy is an idea advanced by Carl Baugh. I
wouldn't believe a thing Carl Baugh says. His book advocating this frozen
hydrogen canopy is quite a hoot. He writes:
"The statement is made that this light 'ruled the day.' Scientists and
researchers are finding that the most important color in the entire spectrum
is pink. This is the color that is produced by energized hydrogen. They
find that plants grow better under pink light and that individuals respond in
mood to pink light. Researchers have found that when a person is affeected
by the right spectrum of pink light, the brain secretes norepinephren.
Norepinephren is a natural tranquilizer and neurotransmitter. Before the
flood, man was dominated by various spectra of pink light. The tranquility
of his environment offered him the ability to have his brain work at maximum
efficiency. The firmament made that possible with a gentle pink glow in
various spectral forms, with the greater light ruling the day and the lesser
light ruling the night." p. 50-51 Carl E. Baugh, Panorama of Creation
(Southwest Radio Church, 1989.)
And
"NASA has found that when a red filter is used in space, the stars appear in
beaurtiful color. This is exciting because God put the stellar bodies in
space for signs, for days, for months, and for years. We understand that by
observing the rotation of the earth in relation to the movement of the sun
and moon, and other heavenly bodies, we can tell times. But now we can
perceive that with the enhancement of the light, those before the flood
could, by the configuration of the stars, tell time at any moment." p. 61
I just quote em. He also believes that a living pteranadon was chipped out
of solid rock. He cites this as proof that the flood was a few thousand
years ago. A pteranodon, you see, could live without oxygen for a few
thousand years, but not for a few million. Thus, the pteranodon could only
have been buried since the recent flood.
On a more serious note, concerning the the water vapor canopy, see G.R.
Morton, "Can the Canopy Hold Water?" Creation REsearch Society Quarterly,
Dec. 1979, pp 164-169. I was the first YEC to calculate surface temperature
under various sized canopies. It would be too hot for life.(in excess of the
boiling point of water) A more recent and accurate calculation was done by
two ICR scientists. They wrote of my calculation:
>>"Morton(1979) was apparently the first to conclude that the canopy
would have made the earth's surface too hot for human habitation
(Kofahl did not calculate surface temperatures). Morton made a
number of assumptions that greatly simplified the problem, and his
surface temperatures are much higher than ours, but the general
conclusion is the same: Life as we know it would not have been
possible under a conopy of 1013 mb (1 atm), nor even with a canopy
of only 50 mb. Whenother features such as clouds are added to the
model, this conclusion could be modified greatly, however.
Preliminary explorations with cloud layers at the top of the 50 mb
canopy have shown significant radiation effects which lower the
surface temperature drastically. Unfortunately, while the surface
temperature decreases when clouds are added, so does the
temperature of the canopy, reducing its stability."~David E. Rush
and Larry Vardiman, "Pre-Flood Vapor Canopy Radiative Temperature
Profiles," in Robert E. Walsh, and Christopher L. Brooks,
Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism,
(Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship, 1990), p. 238<<
Since I did that calculation on an old Rockwell calculator which would only
add, subtract, multiply and divide, and was not programmable, you bet I
simplified the problem. But they agree with my conclusion. The earth under
the canopy would be too hot. Yet ICR still teaches the canopy. Why?
Joe wrote:
>> It is quite
possible that modern science a hundred years from now will
explain things quite differently than what we think now just like
Copernicus and Galileo explained things differently from Ptolemy
and Aristotle. All I know for sure is that time will prove the
scriptures right; it always has and always will; we just don't
agree on what is to be taken literally and what can be taken
allegorically or otherwise. <<
I agree that future science will know more than we do. But that does not
give us license to ignore current scientific data.
Joe you wrote:
>>Since I haven't seen a whole lot of YEC explanation for
certain things here on the reflector I'll just open myself up for
all sorts of scorn and ridicule by mentioning some YEC dogma. <<
In my opiinion the scorn should be for those who propose things and fail to
examine the consequences and then deal with those problems. I deserve some
of the scorn for some of the things I proposed as a YEC. Failure to deal
realistically with the scientific data misleads people and that is a crime.
No scorn falls to you.
glenn