# Evidence of a Global Flood?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [September 12, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425 "2006-09-12T16:07:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/41 "2006-09-12T18:46:31Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> Maybe you’d consider this note from AIG’s site:
> Also, why do we find Trilobites above dinosaur and wolf occasionally? Imperfection in the layering time-line.
Since I had the [talkorigins.org](http://talkorigins.org) site open anyway, [here](http://talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html) is their entry on polystrate fossils. Have you looked at this site? It has a lot of good stuff.
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/42 "2006-09-12T18:46:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> VoyagerHere is the link to the talk origins flood faq. It has a link to the objection to the vapor canopy argument by a creationist. I’ll search for more of this later, no time right now. What you need is a calculation of how much water was in the vapor canopy, and how high it was. Since the final energy is 0, then it is easy - even for a bad physics student like me.
lol…thats the same link I used (well, I gave him the link to the whole FAQ). 😛
-XT
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/43 "2006-09-12T18:47:28Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> Also, why do we find Trilobites above dinosaur and wolf occasionally? Imperfection in the layering time-line.
Landslides and such occasionally tip the chunks of rock upside down, of course; you just end up with the same ordering, upside down. \< on preview \> Like **tomndebb** said.
> [@Interest](#):
>
> You seem to have forgotten Noah in this flood… Nothing DID survive that flood, except what was on the Ark.
Which would produce a far different world than we see. It’s a stupid idea.
> [@Interest](#):
>
> The evidence of such a catastrophic event happening is there, if you have an open mind.
“You should keep your mind open, but not so open that it falls out”. There _is_ no such evidence.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/44 "2006-09-12T18:55:48Z")
To my mind, the most impressive thing about Noah’s saving of all the world’s fauna is the insects.
Think about it. There are 350,000 known species of beetles on earth with an estimated 5 to 10 million more that have not been described by science. Noah would have had to collect between 700,000 and 20,000,000 beetles just to have one breeding pair of each species. Of course if any one of them had died that would have ended the species.
He would have needed to collect millions of ant and bee species as well. But there the whole two-by-two thing wouldn’t cut it. You would need colonies to get the job done. There would have been countless millions of such creatures on the boat. I for one, would not have enjoyed sharing the vessel with army ants.
With the mind-boggling number of bugs needed for this endeavor I wonder how he found the time to collect them all from all parts of the world.
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/45 "2006-09-12T18:57:19Z")
I wasn’t going to touch the whole insect thing myself…
😛
-XT
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### Author:  [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/46 "2006-09-12T19:00:49Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> BTW, guys, your “kinetic energy” issue is based on a flawed reading of Genesis…
:dubious:
Well, yeah, nobody before you made mention that there were these “fountains” in addition to the “windows” of heaven in the story. But since the overall argument is about kinetic energy, I don’t see how that would make a difference.
* * *
BTW, “explaining” the former in terms of a round earth does would not seem to me to be any more of a challenge to a mindset typified by AIG than any other problem they need to rationalize. It would be interesting, though, if someone were willing to debate such a rationalization and how you, for one, would counter it. 🙂
* * *
True Blue Jack
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### Author:  [@Interest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interest)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/47 "2006-09-12T19:05:22Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#):
>
> No they are not; they are layed down in layers, each species in the approprate layer(s) of sedimentary rock. They are organized by time, not a flood; a flood would not neatly place trilobite below dinosaurs below wolves, every single time.
Yes a flood could do that and it can be easily explained in terms of buoyancy.
> **[Buoyancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy)**
>
> Buoyancy (/ˈbɔɪənsi, ˈbuːjənsi/), or upthrust, is an upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of a partially or fully immersed object. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid. Thus the pressure at the bottom of a column of fluid is greater than at the top of the column. Similarly, the pressure at the bottom of an object submerged in a fluid is greater than at the top of the object. The pressure difference results in For...
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> Only if magic is involved. Otherwise you’d have species jumbled together, where dinosaurs would be mixed in with more modern animals, etc. No natural process would separate species into distinct layers and place them with similar species, but not allow earlier or later species to occupy those same layers.
“Magic” = Bouyancy
And your earlier/later species theory is based on the layers in which each species is found in which really means you are basing age on the different species’ buoyancy factor.
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> Also, as I said above, we DO have fossil and geological records of local event floods…and they are certainly not ‘orderly layers’. They are rather distinct in fact…hard to miss.
That’s because they’re local. You need to think global here. As in the entire Earth covered in water. You know, what it will be like when the polar ice caps melt? Ever seen Waterworld?
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> When do you propose that such an event took place…and where is the evidence for it?
If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it rather than simply stating that you have it. I mean, it seems to me like you could at least dig up a pebble to throw at us if there’s a whole mountain involved.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/48 "2006-09-12T19:13:22Z")
I bet that’s the first time in SDMB history that the classic film Waterworld has been used as a cite.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/49 "2006-09-12T19:16:20Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> Yes a flood could do that and it can be easily explained in terms of buoyancy.
> [Buoyancy - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy)
>
> “Magic” = Bouyancy
>
> And your earlier/later species theory is based on the layers in which each species is found in which really means you are basing age on the different species’ buoyancy factor.
Oh, please. And your evidence that a fifty ton dinosaur floats better than a tiny trilobite or insect is ? _Every_ time, not just often or usually ? Face it; not only are you wrong, you are about as wrong as it is possible to get.
> [@Interest](#):
>
> That’s because they’re local. You need to think global here. As in the entire Earth covered in water. You know, what it will be like when the polar ice caps melt? Ever seen Waterworld?
Coastal flooding, flooding of lowlands. _Not_ covering the Earth with water; not even close. By the way, you _do_ know that _Waterworld_ was fiction ?
> [@Interest](#):
>
> If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it rather than simply stating that you have it. I mean, it seems to me like you could at least dig up a pebble to throw at us if there’s a whole mountain involved.
:rolleyes: YOU are the one who has claimed something happened, not anyone else. It’s _your_ responsibility to provide evidence that something happened. It’s not ours to come up with evidence it happened, since we are claiming it _didn’t_.
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### Author:  [@Interest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interest)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/50 "2006-09-12T19:18:37Z")
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> Ironically, you’ve touched on the problem right there in this statement. Would it be worth my while to find you some of those facts explaining how it works…or is your mind made up? I don’t want to waste my time, and I suspect it WOULD be a waste, unfortunately.
I am open to anything you’ve got, if you are open to anything I have.
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> No, I haven’t forgotten it. But, you see, if we go by the Noah account we get a whole NEW crop of problems. For instance, lets say that Noah did in fact manage to somehow get all those plants, animals, etc onto a big boat…and somehow have the logistics to keep them all alive for as long as the flood event (and its after math) transpired. Impossible, but lets wave that away for a bit.
Where exactly is the problem in that? I don’t see it impossible.
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> Unless Noah went around the world on his arc, dropping off species hither and yon, we would see a central point from which all the current species on earth radiated from…presumably Mt Ararat. In addition, unless Noah, undocumented in the bible, managed somehow to gather an incredible diversity of HUMAN genetic material, we would expect to see much less diversity today.
Well, based on the Biblical account of Creation, Adam and Eve had to have a super diverse human genetic material. They had enough genes to produce the human population at the time of Noah’s flood. Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives would have still had this super supply of genes. As the only problem of human reproduction is the shrinking of the gene pool, you are supporting that humans genes started somewhere with a lot of genes, and we continually lose genes. Where, in either theory, evolution or creation, have you seen the ADDITION of genes?
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> Unfortunately for your theory (and the bible), we see neither of those things. We also see…fish. Why? How did the fish all survive? The whales? Crabs? Crustations? Coral? How did all this stuff live through such an event? No place to put killer whales or manatees on the arc after all…how did they live?
Here are ways it could have happened
> **[How Did Fish Survive Noah’s Flood?](https://answersingenesis.org/the-flood/how-did-fish-survive-noahs-flood/)**
>
> This week's positive feedback is from L.N. of the USA, who receives the AiG-U.S. Weekly News.
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> BTW, you still haven’t answered an essential question here. When, exactly, was this event supposed to have taken place? In your theory that is.
The flood? Creation? Well, Biblically, Creation was 6,000 years ago. The flood would have been 2304 BC +/- 11 years.
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### Author:  [@Interest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interest)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/51 "2006-09-12T19:20:11Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> The AIG polystrate claim is false (and, I fear) knowingly so. Fossilized tree polystrates are generally found in the beds of ancient volcanic eruptions. The trees are buried to depths of many feet in a single eruption. They then fossilize and are already resistent to erosion as the rest of the material (usually ash) erodes away. There is no period when a rotting tree is standing above a field of clay that is turning to stone.
>
> As to the rare occasions when trilobites have been found in layers that are encountered above layers containing more developed creatures, that occurs when the Earth’s crust is deformed under pressure in a process called folding. If you take the time to track down the ends of the layers, you will find that they are still consistent with normal deposition over millions of years.
You just showed your bias. By being evolutionarily biased, you automatically assume that they are using an exception. I am creation biased, so I assume they do not use an exception. We don’t see whether they are using an exception or not, so we can’t assume either way.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/52 "2006-09-12T19:23:35Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> Yes a flood could do that and it can be easily explained in terms of buoyancy.
> [Buoyancy - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy)
>
> “Magic” = Bouyancy
>
> And your earlier/later species theory is based on the layers in which each species is found in which really means you are basing age on the different species’ buoyancy factor.
This “explanation” is utterly ludicrous. Mammals are not, as a group, more buoyant than reptiles; trilobites are (or were) no less buoyant than modern aquatic arthropods. If you actually can produce some evidence that the animals in lower strata were UNIFORMLY less bouyant than those in the upper strata, please provide it.
> [@](#):
>
> That’s because they’re local. You need to think global here. As in the entire Earth covered in water. You know, what it will be like when the polar ice caps melt? Ever seen Waterworld?
You are getting your information from bad science fiction movies rather than the Bible? No wonder you are confused. If all the polar caps melted, sea level would rise by about 100 meters, or 300 feet. It wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover even a small mountain.
> [@](#):
>
> If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it rather than simply stating that you have it. I mean, it seems to me like you could at least dig up a pebble to throw at us if there’s a whole mountain involved.
There are of course literally mountains of evidence against a flood as described in the Bible; if you haven’t be able to see a “pebble” of it, then you are wilfully ignoring it.
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### Author:  [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/53 "2006-09-12T19:34:38Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY has a nice display case of Chinese pottery stretching back before the so-called flood, which clearly shows the continuity…
The pottery and other artifacts are interesting, but what I find especially compelling is the continuity of Sumerian, Egyptian and Akkadian languages through the “Deluge” no matter how far back it can be reasonably placed. I once read a thorough argument that the date is shown by comparing internal Bible chronology to other history to be about 2335 B.C., within 50 years either way. (This is consistent, BTW, with what non-skeptics have said, from Ussher to extant fundamentalist websites.) Push it back much further than the 2300’s B.C. and you must abandon the clear language of the Bible.
Here’s another thing about it. IANA linguist, but I’d live to see what they would have to say about the languages around the time of the “Babel” incident being “jump-started” by Divine Intervention. Offhand I think they could write whole books about the problems with it.
* * *
True Blue Jack
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/54 "2006-09-12T19:34:58Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> You just showed your bias. By being evolutionarily biased, you automatically assume that they are using an exception. I am creation biased, so I assume they do not use an exception. We don’t see whether they are using an exception or not, so we can’t assume either way.
Bias and assumptions have nothing to do with it. geological folding is an observed fact. You can SEE the folds and you can see where they broke off and you can see where the layers match up. There is no arbitrary assumption of an “exception.” That’s not how science works.
It’s the same with the polystrate trees. There’s no guessing involved with those and they present no problem for scientists.
AIG is a terrible source of info, by the way. Those who run that site know this stuff as well as we do. They just count on their audience not checking facts.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/55 "2006-09-12T19:38:55Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> Well, based on the Biblical account of Creation, Adam and Eve had to have a super diverse human genetic material. They had enough genes to produce the human population at the time of Noah’s flood. Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives would have still had this super supply of genes. As the only problem of human reproduction is the shrinking of the gene pool, you are supporting that humans genes started somewhere with a lot of genes, and we continually lose genes. Where, in either theory, evolution or creation, have you seen the ADDITION of genes?
It would REALLY help this discussion if you had the slightest grasp of the information you are attempting to throw about.
Humanity has the same number of genes that it has always had since it became human. Genetic diversity refers to the ways in which the same genes in different people have slightly different compositions, how alleles are expressed. Understanding this provides a basic understanding of evolutionary theory, genetics, and a whole host of issues with which you appear to be unfamiliar. (Much like your other thread in which you erroneously claimed that inbreeding leads to more diversity.)
Noah and family could not have had a “super supply” of genes and remained human. All the changes and diversity among humans since the beginning (whether it was Noah and family 5400 years ago or the real development of humanity several hundred thousand years previously) are the result of small changes–mutations–that occur during meiosis at the fertilization of the human egg. The new critter has to match DNA from the paternal donor and the maternal donor, giving something slightly different than either the father or mother, and during that process, some changes creep into the process (which is why all siblings are not identical). Over time, those tiny changes are passed down from one generation to another, spreading increased diversity. Really strange changes result in people who cannot survive or cannot reproduce and are lost, but most simply add to the range of differences among people.
> [@](#):
>
> You just showed your bias. By being evolutionarily biased, you automatically assume that they are using an exception. I am creation biased, so I assume they do not use an exception. We don’t see whether they are using an exception or not, so we can’t assume either way.
No. Geologists have done a pretty solid job of mapping the Earth and we do know that the only locations where earlier forms are found above later forms (and they are rare) have occurred in locations where folding has occurred. That is not bias; that is evidence.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/56 "2006-09-12T19:40:17Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> Where exactly is the problem in that? I don’t see it impossible.
Samples of all life on Earth \>\>\>\>\>\> wooden boat.
> [@Interest](#):
>
> Well, based on the Biblical account of Creation, Adam and Eve had to have a super diverse human genetic material.
No, assuming they existed, they didn’t. They were only 2 people, they could only have 2 people’s worth of genes.
> [@Interest](#):
>
> As the only problem of human reproduction is the shrinking of the gene pool, you are supporting that humans genes started somewhere with a lot of genes, and we continually lose genes. Where, in either theory, evolution or creation, have you seen the ADDITION of genes?
You REALLY have no clue what you are talking about, do you ?
> [@Interest](#):
>
> The flood? Creation? Well, Biblically, Creation was 6,000 years ago. The flood would have been 2304 BC +/- 11 years.
And the Biblical account of creation is pure nonsense, massively contradicted by reality. Believing in it is sheer foolishness.
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### Author:  [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/57 "2006-09-12T19:50:06Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it rather than simply stating that you have it. I mean, it seems to me like you could at least dig up a pebble to throw at us if there’s a whole mountain involved.
You are the one who started this thread, and who is making assertions. The burden of proof is on you.
It seems to me that **Der Trihs** and **xtisme** are having a slow day, because you really haven’t provided any coherent position to debate, let alone anything to indicate that you understand the subjects you’re dealing with.
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### Author:  [@Interest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interest)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/58 "2006-09-12T19:52:21Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#):
>
> Bias and assumptions have nothing to do with it. geological folding is an observed fact. You can SEE the folds and you can see where they broke off and you can see where the layers match up. There is no arbitrary assumption of an “exception.” That’s not how science works.
>
> It’s the same with the polystrate trees. There’s no guessing involved with those and they present no problem for scientists.
>
> AIG is a terrible source of info, by the way. Those who run that site know this stuff as well as we do. They just count on their audience not checking facts.
You are biased, in that your only hope is that this is an exception. If it is the all around truth and fact, you are wrong. I’m a little busy right now to find something that you’ll swallow. (As you’re trying to chunk out my sources as false.)
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/59 "2006-09-12T20:07:53Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> You are biased, in that your only hope is that this is an exception. If it is the all around truth and fact, you are wrong. I’m a little busy right now to find something that you’ll swallow. (As you’re trying to chunk out my sources as false.)
I assure you. we’ve heard all this stuff before. I guessed you were going to bring up sorting - it is the standard response to the problem of the distribution of fossils, and is absurd for the reasons given.
Now, if the disordering of fossils were due to a flood, and not folding, you would not expect to see fossils together in a layer at the bottom also be together in a layer at the top - yet that is exactly what we do see. (You’re invited to provide evidence of fossils from different times being mixed together.) We also see the evolution of sharks, say, through different layers. Are you actually claiming that the buoyancy of different shark species differ more widely than, say, amphibians and dinosaurs?
There are two ways of dealing with a hypothesis and data. The first is to look at the data with an open mind, form a hypothesis that explains it, and see if additional data verifies the hypothesis. The second is to come up with a hypothesis, make a prediction about what the data will show, and test the hypothesis by looking at the data. In both cases intellectual honesty requires one to reject the hypothesis if it is falsified by the data. (Channeling **Lib** here.) The way creationists do it, however, is to start with a hypothesis (an inerrant Bible, the Flood happened) and come up with ways of explaining away any data that doesn’t suit.
So - what data would cause you to reject the flood hypothesis?
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/60 "2006-09-12T20:10:08Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> Well, based on the Biblical account of Creation, Adam and Eve had to have a super diverse human genetic material.
Could you please cite the verse in the Bible that makes this assertion?
Two people can have at most four alleles at any one genetic locus. Since some human genes can have a dozen or more alleles, it would be completely impossible for Adam and Eve to have contained the genetic diversity of all present human populations.
**Interest** , since it is obvious at this point that your grasp of genetics, biology, meteorology, physics, anthropology, and science in general is exceedingly tenuous, perhaps it is not the best idea to try to debate a group of people who collectively are extremely knowledgeable on these subjects. I mean, you haven’t posted a single point so far that hasn’t been thoroughly refuted.
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