# 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:** 4
### Author:  [@Pazu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pazu)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/61 "2006-09-12T20:12:32Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> You are biased, in that your only hope is that this is an exception.
If it weren’t the exception, wouldn’t polystrate fossils in fact be more common than they are? Wouldn’t they, then, be the rule, rather than the exception?
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### Author:  [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/62 "2006-09-12T20:17:15Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> The flood? Creation? Well, Biblically, Creation was 6,000 years ago. The flood would have been 2304 BC +/- 11 years.
You have answered at last. Please read my comment to Voyager about **ONE** of the problems for history and linguistics if what “would have been” had actually happened. (We essentialy agree on the necessary time-frame.)
I don’t want to be too rough on you, because I was once in the same – you’ll pardon the expression – BOAT! 🙂 I kept trying to pin down people with arguments I couldn’t support.
Here’s more. Your “Flood”, would have destroyed Stonehenge, the oldest Egyptian pyramids, and 100,000+ annual layers of polar ice accumulation as shown by ice-core samples.
Picture me holding up my right index finger and blowing across it. It’s been fun and you have had a good run. Perhaps the next time you choose to debate it will be something you can maintain. I wish you well.
* * *
True Blue Jack
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/63 "2006-09-12T20:18:01Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> Are you actually claiming that the buoyancy of different shark species differ more widely than, say, amphibians and dinosaurs?
**Interest** is correct on the bouyancy issue. Creationists are clear proof that recent beings can be full of hot air.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/64 "2006-09-12T20:22:16Z")
> [@kelly5078](#):
>
> 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.
It’s entertaining; the Creationist version of Whack-a-mole.
“Fossils on mountains” \< WHACK \>
"Floodwater ordered the fossils \< WHACK \>
“The Earth’s crust was changed” \< WHACK \>
“Super genetic Adam and Eve” \< WHACK \>
“Buoyancy !” \< WHACK \>
“Waterworld” \< WHACK \>
---
### Author:  [@Interest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interest)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/65 "2006-09-12T20:27:06Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
What do you think of this article?:
> **[Creation, Mutation, and Variation](https://www.icr.org/article/171/)**
>
> "Enormous," "tremendous," "staggering"—all these are adjectives used by geneticist Francisco Ayala to describe the amount of variation that can be expressed among the members of a single species.1 Human beings, for example, range from very tall to...
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### Author:  [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/66 "2006-09-12T20:47:27Z")
> [@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.)
:rolleyes:
Look: geologists aren’t just making this up to suit evolution. Creationist geologists were realizing this before evolution was even proposed. It’s not some “saving grace” made up to fit: its demonstrated by countless different lines of evidence all supporting the same conclusion.
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### Author:  [@Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greenback)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/67 "2006-09-12T20:50:23Z")
**Interest** , not to blow your cover but are you my pastor? If not, then he gets his information the same place you do.
> [@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.
> [@interest](#):
>
> Where exactly is the problem in that? I don’t see it impossible.
You don’t see any problem keeping a very large zoo fed and cared for over the course of 200+ days? And like I tell others when I’m in these conversations, saying ‘God did it’ is not a valid answer.
I actually developed the idea of super genetics independently when I was about 14 or 15. I went on to research it a bit and found that my idea rested on faith alone, with no evidence or science to support it. I tossed the idea. I suggest you do the same.
**Voyager** has already offered up the two proper methods of developing a theory, echoing a well known board member obsessed with logic. He has also showed how the creationist method is flawed. Read post #59 again and see if you can spot the flaw in logic.
I’d like to add further: Do you really think that there has been a conspiracy that has spanned 2000+ years, with the soul purpose of invalidating the creation myth? Do you think all the scientists in history, many of them believers, have had the bible beside their notes for comparison? The theory of an old earth was around long before evolutionary theory. In fact, the geological research that led to the conclusion that earth is ancient opened the door for scientists to look at how species develop of vast periods of time. Then some guy gets in a boat and sees a finch with a different beak, badda bing badda boom, you’ve got the _origin of species_
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/68 "2006-09-12T20:54:51Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> What do you think of this article?:
> [Creation, Mutation, and Variation | The Institute for Creation Research](http://icr.org/article/171/)
> [@Gary Parker](#):
>
> What happened as the descendants of our first parents (and of Noah’s family) multiplied over the earth? If those with very dark skin color (AABB) moved into the same area and/or chose to marry only those with very dark skin color, then all their children would be limited to very dark skin color. Similarly, children of parents with very light skin color (aabb) could have only very light skin, since their parents would have only “small a’s and b’s” to pass on. Parents with genotypes AAbb or aaBB would be limited to producing only children with medium-skin color. But where people of different backgrounds get back together again, as they do in the West Indies, then their children can once again express the full range of variation.
So all the people with dark-skin genes moved to Africa, and southern India, and Australia, and those with light-skin genes moved to Europe? And it’s purely coincidence that people with dark skin colours are in the tropics, and people with light skin colours are in cool tempoerate climates? Sounds like wishful thinking to me, wanting to deny natural selection even on aq small scale within a single species.
And why do people with different skin colours get back together again, mating in the West Indies, when they’ve been avoiding this for all the centuries previously? Is there something in the Caribbean air that encourages miscegenation, while whities and blackies kept well away from having sex each other as they moved away from Mount Ararat, or wherever else the Ark was supposed to land?
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### Author:  [@Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greenback)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/69 "2006-09-12T21:02:45Z")
It makes sense. Our species has always been racist.
Us caucasians went north and waited until all the southern dark-skins got sunstroke. Then we attacked. We would have expanded sooner but it’s cold up here.
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### Author:  [@Interest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interest)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/70 "2006-09-12T21:24:12Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> 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.
And if you can’t provide a “pebble” of it, you’re willfully bluffing…
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### Author:  [@Interest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interest)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/71 "2006-09-12T21:28:05Z")
> [@True Blue Jack](#):
>
> Here’s more. Your “Flood”, would have destroyed Stonehenge, the oldest Egyptian pyramids, and 100,000+ annual layers of polar ice accumulation as shown by ice-core samples.
How do you know how old those things are
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### Author:  [@Interest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interest)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/72 "2006-09-12T21:29:09Z")
I have a question. It doesn’t have a lot to do with what everyone is currently talking about, but it does have to do with Evolution.
Where are all the transitional forms?
I know they’ve found things like ‘Lucy’ and probably more, but if Evolution is true (I only accept it as a theory) then after millions and millions of years of creatures slowly changing into the animals we know today, then there should be thousands of transitional forms. In fact we should be up to our armpits in them, but scientists have only found a few.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/73 "2006-09-12T21:38:02Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> How do you know how old those things are
Polar ice sheets freeze in annual layers. When you take a core sample (which basically entails boring into the into the ice with a hollow, cylindrical drill and pulling out a “core” shaped sample) you can count the annual layers like the rings of a tree.
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### Author:  [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/74 "2006-09-12T21:40:51Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> Where are all the transitional forms?
Well, a lot of them are kept in places like the Smithsonian. Does that answer your question?
> [@](#):
>
> I know they’ve found things like ‘Lucy’ and probably more, but if Evolution is true (I only accept it as a theory) then after millions and millions of years of creatures slowly changing into the animals we know today, then there should be thousands of transitional forms. In fact we should be up to our armpits in them, but scientists have only found a few.
The reality is that you probably don’t know what a transitional form is, and are expecting the wrong things out of the fossil record.
But you tell me: what do you think a transitional form is? How would you know it when you see it? What do you think it would be characterized by?
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/75 "2006-09-12T21:41:17Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> I have a question. It doesn’t have a lot to do with what everyone is currently talking about, but it does have to do with Evolution.
>
> Where are all the transitional forms?
>
> I know they’ve found things like ‘Lucy’ and probably more, but if Evolution is true (I only accept it as a theory) then after millions and millions of years of creatures slowly changing into the animals we know today, then there should be thousands of transitional forms. In fact we should be up to our armpits in them, but scientists have only found a few.
Oh no. The transitional fossil question. He’s got us now. Whatever shall we do?
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/76 "2006-09-12T21:43:03Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> I have a question. It doesn’t have a lot to do with what everyone is currently talking about, but it does have to do with Evolution.
>
> Where are all the transitional forms?
>
> I know they’ve found things like ‘Lucy’ and probably more, but if Evolution is true (I only accept it as a theory) then after millions and millions of years of creatures slowly changing into the animals we know today, then there should be thousands of transitional forms. In fact we should be up to our armpits in them, but scientists have only found a few.
Oooooo, a classic. Look in the mirror. _Everything_ is a “transitional form”.
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### Author:  [@Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greenback)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/77 "2006-09-12T21:45:15Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#):
>
> Oh no. The transitional fossil question. He’s got us now. Whatever shall we do?
If evolution were true, shouldn’t creationists be developing different arguments?
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### Author:  [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/78 "2006-09-12T21:47:17Z")
Just to be clear, Interest, what you really need to understand is that when people say that evolution is descent with modification, they mean it.
There is no transitional form that is half-fish, half-reptile. There never will be. Such a thing like asking for there to be something like “half-bird, half-duck.” All life is sub-categories, variations on what came before. It ISN’T one thing turning into something else, and certainly not a modern thing turning into another modern thing (it’s a little more messy than that, because scientists don’t really use terms like “reptile” and “fish” in such a way, as those terms are sloppy an incomplete categories).
For instance:
Birds aren’t just descended from dinosaurs: they ARE dinosaurs (if we have that lineage correct, and at this point, we’re pretty much sure we do). So you will never find a half-dinosaur/half-bird. All birds ARE dinosaurs. What you will find, then, are ALL birds bearing distinctive features that are variations on the basic dinosaur bodyplan. And you will find fossils of dinosaurs that have features found in modern birds: like feathers, for instance. These fossils may not be the direct ancestors of modern birds (some could be, some could not be), but these distinctive features mark them as demonstrating key morphological transitions along a particular branch of life.
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/79 "2006-09-12T21:49:23Z")
> [@Greenback](#):
>
> If evolution were true, shouldn’t creationists be developing different arguments?
No: natural selection would predict that those with bad arguments would die out, and only those with good arguments would survive and produce progeny. The problem is that the process is very slow, and takes many generations.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2006, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-global-flood/372425/80 "2006-09-12T21:54:33Z")
> [@Interest](#):
>
> The eruption of Mount Saint Helens produced many layers in one quick mud slide. Orderly layers are produced quickly in a catastrophic flood.
Which eruption of Mount St. Helens? Mount St. Helens is a [composite volcano](http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/summary_mount_st_helens.html) (or stratovolcano), a term for steep-sided, often symmetrical cones constructed of alternating layers of lava flows, ash, and other volcanic debris.
Are you talking about the 1980 eruption? The 1980-86 dome building period? The current eruption that has been going for almost two years now? Or the myriad of eruptions going back, perhaps 10,000 years?
Have you ever been, or studied Mount St. Helens? There is nothing orderly about it, other than it erupts with regularity (according to geologic time frames).
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