# How did Noah care for 8.7 million species? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 23, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830 "2011-08-23T23:28:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/41 "2011-08-24T03:18:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Not necessarily. It could be something as simple as a kid asking “Daddy, where did people come from?”, and the father, not knowing, followed in the grand paternal tradition of making something up without actually believing it. Just because it then got passed down through the ages doesn’t mean any of the folks doing the passing down believed it, either, just that they thought it was a good story. There have been plenty of folk tales passed down that way in more recent times, even though we’re quite certain that no adult ever believed them (see, for instance, any number of stories about Pecos Bill, or Kipling’s Just So stories). I’d wager that they started out as “literal truth” explanations for mysterious things, as Der Trihs suggested, but then gradually became the kind of we-all-know-it’s-a-legend that you suggest, as overall real-world knowledge and understanding slowly increased. (See a parallel development in how the Greeks and Romans regarded their gods.) The Christian church then just continued this process, to the “it’s just a metaphor” stage that the Argentinian doper referred to – “just a metaphor, but still with special significance…lest you start doubting the parts of the Bible we insist you take very, very seriously”. Then, US fundies backtracked to the 5000 BC era, while us non-theists took the obvious next step of seeing it as akin to the Epic of Gilgamesh – a mildly interesting Bronze Age tale that resonates with something in the human mind to make it of enduring interest for many, much like the Three Little Pigs, or the Wizard of Oz, or Troutmaskreplica. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/42 "2011-08-24T03:57:10Z")
It could very well be referring to the kinds of animals that were known to Noah. Most people who believe in God don’t really concern themselves with the details since a 4,000 year old book is bound to get some things wrong. At this point in human history, most people seem to believe that a great flood of some kind occurred at one point. Perhaps Noah knew of it and saved the animals that he knew/he would use in the future? After all, it would seem silly for Noah to try to gather EVERY animal on the Earth if God was so hellbent on destroying everything. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/43 "2011-08-24T06:11:34Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > OK, here is what I got so far. The quick answer is the environment provided by Mother Earth will guide the animal kind to evolve to the result Mother Earth wants. It is like a mother guiding her child to adulthood with a carrier, each child guided differently to their end result. The limits are what the child’s makeup is, like this child can do X,Y, or Z but will not do A,B, orC, so what the mother can mold the child into is limited by in this case the father. more on that below. > > The longer answer: > Mother Earth is a angel. Angels do not marry according to scripture, but God is very heavy in the be fruitful and multiply. So there is a lot of boinking in heaven and lots of children. > > Each animal ‘kind’ may be from a different male mating partner with Mother Earth. The reason for Noah to save each kind was so Mother Earth will not lose a makeup of a child. > > Though Mother Earth molds the ‘child’ into many forms (species) there is a limit, the Father of that ‘kind’, who would also be a angel. The mother does not have total control (therefore evolution can’t push something too far) and the apple can’t fall that far from the tree (aspects of the father will be maintained). That’s all nice and cosy and all, but are you even interested in whether it stacks up against observable reality? ‘Maybe’ is a great place yo start an inquiry, but a terrible place to arrive at as a conclusion. There’s no more reason to siege upon this (frankly plain wrong) notion of ‘kinds’ than there would be to, say, argue that Noah only needed one example of each group of animals whose name happened to rhyme. Hogs and dogs? Don’t need 'em because we’ve already got frogs. Your analogy of apples not falling far from the tree may be unintentionally apt. You see it’s generally true that an apple won’t fall far from the tree- bit this is ONLY a statement of how change may be limited **in one generation**. The apples that fall from the tree that subsequently grows can thus fall a little farther still from the location of their grandparent, and so on. To assert that variation of animals is somehow only possible within limits is to assert that ALL apples, past present and future, can only ever fall close to where the first apple tree ever grew. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/44 "2011-08-24T06:14:26Z")
Gag. 'Siege upon was meant to be seize upon, obviously. Grumblebloodyautocorrect… ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/45 "2011-08-24T06:21:12Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Noah: “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” You ever heard of the Tardis? You think an all powerful god can’t “instruct” every species where to be and what to do? And he created the earth - you think he can’t then create something like the tardis to make the ark viable? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/46 "2011-08-24T11:48:30Z")
> [@REDEYZZ](#): > > [Planet Earth is home to 8.7 million species, scientists estimate | Biodiversity | The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/23/species-earth-estimate-scientists) > Would someone care to explain how Noah was able to take care of approximately 8.7 million creatures? > > How did he feed them all? > How did he clean up the waste? > How did he gather them all? > How did he get them to all to successfully mate? > How did he fit them on the boat? > How did fish survive with all that fresh water in the ocean?(or did he have 3 million aquariums on board?) > > I can’t quite put my finger on it…but something does not add up here… :dubious: Well, he wouldn’t have to worry about the sea creatures, so that reduces the number by quite a bit. Of course, that ignores the effect of fresh water on salt water species, but that’s a minor point… ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/47 "2011-08-24T11:54:45Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > You ever heard of the Tardis? > > You think an all powerful god can’t “instruct” every species where to be and what to do? > > And he created the earth - you think he can’t then create something like the tardis to make the ark viable? The Bible is pretty good about boasting on miracles. I’m pretty sure “And GOD made the ark larger on the inside than it was on the outside” would have been mentioned if it was true. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/48 "2011-08-24T11:58:39Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > You ever heard of the Tardis? > > You think an all powerful god can’t “instruct” every species where to be and what to do? > > And he created the earth - you think he can’t then create something like the tardis to make the ark viable? I think we may have two pop cultural references talking past each other here, both employing a little sarcastic humor to mock the absurdity of the Noah myth as literal truth… but just to make sure we’re on the same page, bangagmo, that quote was from [Jaws](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/quotes). And I see that “tardis” is a Dr. Who concept/invention. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/49 "2011-08-24T12:09:20Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, he wouldn’t have to worry about the sea creatures… Well, except the ones that wouldn’t tolerate the inevitable turbidity that would occur when impossibly vast amounts of water arrived on the whole planet at once. ---
**Author:** ![namliekj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7bcc69/32.png) [@namliekj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/namliekj)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/50 "2011-08-24T13:52:30Z")
I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat!!! ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/51 "2011-08-24T13:57:25Z")
> [@namliekj](#): > > I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat!!! Great minds, and all that… (sigh) ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/52 "2011-08-24T14:47:09Z")
He never had to worry about aquatic species. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/53 "2011-08-24T15:12:08Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > I always thought it kind of sad that all the dinosaurs were too evil to be allowed on the ark. ☹ Actually, dinosaurs were simply too large to fit on the ark – so instead, Noah collected two of each kind of dinosaur egg, timed to hatch after the forty days and forty nights had transpired. Then, during the flood, Mrs. Noah surprised her husband with a fresh omelette breakfast… > [@kanicbird](#): > > God is very heavy in the be fruitful and multiply. So there is a lot of boinking in heaven… Ooh…I’m converting ASAP! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/54 "2011-08-24T15:12:38Z")
> [@Gymnopithys](#): > > He never had to worry about aquatic species. :smack: But did have to worry about xerophytic/xerophilic plants (which couldn’t make their own way to the ark, even if Noah was interested and had space for them), so it’s a bit of a wash, if you’ll pardon the pun ---
**Author:** ![OneMissedPost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@OneMissedPost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneMissedPost)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/55 "2011-08-24T15:22:04Z")
\*\*My opinion: \*\* Many people are taking the story literally. I do not think it is meant to be taken verbatim. It’s just a story that teaches a moral lesson. Did Noah actually bring two of every species on his boat? I would say that it would be impossible. Did this actually happen? Probably not. Should we take the story literally like it actually happened? No. Should we attempt to find out it’s moral lesson? Definitely, yes. > [@REDEYZZ](#): > > How did he feed them all? > How did he clean up the waste? > How did he gather them all? > How did he get them to all to successfully mate? > How did he fit them on the boat? > How did fish survive with all that fresh water in the ocean?(or did he have 3 million aquariums on board?) It’s just a story - similar to those Greek myths. Myth does not equal fact. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/56 "2011-08-24T15:52:31Z")
[QUOTE=buddha\_david] Actually, dinosaurs were simply too large to fit on the ark – so instead, Noah collected two of each kind of dinosaur egg, timed to hatch after the forty days and forty nights had transpired. Then, during the flood, Mrs. Noah surprised her husband with a fresh omelette breakfast… [/QUOTE] Your theory is unsound on two counts. First off, there were small dinosaurs as well as big ones. Clearly the small ones COULD have gone on the ark, but were Left Behind™. Thus, they were too evil to be allowed to be on the ark with the good creatures of the earth like skunks and the like. Secondly, everyone knows that Noah hated dinosaur omelets for breakfast, preferring a nice herring and snail scramble. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/57 "2011-08-24T15:59:56Z")
> [@OneMissedPost](#): > > \*\*My opinion: \*\* > Should we attempt to find out it’s moral lesson? Definitely, yes. Could it be: “It’s OK to kill everyone in a fit of rage, as long as you think they deserve it, and promise afterward not to do it again.” ? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/58 "2011-08-24T16:21:15Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > That’s all nice and cosy and all, but are you even interested in whether it stacks up against observable reality? ‘Maybe’ is a great place yo start an inquiry, but a terrible place to arrive at as a conclusion. > > There’s no more reason to siege upon this (frankly plain wrong) notion of ‘kinds’ than there would be to, say, argue that Noah only needed one example of each group of animals whose name happened to rhyme. Hogs and dogs? Don’t need 'em because we’ve already got frogs. > > Your analogy of apples not falling far from the tree may be unintentionally apt. You see it’s generally true that an apple won’t fall far from the tree- bit this is ONLY a statement of how change may be limited **in one generation**. The apples that fall from the tree that subsequently grows can thus fall a little farther still from the location of their grandparent, and so on. > > To assert that variation of animals is somehow only possible within limits is to assert that ALL apples, past present and future, can only ever fall close to where the first apple tree ever grew. Thanks for all this. In looking at the flood as stated in scriptures from the POV that there is such a God, we have this strange notion of a animal ‘kind’, it is a very strange wording in our time and I assume back then too. Such a God would have known that the word animal kind would be strange today and back then. God makes sure to use it a few times, not just one place, so we have to assume it’s there for a reason - because we are assuming that there is such a God. We then look to the reason, we know that unless God uses something woo like, we can’t fit all the species of animals in the ark, nor can all the species get to the ark. Under this assumption we have that the animal kinds are not the species but something much less numerous, but also capable of repopulating the earth with all the species we have today. This would indicate some sort of groups of elemental creatures that once disembarked could be used to form all the individual species. It would also indicate that every such animal kind was in near proximity to Noah, so in a given area there is a community of all the kinds (this BTW is close to some Native American spiritual beliefs about local communities of animals and plants). So Noah really just had a small amount of local animals in this model. The Ark would be more of a bio-dome then a holding pen. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/59 "2011-08-24T16:41:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Not necessarily. It could be something as simple as a kid asking “Daddy, where did people come from?”, and the father, not knowing, followed in the grand paternal tradition of making something up without actually believing it. Just because it then got passed down through the ages doesn’t mean any of the folks doing the passing down believed it, either, just that they thought it was a good story. There have been plenty of folk tales passed down that way in more recent times, even though we’re quite certain that no adult ever believed them (see, for instance, any number of stories about Pecos Bill, or Kipling’s Just So stories). The problem with this is where did such a story originally come from. In spirituality dreams, thoughts, fantasies mean things they are used as insights into deeper truths. The scriptures is a spiritual implement, a way of understanding things and by using the scriptures for a spiritual purpose its origins are taken as spiritually inspired. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830/60 "2011-08-24T18:35:31Z")
Maybe Noah wasn’t the only one to carry out the mission. There are flood myths in many cultures and they vary but they are there. > **[List of flood myths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths)** > > Flood myths are common across a wide range of cultures, extending back into Bronze Age and Neolithic prehistory. These accounts depict a flood, sometimes global in scale, usually sent by a deity or deities to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution. > Although the continent has relatively few flood legends, African cultures preserving an oral tradition of a flood include the Kwaya, Mbuti, Maasai, Mandin, and Yoruba peoples. > Egypt > Floods were seen as beneficial in Ancient Egypt, and... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-noah-care-for-8-7-million-species/593830.md?page=4)