The Creation Museum evolves

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Hm.

Turns out building Noah's Ark is really expensive and hard work. Who would have guessed...

Also, here's an image for you, if Mythbusters had a billion dollar budget:

"We're going to take this life-sized reconstruction of Noah's Ark and tow it out into the Atlantic to see if it can survive ocean conditions. Animal cruelty regulations forbid us from using actual animals on the ark, so we made do with umpty zillion dummies and a pile of grain to feed them all."

Ocean conditions are just the start of their troubles. Part of their idiotic theory is that the Earth's surface was much flatter during the Great Flood. This is their way of explaining where all the water went: according to this "theory", the water didn't actually go anywhere: the continents rose up and the oceans moved down, so the water just rearranged itself into oceans and dry continents. Of course, this means that vast expanses of land (literally millions of square miles) moved up or down by many kilometres during a six month period.

Now, if we consider the phenomenon of rogue waves and tsunamis that can occur from a piece of continental shelf shifting by a few metres, and then imagine millions of square miles of land shooting up three or four kilometres over a period of a few months, we can see a rather obvious problem with this scenario: Noah's boat would not just sink; it would be obliterated by giant waves the likes of which no human being has ever seen. It would be smashed into toothpicks.

Near the shores as they appear is the worst place to be, but what about in the middle of the ocean, where the average depth is around 4km? Since Tsunamis grow far taller as they move inshore, how tall can they be in the deep ocean when the wavelength is on the order of hundreds of kilometres?

[evilsoup]

This is pretty irrelevant anyway. According to the Bible, God sent the flood, God told Noah to get in the Ark - if He wanted to, surely God could just protect them from the waves created by his magic.

[Serafina]

IIRC Tsunamis can also interact and amplify normal wave patterns. And the waves in the middle of a major ocean are already damn big. Now imagine them after 40 days of catastrophic weather patterns.

Not to mention that, if that much water really fell from the skies, the sheer kinetic energy released would be catastropic and turn a good chunk of that water into steam. Especially when we take some Creationists proposal that that water came from "outside the atmosphere" (to circumvent the problem of requiring massive, sun-blocking clouds for decades), which means that ALL of it would be steam - and to my knowledge, giant wooden boats do not float on clouds of superheated steam.

[Ultonius]

This is pretty irrelevant anyway. According to the Bible, God sent the flood, God told Noah to get in the Ark - if He wanted to, surely God could just protect them from the waves created by his magic.

Building the Ark as God commanded him to was a sign of Noah's obedience and humility. Really, that's the whole point of the story, something that seems to have escaped the people behind the Creation Museum. Whether it happened exactly as the Bible describes, or if it was simply a man putting his family and livestock on a smaller boat or fleet of boats to survive a local flood simply shouldn't be that important, if you believe the underlying message.

[Simon_Jester]

Ocean conditions are just the start of their troubles. Part of their idiotic theory is that the Earth's surface was much flatter during the Great Flood. This is their way of explaining where all the water went: according to this "theory", the water didn't actually go anywhere: the continents rose up and the oceans moved down, so the water just rearranged itself into oceans and dry continents. Of course, this means that vast expanses of land (literally millions of square miles) moved up or down by many kilometres during a six month period.

Now, if we consider the phenomenon of rogue waves and tsunamis that can occur from a piece of continental shelf shifting by a few metres, and then imagine millions of square miles of land shooting up three or four kilometres over a period of a few months, we can see a rather obvious problem with this scenario: Noah's boat would not just sink; it would be obliterated by giant waves the likes of which no human being has ever seen. It would be smashed into toothpicks.

That's a specific version of Flood-ism; you can believe in Noah's flood without believing the land rose up. Saying "the rogue waves would smash the Ark" isn't really fundamental to the story.

Which is why I prefer the more economical point of the thing being horribly unseaworthy- works as a myth, not so well as a feat of shipbuilding.

I suppose that's not any stupider than the idea that everyone on earth is descended from two people?

It's identical to the idea that everyone on Earth is descended from two people. Same exact requirement is involved.

I'm suddenly trying to remember if there are any canon miracles in the Bible where a bunch of people are able to go inside a place that should be too small to hold them. Can't think of any, but it's way too early in the morning right now.

Certain guy called Jonah?

There is, strictly speaking, room for some kinds of whale to swallow a man whole. It's incredibly improbable and you'd need literal divine intervention to keep someone alive for days, but it's not impossible from a volume standpoint.

IIRC Tsunamis can also interact and amplify normal wave patterns. And the waves in the middle of a major ocean are already damn big. Now imagine them after 40 days of catastrophic weather patterns.

Not to mention that, if that much water really fell from the skies, the sheer kinetic energy released would be catastropic and turn a good chunk of that water into steam. Especially when we take some Creationists proposal that that water came from "outside the atmosphere" (to circumvent the problem of requiring massive, sun-blocking clouds for decades), which means that ALL of it would be steam - and to my knowledge, giant wooden boats do not float on clouds of superheated steam.

This is the problem with people who try to turn creationism into a scientific theory. They want to explain where the water came from, which just makes them look sillier; at least they could keep their dignity by saying God created the water ex nihilo (whether suspended in the air, or from "the fountains of the deep" beneath the sea).

[Irbis]

There is, strictly speaking, room for some kinds of whale to swallow a man whole. It's incredibly improbable and you'd need literal divine intervention to keep someone alive for days, but it's not impossible from a volume standpoint.

Not really. Biggest whales have throat barely larger than human's arm. They're filter feeders, they don't need larger one, a whale would have problems swallowing a gull, much less a human. There is literally one kind of whale where very big specimen could swallow a human, and that kind has a habit of chewing/tearing food first, plus, the 'exit tube' IIRC is too small to fit a human... And I'm really not sure if whales can vomit at all.

[Simon_Jester]

Sperm whales, Irbis. Not blues.

They do occasionally swallow man-sized objects whole, and they do vomit. See ambergris for references.

I'm not saying the story is credible without miracles, or historical fact- but it has at least the superficial gloss of plausibility that characterizes good fairy tales and adequate fantasy novels.

[Ralin]

It was a long time ago and I can't remember the source, but I once read a theory that the great fish in the story was actually supposed to be a shark, not a whale. Which of course just raises more questions.

[Serafina]

It was a long time ago and I can't remember the source, but I once read a theory that the great fish in the story was actually supposed to be a shark, not a whale. Which of course just raises more questions.

Tell you what: the people who wrote those stories had abysmal knowledge of biology, much less of marine animals, and insufficient terminology to differentiate what little they knew.

[Simon_Jester]

Heck, I've heard it said that "swallowed by a great fish" was just an ancient Hebrew saying for "in a really bad situation." A metaphor someone took too seriously.

[Spekio]

"Scientists are puzzled how so many finch species could arise, displaying such a vast array of traits," the exhibit reads.

This is just gold. I mean, man. Scientists are puzzled! PUZZLED, WE SAY!

Don't you know that Creationists accept Evolution these days? They just don't call it Evolution, they call it "Variation" or "Change".
Mostly due to Ring species. They so obviously produce animals that can't interbreed from one species that they can't really deny it.

[someone_else]

I'm suddenly trying to remember if there are any canon miracles in the Bible where a bunch of people are able to go inside a place that should be too small to hold them. Can't think of any, but it's way too early in the morning right now.

Oh shit. God is a timelord.

Now, if we consider the phenomenon of rogue waves and tsunamis that can occur from a piece of continental shelf shifting by a few metres, and then imagine millions of square miles of land shooting up three or four kilometres over a period of a few months, we can see a rather obvious problem with this scenario: Noah's boat would not just sink; it would be obliterated by giant waves the likes of which no human being has ever seen. It would be smashed into toothpicks.

Which explains why the ark was never depicted with a sail. It had to be a submarine (immerged at a few dozen meters of depth distant from any coast) to hope to survive that.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I'm suddenly trying to remember if there are any canon miracles in the Bible where a bunch of people are able to go inside a place that should be too small to hold them. Can't think of any, but it's way too early in the morning right now.

Oh shit. God is a timelord.

Now, if we consider the phenomenon of rogue waves and tsunamis that can occur from a piece of continental shelf shifting by a few metres, and then imagine millions of square miles of land shooting up three or four kilometres over a period of a few months, we can see a rather obvious problem with this scenario: Noah's boat would not just sink; it would be obliterated by giant waves the likes of which no human being has ever seen. It would be smashed into toothpicks.

Which explains why the ark was never depicted with a sail. It had to be a submarine (immerged at a few dozen meters of depth distant from any coast) to hope to survive that.

Some say it was

Ancient texts reveal that Noah’s ark was built with the help of aliens – and that it was actually a submarine especially made to help him survive the great flood.

Author and biblical scholar Zecharia Sitchin analyzed the original Hebrew version of the Old Testament and other ancient writings. According to those texts, “Noah was advised to construct a boat ‘roofed over and below’ and ‘hermetically sealed with pitch,’” said Sitchin.

“There were to be no decks, no openings, so that ‘the sun shall not see inside.’ The boat was to be a vessel that could turn and tumble.”

The only kind of boat that fits that description, Sitchin said, is a submarine.

And what’s more, he added, the biblical term for “ark” in ancient Hebrew stems from the word “sunken.”

Only a submarine could have withstood the 40 days and nights of such a raging flood, added Sitchin.

“No ordinary surface vessel could have survived the tumultuous waves without being sunk.”

Sitchin also studied ancient texts from Sumer, which is part of Iraq today. In a passage from one of the texts, he said, Noah explains that he survived the flood thanks to the help of superior beings from another planet who helped him build the ark.

Like a modern submarine, the ark had ballast tanks that allowed it to submerge and to surface, Sitchin said. Before the deluge, it took in an oxygen supply and later it surfaced to get more air.

Brad Steiger, renowned UFO investigator, agreed that Noah’s ark was indeed a submarine and that man at that time did not have the expertise to build such a boat, and needed aliens to help.

“One must have advised Noah to construct a water-borne vessel to prevent his death,” said Steiger.

“But Noah would not have known the principles of building such a craft. Being a mere mortal, Noah would not have the ability to construct a submarine. He would have needed extraterrestrial assistance to build his craft.”

[Darth Wong]

And that's how people save a miracle-based story: simply invent more miracles in order to explain the incongruities in the first miracles.

[Serafina]

I always laugh when UFOlogists describe humans as "mere mortals", as if the supposed Aliens weren't mortal*. And then they tell people that they're not a religious cult


*Okay, granted, they could have the "do not die from old age"-type of immortality, or even brain-uploads. But that just makes them harder to kill, not immortal.

[Ultonius]

And what’s more, he added, the biblical term for “ark” in ancient Hebrew stems from the word “sunken.”

In an admittedly quick search using Google, the only alternate meanings I was able to find for 'teyvah', the Hebrew word used to refer to the Ark, are 'word/prayer' and 'box', neither of which can, at least in my opinion, be made to relate to the word 'sunken'.

[Irbis]

There is literally one kind of whale where very big specimen could swallow a human, and that kind has a habit of chewing/tearing food first

Sperm whales, Irbis. Not blues.

...which is the exact thing I wrote above

The only whale big enough is large sperm whale specimen, and these like to tear anything larger/harder than small squid to pieces.

It was a long time ago and I can't remember the source, but I once read a theory that the great fish in the story was actually supposed to be a shark, not a whale.

Which is even worse, as 2 species of whale sharks big enough are rare at the place where Jonah trip supposedly happened and are even stricter filter-feeders, choking on herring, not just a gull.

Unless we're talking about some big man-eating shark, which would technically be capable of swallowing a human. In pieces

[Simon_Jester]

The sperm whales usually do, absolutely; they don't have to- have occasionally swallowed a man-sized squid whole.

Again, it's not that the story has scientific plausibility. It's that it has at least a vague, thin veneer of the sort of plausibility that goes into fairy tales: if you squint and don't worry about the details it works as a myth, something that even a person familiar with the sea might believe in. Saying he was swallowed by a whale can't be true, scientific fact and all- but it doesn't have the absolute prima facie absurdity of saying Jonah had been swallowed by an anchovy.

There are degrees of ridiculousness, is all I'm saying.

[Zaune]

And that's how people save a miracle-based story: simply invent more miracles in order to explain the incongruities in the first miracles.

Or there's the Blues Brothers excuse: He was on a Mission from God.

[Blayne]

Okay, I'm Christian and even I'll admit that Dinosaurs weren't around when humans were...unless I seriously misread the Bible...

I mean, even Genesis doesn't mention GIANT LIZARDS running around...well, aside from snake-Satan

It kinda does, Behemoth, Leviathan and various dragons are mentioned, and to creationists Dragons = Dinosaurs, to the rage of all Otherkin everywhere XD.

One theory I've heard was that the Arc was closer in size to a modern aircraft carrier, which I think the alleged wreck in Turkey is about approximately that size and that the flood wasn't global in scope, but targeted at the Near East meaning Noah would only need to save the local species.

It would make for a pretty good epic in a Silimilirion kind of way even if only a fraction of it is true or mostly metaphor, one may be inclined to think.

[Simon_Jester]

Other way around- the Silmarillion was a mythological epic in a Biblical kind of way...

[Korto]

One theory I've heard was that the Arc was closer in size to a modern aircraft carrier, which I think the alleged wreck in Turkey is about approximately that size and that the flood wasn't global in scope, but targeted at the Near East meaning Noah would only need to save the local species.

Could you make a ship out of wood the size of an aircraft carrier without it breaking apart under its own weight? Particularly considered ancient construction methods, and that it would have built on land (so would have had its weight supported at points, not evenly along the entire length). Serious question, not rhetorical, although I incredibly doubt it.

I like to think these guys left Australia for the US to build their museum because we didn't have a high enough proportion of credulous idiots to support them. It's a belief that makes me happy.

[madd0ct0r]

One theory I've heard was that the Arc was closer in size to a modern aircraft carrier, which I think the alleged wreck in Turkey is about approximately that size and that the flood wasn't global in scope, but targeted at the Near East meaning Noah would only need to save the local species.

Could you make a ship out of wood the size of an aircraft carrier without it breaking apart under its own weight? Particularly considered ancient construction methods, and that it would have built on land (so would have had its weight supported at points, not evenly along the entire length). Serious question, not rhetorical, although I incredibly doubt it.

I like to think these guys left Australia for the US to build their museum because we didn't have a high enough proportion of credulous idiots to support them. It's a belief that makes me happy.

Can you make a building the size of an aircraft carrier out of wood without t breaking apart under it's own weight? sure.



ancient structure?



and looking here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wo ... oden_ships

there's quite a few real world ships that came quite close to the proposed size for the ark. So it's definetly doable.

[Sea Skimmer]

How big the Ark was depends on how you define a cubit, and nobody exactly knows which one would have been used at the time. Egyptian ones are around a half meter, if the Ark was scaled on this it would be around 500 feet long and not completely out of the question, just bloody absurdly damn unlikely. Most of the really large 'wooden' ships had serious amounts of iron strapping holding all the woodwork together and so don't really count. On the other hand, when the US began building emergency program wooden oceaning going ships in WW1, with very minimal metal contents, they used some tricks like massively built up keels that we don't see in older wooden ships that grealty improved strength. They were however nothing that large either. An ark would also gain a major advantage from having a very tall girder, while this was undesirable on wooden sailing ships that had to save top weight and stability for the masts and wind load on the sails. Numerous stressed decks would also help, something not found on most wooden merchants but hardly impossible. Also the simple fact that an Ark needs to last 40 days rather then making trips that last three to five years as was typical for large wooden merchants would really help, it could leak pretty badly and still make it.

Course, even if you could build an Ark of the reported size, I'm not too sure its going to hold two of every animal, even excluding insects which surely outmass everything else, let alone the difficulty of collecting two of every animal from the entire planet. Even if God commanded every animal walk to Noahm pesky problems like the Atlantic ocean would still be in the way. Rouge waves are a pretty damn dumb problem to have with the Ark though, most ships never encounter one, let alone in any random 40 day period.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I just noticed the irony in saying that the creation museum evolves

I noticed something else too