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Noah's Ark And Evolutionary Theory


Lucy

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I am curious if anyone else has familiarity with this theory. I've never met anyone else who has heard of it before when I describe it. I'm not sure where I heard it even.

 

 

Basically speciation, the process by which one species of animal become multiple species, began as a result of the Great Flood and started after Noah's Ark.

 

Prior to the flood, we had some protection that kept all the DNA pure and unchanging. Animals could only produce like-kind like in pre-Flood world. After the flood, the world environment was different enough to allow mutations in the genetic code that could alter a species and cause speciation. Therefore evolution as we know it only became possible after the flood.

 

On the ark were the base form of the animals we have today. For example, there would have been one pair of cats. There were not lions, tigers, ocelots, panthers, housecats, etc. There was just one type of "cat" that existed. These cats would have been like the cats that were created at the beginning of the world. After the arc the DNA was able to mutate and all cat-type animals are descendants of these "proto-cats."

 

So evolutionary process of speciation occurs, but it's only after the Flood. Also, the original species that existed before the Flood was the best version of these animals. So the evolutionary process is more of a "de-evolution" in a sense that the DNA becomes more damaged as the new species deviates from its "Creation" form.

 

 

 

Has anyone else heard this theory before?

 

 

Note: I'm not saying I believe it. I don't. It's just something I was taught many years ago.

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Goodbye Jesus

Wow..

 

I've heard bits and pieces of that but man oh man that is some really bad 'science'. I am always amazed at how the creatards can try and twist their ideology to fit scientific fact. It's truly a gift of sophistry. Just goes to show they know, on some level that their theology is deeply unsubstantiated.

 

It also shows they have NO idea about the Theory of Evolution.. serious lack of comprehension of the most basic concepts that underly evolutionary theory… and basic biology.

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That's what Ken Ham's creation museum teaches.  Rapid diversification and miraculous treks across the oceans took place just a few thousand years ago.  Here's a Christian critique of their model: http://godandscience.org/youngearth/speciation.html

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It sounds very familiar. 

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So let's see.

 

Evolution over millions of years is absurd and impossible.

 

But "diversification", creating (for example) all the countless varieties of dogs from just one pair in some, say, 4,000 years... is somehow plausible.

 

In short, evolution takes far too long therefore hyper-super-ultra-mega-evolution (which we just don't call the evil E-word).

 

Uh huh.

 

:lmao:

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That's what Ken Ham's creation museum teaches.  Rapid diversification and miraculous treks across the oceans took place just a few thousand years ago.  Here's a Christian critique of their model: http://godandscience.org/youngearth/speciation.html

 

 

Thank you for that. It looks like it's what I remember. I was starting to think I had imagined it being there since nobody else I've talked to has heard of it before. I thought I'd read it in my science textbook, but started to doubt my memory because nobody else I know has ever heard of it. Everybody else I know was public schooled.

 

Do most other Christians not know of this theory? They seem like they've never heard it before.

 

 

If I homeschool my kids, I'm not getting them Christian textbooks. I feel like I wasn't even learning what the other Christians were learning. Science spent more time teaching me how to be a scientific apologist than learning actual science. As a result I learned a whole bunch of Christian pseudo-science that no other Christians seem to have heard of.

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Yep, that's basically what my daughters grew up learning. Before my deconversion, I homeschooled them with Apologia science textbooks, and that's pretty much exactly what was taught.

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I have heard of this 'idea' before and it does not hold merit. Too many fossils are against it as well as the age of the universe and the planet Earth. Noah's ark is not a starting point for sciences of any kind.

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Babblical cretinism is where science goes to die a slow and painful death.

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So this means that monkeys and apes evolved from man. Hm. I guess that explains a boss I once had.

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Yeah, that's basically the view put forth by both Answers In Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research. From what I recall, they didn't claim that there was no DNA change at all before the flood, but they did claim that vast speciation happened after the Flood. Supposedly Adam & Eve and the first animals were the only ones with perfect DNA, but "the Fall" caused all subsequent people/animals to have DNA errors that eventually accumulated to the point where intermarrying had to be prohibited and we ended up with many more species of animals than the initial "kinds." It's basically a desperate attempt to answer how Adam & Eve's children could rightly marry and procreate and how all the animals could fit on the ark.

 

Ironically, given how much time supposedly has elapsed since the flood, the evolution necessary for this creationist interpretation would have had to have happened much, much faster than evolution typically works. Thus, the creationist's "micro-evolution" is more of a "super-evolution."

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Yeah, that's basically the view put forth by both Answers In Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research. From what I recall, they didn't claim that there was no DNA change at all before the flood, but they did claim that vast speciation happened after the Flood. Supposedly Adam & Eve and the first animals were the only ones with perfect DNA, but "the Fall" caused all subsequent people/animals to have DNA errors that eventually accumulated to the point where intermarrying had to be prohibited and we ended up with many more species of animals than the initial "kinds." It's basically a desperate attempt to answer how Adam & Eve's children could rightly marry and procreate and how all the animals could fit on the ark.

 

Ironically, given how much time supposedly has elapsed since the flood, the evolution necessary for this creationist interpretation would have had to have happened much, much faster than evolution typically works. Thus, the creationist's "micro-evolution" is more of a "super-evolution."

 

 

When you think about it the Flood myth requires that the children of the survivors have to mate with their own siblings.  This would apply to all species of animal.  And of course the next generation also has to mate with it's own siblings until the population is built up enough that you can mate with your own aunt/uncle or first cousins.  Eventually you will reach a point where every living creature has only one genetic great grandfather and one genetic great grandmother.  They would be the most inbred creatures ever.  Life on Earth would have bled to death thousands of years ago.

 

One can't make knowledge of DNA work with the Flood myth.  People who advance that idea don't understand the concept.

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They would be the most inbred creatures ever.  Life on Earth would have bled to death thousands of years ago.

 

One can't make knowledge of DNA work with the Flood myth.  People who advance that idea don't understand the concept.

 

 

They claim our DNA was better before the flood. That's why people married their siblings and half sibling so much in the Bible. That's also why people lived super long lifetimes before the flood. Lifespans start to shorten after the flood because of environmental changes and DNA started to become more damaged.

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They would be the most inbred creatures ever.  Life on Earth would have bled to death thousands of years ago.

 

One can't make knowledge of DNA work with the Flood myth.  People who advance that idea don't understand the concept.

 

 

They claim our DNA was better before the flood. That's why people married their siblings and half sibling so much in the Bible. That's also why people lived super long lifetimes before the flood. Lifespans start to shorten after the flood because of environmental changes and DNA started to become more damaged.

 

 

 

Yes, clearly pseudo science and quackery.  Fundamentalist Christianity actively opposes understanding science because their world view would fall apart.

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When you think about it the Flood myth requires that the children of the survivors have to mate with their own siblings.  This would apply to all species of animal.  And of course the next generation also has to mate with it's own siblings until the population is built up enough that you can mate with your own aunt/uncle or first cousins.  Eventually you will reach a point where every living creature has only one genetic great grandfather and one genetic great grandmother.  They would be the most inbred creatures ever.  Life on Earth would have bled to death thousands of years ago.

 

One can't make knowledge of DNA work with the Flood myth.  People who advance that idea don't understand the concept.

 

 

Only the offspring of the animals brought in as pairs would have had to have mated with their siblings (or parents, I suppose, but that's no better).

 

The animals brought in sevens wouldn't need to have mated with siblings, but of course those were only the "clean" animals (which is itself an oddity undermining the story, since the Law dictating what animals were "clean" had not been given yet).

 

As far as the children of Noah's sons, they could have married their cousins (which, of course, isn't much better than marrying siblings, but I just thought it worth pointing out that they technically would not have had to have married their siblings).

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My understanding on the "sevens" of clean animals was because the humans would be eating five of each.  Noah gets hungry.  Though the story leaves that part unspoken.

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^^^ And don't forget the sacrifices that had to be offered. Beyond that, the "sevens" are even contradicted by the "twos." I used to think that the "sevens" for "clean" animals was a further elaboration after referring to the "twos," but then I realized that even after specifying seven each of the fowls, it reverts back to specifying two each of the fowls. That's a clear contradiction that appears to be the result of sloppy editing when weaving two different versions of the story into one.

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Strange how fundies can dismiss evolution as "just a theory" (albeit a misunderstanding of the scientific definition of "theory"), yet pull out of their orifices any cockamamie idea that justifies their preconceived beliefs rather than explains the evidence, call it a "theory", and expects it to be considered more seriously.

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I'd think this theory might be very easy for an expert to lay to rest. I am surprised at the wild swings that occur trying to make the data fit.

In 50 yrs we may not recognize what xtianity has twisted itself into. Then it dies out mostly and becomes the new Amish.

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I have heard it before, but only because it's what Ken Ham's Creation Museum espouses, and I've had vaguely related nonsense spewed at me in arguments before. Blergh.

 

I think what's particularly stupid about it, is that either someone at the top of this steaming pile of idiocy is massively ignorant about what would be a middle-school science education (the "baking soda volcano" phase) or, they're deliberately misleading people on a titanic scale. It comes down to definitions, really. 

 

They use a lot of the terms in ways that aren't correct, or deliberately pick the colloquial meaning, when a specialist one would be appropriate. This is equivocation - using words with multiple meanings so you can weasel out of it if someone pins you to the wall with the usual definition. And, of course, it's deceptive and dishonest. 

 

Definitions:

 

Theory (noun)

1. colloquial - a guess about the cause of something. Example: it's really cold and my car won't start this morning, I say to my brother "I have a theory it's the battery, could you jump my car?" This is NOT at all what it means in science.

2. scientific - a scientific theory is a body of predictive knowledge. A scientific theory is used to predict what will happen, and has been repeatedly proven to work when it is tested. In conjunction with scientific laws - equations that give exact results - these can be used to give exact predictions, which we use to make technology, or improve lives, or otherwise do awesome stuff. Example: the Theory of Universal Gravitation states that objects with mass attract each other. With Newton's Laws of Gravitation (decent approximations at our scale) - this is the body of knowledge that allows us to, say, go to the moon, or put satellites in orbit, or predict eclipses, or get Apollo 13 back safe and sound. 

 

Evolution (noun)

1. colloquial - change and improvement.

2. Christian nutcase - anything that they don't understand that scares them.

3. scientific - change in a population of living things over time. (That's it. Very limited, actually. It doesn't include "improvement" at all, just change. Note that if God Himself was removing toes from horses, this would be evolution. The characteristics of the population changed over time.)

 

Natural Selection (noun)

1. scientific - the scientific theory that describes how evolution takes place: living things have traits that can be passed on to their children. The ones that can't survive, don't get to pass on their traits, and the population therefore changes over time, as traits that don't make it get selected out as the environment changes. This is the part that Charles Darwin contributed. This is the theory we use for stuff like wiping out smallpox.

 

(my favorite) kinds (wtf??)

1. they never do explain what, exactly, this means. Presumably, so that they can wiggle into something else, when they're pinned down over it. A species is the complete population of living things that can successfully breed, and have perfectly fertile offspring. It has a definition. That's why we use it. So, your dog and a wolf are the same species, because wolfdogs in any permutation are fertile, no matter how silly a woodle would look. A donkey and a horse are different species, because although they can happen, mules aren't fertile. Pretty easy, actually. The pipistrelle and the soprano pipistrelle bats are actually different species, even though humans can't tell the difference at a glance, because they don't interbreed.

 

Here's where equivocation and dishonesty come in. Creationists like Ken Ham are using the word "theory" in the colloquial sense of a story we tell about causes, or a guess, when they should be using - and people assume they should be - the scientific meaning. It's either ignorant or dishonest, and it's at the very top of that ideology. They also use the word "evolution" as a blanket term for anything they don't like in the science. Either these guys espousing this stuff didn't pass middle school science class, or they're outright lying to people. There's really no third option, here. (Yes, pointing all this out is a great option in debate. People don't like being lied to.)

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Either these guys espousing this stuff didn't pass middle school science class, or they're outright lying to people. There's really no third option, here.

 

Ah, but there is a third option: The scientists hate God and have been constantly lying to the masses. This is the absolute truth, but Satan has blinded your eyes.

 

[/sarcasm]

 

Joking aside, great post, ExCB!

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Theory (noun)

1. colloquial - a guess about the cause of something. Example: it's really cold and my car won't start this morning, I say to my brother "I have a theory it's the battery, could you jump my car?" This is NOT at all what it means in science.

2. scientific - a scientific theory is a body of predictive knowledge. A scientific theory is used to predict what will happen, and has been repeatedly proven to work when it is tested. In conjunction with scientific laws - equations that give exact results - these can be used to give exact predictions, which we use to make technology, or improve lives, or otherwise do awesome stuff. Example: the Theory of Universal Gravitation states that objects with mass attract each other. With Newton's Laws of Gravitation (decent approximations at our scale) - this is the body of knowledge that allows us to, say, go to the moon, or put satellites in orbit, or predict eclipses, or get Apollo 13 back safe and sound.

 

It's very unfortunate that the colloquial meaning of theory is more similar to "hypothesis" in usage.

 

When most people see "Theory of Evolution" they interpret the meaning as "Hypothesis of Evolution" which then gives them reasons to dismiss it without further investigation of its veracity. The creationists like to use the colloquial meaning of "theory" to lesson its significance.

 

 

Evolution (noun)

1. colloquial - change and improvement.

2. Christian nutcase - anything that they don't understand that scares them.

3. scientific - change in a population of living things over time. (That's it. Very limited, actually. It doesn't include "improvement" at all, just change. Note that if God Himself was removing toes from horses, this would be evolution. The characteristics of the population changed over time.)

 

Point 3 is another important misunderstanding. Sometimes a species becomes less capable at certain tasks or less strong over time. Some like to point at this and say it contradicts evolution because they think evolution is a series of improvements in the species, but it's really just changes in the species.

 

 

Good post!

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Funny how evolutionary theory that predicts speciation over hundreds of thousands of years is dismissed, but "Super evolution" over a fraction of the time is allowed, so long as it defendes the Ark story is allowed. 

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Sometimes a species becomes less capable at certain tasks or less strong over time. Some like to point at this and say it contradicts evolution because they think evolution is a series of improvements in the species, but it's really just changes in the species.

So true, and that's why it's an important point in a debate with a creationist. "Survive long enough to breed" isn't everything, it's the only thing. Look at salmon: hatch, swim to sea, get bigger, return to stream, spawn, drop dead. Repeat. Forever. This is one of intelligent design's weak points: said designer is pretty incompetent, actually, or sadistic by any human standard. People shouldn't wonder how evolution "improves" organisms (it doesn't). They should wonder why God would make it possible for humans (his supposed perfect creation) to choke.

 

Making the food hole and the air hole the same hole for a good distance, and regulated by a complex reflex that can easily go wrong? That's something a kindergarten class could fix, let alone a professional engineer. Oh, and it's not an issue in snakes, where the trachea comes out just behind the tongue. A snake can swallow something bigger than its head because it literally can't choke.

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Of course morontheists will then try to have it both ways... you know, da human bodeeee is sooooo perfect therefore GAWD!... unless you remind them of its many failures, then it's wrecked by SIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNN. And as soon as they think you forgot about that imperfections thing they're back to ZOMFG sooooooo perfect!!!

 

Sometimes it still amuses me but most of the time I'm zzzzZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz... :lmao:

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