Noah's Ark & post-flood speciation

[Jose Fly]

If it was local why didn't God instruct Noah to build a wagon rather than a huge arc?

Doesn't make for a good story.

 

[Stripe]

You didn't advance.

Liar.

So. People are variable, people are a kind. That means that some skin colors, nose shapes, etc. must be "degradations" of the original that God created right? So tell us which one is the original and which ones are "degradations"?

You're a biologist, right? Tell us: What is the definition of the word "genome"?

No the Irish potato famine happened because every potato in Ireland was a CLONE. By definition you have the smallest amount of variation possible.

And again, we are talking about kinds, not a subset of a kind.

Tantrum? Asking that you use your definition is a tantrum?

Yip. You will do anything to avoid the fact that kind has a rock-solid and clear definition while "species" is vague and malleable.

Yes, but you can't take the next step. You have yet to classify a thing.

Liar. How about you tell us some of the animals we have grouped into kinds?

The lines between species are sometimes blurry precisely because of evolution, species can evolve into new species or hybridize with closely related species that shared an ancestral species.

Irrelevant. There are about 14 definitions of species that apply in various situations. The word is useless in a scientific context.

Your "definition" is useless. Words on a page that apply to nothing in the real world or an imaginary one for that matter.

Liar.

It's not my definition. It's yours. YOU demonstrate it.

Already done. Let us know when you're willing to engage honestly.

 

[Jose Fly]

As Alate One pointed out, if you reduce a population to low numbers, it obviously reduces their genetic diversity. If you reduce them enough, diversity is reduced to the point where inbreeding depression becomes a factor. We've seen this in real time with the Florida Panther, where the population was reduced to fewer than 50 breeding adults. That loss of genetic diversity led to negative effects like sterility in males, congenital heart defects, and immune deficiencies. Basically, the population was spiraling towards extinction.

It was only when panthers from other populations were brought in that the inbreeding effects started to wane.

Now extend that to a population that's been reduced to nothing more than one breeding pair. Obviously the offspring would be forced to mate with each other and/or their parents, thereby creating inbreeding depression of the most extreme variety. Simply put, that's just not tenable.

And even if we were to assume that every population that was reduced to a single breeding pair (or 7 individuals, depending on which of the two flood stories you believe) somehow managed to survive and persist to today, the effect of this genetic bottleneck would still be present in the genomes of the surviving populations.

So, if this story were true, then we would expect to see the indicators of a genetic bottleneck in every population on earth, at the same time.

Yet we don't see that at all.

There's a good reason why no scientific organization, university, or industry uses young-earth creationism as their framework. Not only does it not align with the data, it is directly contradicted by the data.

It's a story. Believe it if you like, but don't expect science to take it seriously.

 

[Alate_One]

If it was local why didn't God instruct Noah to build a wagon rather than a huge arc?

A lot harder to build to support the weight of a lot of people/creatures.

 

[everready]

According to the UN Environment Programme, the Earth is in the midst of a mass extinction of life. Scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours. This is nearly 1,000 times the "natural" or "background" rate and, say many biologists, is greater than anything the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65m years ago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/17/un-environment-programme-_n_684562.html

This has been going on for quite some time, in smaller numbers until recently, i don't see evolution replacing any of them.

everready

 

[Caino]

If it was local why didn't God instruct Noah to build a wagon rather than a huge arc?

Because the legend of the local flood only became a useful genealogical tool when the Hebrews were having trouble tracing their, self described, "chosen people" blood lines back to a much older Adam and Eve who had incarnate on a previously fallen, populated earth. Before that it WAS just a local legend about a wine maker, his home built in house-boat fashion, bringing the farm animals in each night a a precaution against the great periotic floods of the rivers.

 

[Alate_One]

Liar.

Nope I think it's pretty clear you've failed to demonstrate a thing.

You're a biologist, right? Tell us: What is the definition of the word "genome"?

(Trying to distract from the hole you've found yourself in?) A genome is simply all of the DNA in a person or other organism.

Skin color is encoded in the genome as is every other physical and some behavioral characteristics of a person or other organism.

So by your definition there must be one perfect version of each skin color gene and every other version is "degraded". Right?

And again, we are talking about kinds, not a subset of a kind.

You missed the point again. If there were, as you posit one perfect genome of an organism and everything else is "damaged" then a clone is an excellent representation of such a kind.

Yip. You will do anything to avoid the fact that kind has a rock-solid and clear definition while "species" is vague and malleable.

It has to be since it includes everything from bacteria to bactrian camels.

How many "kinds" of bacteria are there?

Liar. How about you tell us some of the animals we have grouped into kinds?

Link?

Irrelevant. There are about 14 definitions of species that apply in various situations. The word is useless in a scientific context.

If it's useless, why is it used to such great effect (classification)?

And you really refused to admit that the scientific classification system works so well?

(Someone doesn't know scientific history very well apparently)

Already done. Let us know when you're willing to engage honestly.

Sigh. You really have nothing to add.

 

[Stripe]

If you reduce a population to low numbers, it obviously reduces their genetic diversity.

Great. When you find someone who says otherwise, you will have an open-and-shut case. :up:

It was only when panthers from other populations were brought in that the inbreeding effects started to wane.

Ah-hah. We knew you were hiding something. Clever. :chuckle:

Now extend that to a population that's been reduced to nothing more than one breeding pair. Obviously the offspring would be forced to mate with each other and/or their parents, thereby creating inbreeding depression of the most extreme variety. Simply put, that's just not tenable.

Because you say so?

And even if we were to assume that every population that was reduced to a single breeding pair (or 7 individuals, depending on which of the two flood stories you believe) somehow managed to survive and persist to today, the effect of this genetic bottleneck would still be present in the genomes of the surviving populations.

And it has been found. Though evolutionists like to pretend their theory is fact and work on separate kinds as if their genomes are traceable.

So, if this story were true, then we would expect to see the indicators of a genetic bottleneck in every population on earth, at the same time. Yet we don't see that at all.

http://creation.com/noah-and-genetics

There's a good reason why no scientific organization, university, or industry uses young-earth creationism as their framework.

Except for all the ones that do.

Nope I think it's pretty clear you've failed to demonstrate a thing.

I described the nature of the evidence we know exists. Feel free to recite what I said. :up:

A genome is simply all of the DNA in a person or other organism.

And when we talk about a kind? Can a kind have a genome?

 

[Jose Fly]

And it has been found. Though evolutionists like to pretend their theory is fact and work on separate kinds as if their genomes are traceable.

http://creation.com/noah-and-genetics

Well, let's take a look (so no more of that "evolutionists hate reading" from you). From the article...

It comes as a surprise to most people to hear that there is abundant evidence that the entire human race came from two people just a few thousand years ago (Adam and Eve), that there was a serious population crash (bottleneck) in the recent past (at the time of the Flood), and that there was a single dispersal of people across the world after that (the Tower of Babel).​

But wait...I said every population in the world would show a simultaneous extreme genetic bottleneck, not just humans. So where's the bottleneck for everything else?

Also, the citation for all those claims is to another creation.com article. So let's go there and see if it has what you claim. The author quotes a couple of scientific studies that use genetic data to show how it doesn't support the multi-regional model of human evolution, and instead supports the Out of Africa model. Of course, the creationist doesn't quote the latter part.

So after selectively quoting the papers, the creationist author asserts, "These results are quite consistent with a recent human origin and a global flood." That's it. No explanation of how, no analysis, just an empty assertion. The creationist author then cites and quotes THIS PAPER, yet somehow, he never mentions the actual findings of the paper.

"The results illuminate human history, suggesting that LD in northern Europeans is shaped by a marked demographic event about 27,000–53,000 years ago."

Funny how that didn't even warrant a mention on his part. And funny how he cited this article as supporting the Genesis flood, when it actually directly contradicts it.

But then, we see the same thing in the original creation.com article you linked to. That article discusses "Mitochondrial Eve" and "Y-chromosomal Adam" and tries to cite that data as supportive of the Adam and Eve story. But as has been covered here countless times, "Mitochondrial Eve" is estimated to have lived between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, and "Y-chromosomal Adam" between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago. So how can a young-earth creationist cite this data as supporting young-earth creationism? He waves the dates away as "assumptions"

So we see a definite pattern here. Young-earth creationists making empty assertions, and dishonestly citing papers that actually contradict young-earth creationism. Obviously they're counting on the rubes who read this garbage to never bother to check their citations.

This is a very good example of why creationists are laughed at. :rotfl:

 

[Alate_One]

And when we talk about a kind? Can a kind have a genome?

An individual organism has a genome. Anything above that is an average of genomes.

I see you don't want to defend your position that there is an "ideal" set of human genes which would include skin color.

We can talk about a reference human genome, meaning the result of the human genome project but it's totally arbitrary, and an amalgamation of several people.

Each individual (that isn't an identical twin) has their own genome. Personal genomics is the way of the future because everyone is different from that arbitrary reference.

 

[6days]

A full complement means two copies of each location on the genome (one from mom, one from dad).

A full compliment of genetic information means that God gave the organisms a genome allowing survival *and adaptation.*

The problem is that means you can have only four total variants. But in the populations of all eukaryotic organisms that aren't suffering from a genetic bottleneck, most loci have far more than four variants.

Heretical Biologos teaches that, however it doesn't fit God's Word...and it doesn't fit the scientific evidence.*

http://creation.mobi/historical-adam-biologos
By Robert Carter PhD Marine biologist

Or
http://www.icr.org/article/abo-blood-human-origins/
By Daniel Croswell PhD molecular biologist

Rejecting a literal Adam and Eve, and a literal Noah and flood account destroys the gospel. If Adam and Eve are mythical, then Jesus died for a mythical problem..... and we have a mythical hope. Embrace the absolute authority and truth of God's Word.... Jesus did. Jesus referred to Adam and Eve as a real couple quoting Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24*

 

[6days]

If it was local why didn't God instruct Noah to build a wagon rather than a huge arc?

Exactly.... The idea it was a local flood that killed all the birds makes a mockery of God's Word.
Also the local flood claim makes a mockery of God's promise that came with the rainbow.

 

[Nick M]

Um no. Having only two individuals drastically *limits* the potential for variation.

Is that why macro evolution doesn't exist in the fossil record?

 

[User Name]

All this to give you comfort that your decision to reject God's word is a good choice.

As a Christian...you should be interested in the harmony between scripture and science, rather than trying to find things to disagree with.

Nothing is supposed to be dogmatic in science; rather, everything is investigated, questioned, criticized, tested, etc. Humanity has come to a working knowledge of scientific truths only through the scientific method, not through a dogmatic and literal interpretation of any religious text.

Creationists do not agree among themselves about a great many factors such as the date of the creation, the ages of the earth and the universe, and so on. Only through the physical sciences can we hope to conclusively answer these questions.

 

[Alate_One]

Is that why macro evolution doesn't exist in the fossil record?

Huh? No, that's why hyperevolution didn't occur 4000 years ago after a global flood.

As far as macroevolution being in the fossil record . . .

It's all over the place.

 

[Alate_One]

A full compliment of genetic information means that God gave the organisms a genome allowing survival *and adaptation.*

A full complement would still mean only max of two copies of each gene per individual.

Heretical Biologos teaches that, however it doesn't fit God's Word...and it doesn't fit the scientific evidence.*

Sure it does.

http://creation.mobi/historical-adam-biologos
By Robert Carter PhD Marine biologist

This guy doesn't appear to really grasp the problem. He's trying to pretend that the amount of heterozygosity over the whole genome somehow fixes the problem.

Or
http://www.icr.org/article/abo-blood-human-origins/
By Daniel Croswell PhD molecular biologist

He tried to explain the origin of blood types only. Mind you in that case there are only three main alleles but in many other genes there are even more alleles.

He also didn't explain the Hemoglobin pseudogenes in humans that are identical to the versions in chimpanzees and gorillas.

Rejecting a literal Adam and Eve, and a literal Noah and flood account destroys the gospel. If Adam and Eve are mythical, then Jesus died for a mythical problem..... and we have a mythical hope. Embrace the absolute authority and truth of God's Word.... Jesus did. Jesus referred to Adam and Eve as a real couple quoting Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24*

Not everyone at Biologos rejects a literal Adam, but Adam cannot have been the sole ancestor of all humans living today unless God directed dozens of extra (not biblically recorded) miracles to make it look like there were more ancestors.

The gospel doesn't rest on Adam and Eve bringing in original sin. It's obvious to anyone thoughtful that humans are sinful, self serving creatures. Original sin as understood in protestantism isn't even a common doctrine in all of Christendom. You build for yourself a doctrine that's a house of cards and the tiniest deviation can bring it down.

Maybe you can simply trust that God is the author of both scripture and science and trust that there is unity, even if you don't understand what it is. Fighting science isn't helping anyone.

 

[6days]

As far as macroevolution being in the fossil record . . .

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...&mid=051A95C932593155B2DC051A95C932593155B2DC

 

[George Affleck]

And yet you have never been able to provide well defined, rock solid definition of what a kind actually is.

Created kinds are organisms representing or descended from those originally created by God about 6,000 years ago and correspond roughly to the family level of current classification.

 

[George Affleck]

Let's run the math. I'll use Woodmorappe's estimate of 15,754 "kinds" of animals on the ark, and the estimate of 6.5 million land species existing today. Also, let's assume that the Flood occurred 4,500 years ago. Based on these numbers, an average of 4 new species would have had to have been bred into existence every day over the past 4,500 years for us to get to the present estimate of 6.5 million extant terrestrial species (assuming my math is correct, which it may not be). Furthermore, this does not even begin to take into account the hundreds of millions of species that are now extinct.

Evolutionists should not have a problem with the concept of rapid speciation. The Cambrian explosion is not supposed to have happened so quickly (relative to their timeline) but, according to evolutionary geology, it did. This means you accept variable speciation rates, especially in the past.

6.5 million is an estimate. Only about a million have been described. It must be very difficult to prove both interbreeding and non-interbreeding characteristics for each species; both of which must be done.

It seems unbelievable the way you describe it. Wow - 4 species per day. Let's see: 4000+ years x 365 days is roughly 1.5 million days. Yup, you are right, about 4 per day on average. That would mean each organism would have to speciate, on average, every 11 years!

Of course, there is another way to look at it. Keep in mind that most organisms have short generational spans and the kinds on the ark would have had much more potential variability than we see today.
Let's assume that, on average, in the first 10 years, each of the kinds that came off the ark speciated once and in the next 50 years, it happened again. Then after 100 years and once more after 250 years.

Now, after 410 years, there are about 250,000 species (if my math is correct). And, the 4 per day goes to one every 26 days thereafter. That would mean that, after this initial "explosion", each organism would need to speciate, on average, every 138 years. To fruit flies, that's millions of years.

 

[Stuu]

I can tell you what a kind is. There is only one, and it is the entirety of common descent.

Stuart