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From: bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Isolation and Unique Species
Message-ID: <75@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 11-May-85 09:14:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.75
Posted: Sat May 11 09:14:23 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 13-May-85 15:59:37 EDT
References: <217@ihnet.UUCP> <3570013@csd2.UUCP> <964@uwmacc.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 42

> Could someone more knowledgeable than I do me a favor,
> and compute a rough lower bound for the number of species that have lived
> in the last 10,000 years.  Since species never evolve :-),
> they must have *all* been present on the ark.  Including, of course,
> enough food for 40 days, isolation chambers so they don't eat each other,
> isles providing access to the animals, etc.  350 cubits just won't make it.
> Of course, Noah really should take 1,000 of each animal, to insure
> a sufficient gene pool for the success of each species.
> Oh but I keep forgetting, the animals have devolved, and they
> didn't have genetic imperfections 10,000 years ago :-).
> So we will give your "scientific" theory the benefit of the doubt, and allow
> two from each species.  Would someone calculate how
> big the ship has to be to hold all the animals,
> and how long it would take to construct such a vessel, given the technology
> of the day?  Of course I haven't mentioned the other problems:
> where did the water come from, where did it go, how did the animals reach
> their geographically distant isolated regions, did Noah take plants as well,
> how did he collect all the species, how can an animal travel half way around
> the world without leaving a trace or offspring, etc etc etc.
> 
Which reminds me of another "Noah's Ark" question that I have never
seen answered by Creationists.  There are certain diseases, such as
smallpox, that have no natural reservoirs, and which confer lifelong
immunity upon those unfortunate enough to have contracted them once
but fortunate enough to have survived.  Would some Creationist care
to tell us how smallpox itself survived the Flood?  I remind everyone
that the way smallpox has been wiped off the face of the Earth (except
for artificially maintained samples in a few laboratories) was by
finding every case and vaccinating everyone who was exposed to it.
A similar principle would have applied in the Ark.  The disease
could not have survived in the small population consisting of Noah and
his family.  Everyone would have gotten it, and become immune.  The
virus would have had no hosts and would have died out.

-- 
"Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from
	religious conviction."  -- Blaise Pascal

	Bill Jefferys  8-%
	Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712   (USnail)
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