Another Look At Noah’s Ark
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007I’d like to take a moment to address some things that were mentioned in response to the original Noah’s Ark vs. Math article.
First, the notion that it’s not worth refuting. In a sense that’s right, but not entirely. Yes, to most rational people it’s obvious that it’s a silly thing to believe, but there’s still the important fact that cdesign proponentsists want this taught in public school. As long as that’s happening, people need to point out the obvious flaws in their ideas. Also, as a former Creationist and current Christian, I am insulted by Creationism and feel the need to help people out of it, both for their own sake and for Christianity’s sake.
Second, it has been pointed out to me that my example is incorrect because the species would not have evolved in a linear fashion, one at a time. Yes, I know. It was not meant to be taken literally. In fact, it was never meant to be anything but a simplified illustration to demonstrate the absurdity of belief in a literal Noahic flood.
And that brings me to the last thing I want to talk about. Partially to adress the above concern, and partially because I just enjoy doing it, here is another simplified thought experiment that does not assume a linear unfolding of evolution like the last one does.
Take the mammalian family nearest my heart, Muridae, which includes rats, mice, and gerbils. If one pair of representatives of this family were taken aboard the ark 4,000 years ago, they would have subsequently evolved into five new species that each served as a common ancestor for the present subfamilies Deomyinae, Gerbillinae, Leimacomyinae, Lophiomyinae, and Preciouspumpkinidae, also known as Murinae. These five subfamilies would then have split and evolved into 140 genera, which would then have split into about 650 species.
So that’s three major taxonomic levels that the original two Muridae cuties split into: subfamily, genus, then species. Assuming that it took the same amount of time for each split to occur and that that they all took place across the whole family at about the same time, one split would have happened about every 1,333 years, as shown in the horrible (and simplified!) graphic below.
This is still a very simplified exercise, but it’s much closer to what would actually have had to happen if the Noah’s Ark story were literally true. It’s more conceivable than one new mammal species every 1.31 years, but it’s still impossible. Just look at dogs. According to real science, wolves were first domesticated about 15,000 years ago. They have obviously been selectively bred by humans to an incredible degree, yet after 15,000 years, dogs are still the same species as wolves. So in all that time, dogs could not speciate away from wolves, but Murids could become over 650 species. I guess that’s science for ya. And once again, no one in recorded history ever noticed!
