Dissing a Straw Noah

Secular science reporters don’t do their homework.
Their simplistic answers deceive the masses.

 

 

In reporting, one is supposed to do a literature search. Journalism requires understanding a subject, not just quoting spokespersons of a certain perspective. And when a controversial subject is reported, the best arguments on both sides should be presented as objectively as possible.

It’s fair to arrive at a preferred conclusion, provided the other side has been presented fairly and accurately. This is known as “steel manning” an argument instead of “straw manning” which is misrepresenting an opponent in a silly way that is easily knocked down. At CEH, we often take issue with evolutionists, but we go to their “Goliath” representatives in major journals and universities, allowing them ample time to explain their views by quoting their own words and providing links to their sources (example).

None of that was done in a shallow article by Patrick Pester on Live Science, “Did Noah’s flood really happen?” He did no research about evidences and arguments made by real, living flood geologists with PhDs. Instead, he ran straight to his preferred evolutionary, deep-time experts and quickly knocked down the straw man he set up.

It would have been acceptable if he weighed arguments from the best advocates on all sides and decided in favor of one, but he violated journalistic standards and ethics by misrepresenting flood geology. Right off the bat, watch him use an argument from authority to make a conclusory judgment by assertion.

“The one thing we know for sure from geology is that a global flood never happened,” said David Montgomery, a professor of geomorphology at the University of Washington in Seattle and author of “The Rocks Don’t Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah’s Flood” (W. W. Norton & Company, 2012). “If you look at it as literally a global flood that covered the world’s highest mountains, I’m sorry, there’s just not enough water on Earth to do that,” he told Live Science.

Does Pester and his expert, David Montgomery, really think that flood geologists are unaware of that fact? The mountains were a consequence of the flood, according to most flood geologists. They didn’t need to be covered by the volume of water in today’s oceans, because the antediluvian world consisted of hills much smaller, and ocean basins that were not as deep. And why didn’t they state that marine fossils are found on the tops of the highest mountains, including Everest?

If the “heavens” opened and all of the water in the atmosphere came down at once as rain, the planet would be submerged — but only to a depth of about 1 inch (2.5 centimeters), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.  That’s not enough water to justify a canoe, let alone a massive ark. 

This kind of misrepresentation is inexcusable, because the literature on flood models is out there on the internet and easily found (e.g., here and here), and issues with flood geology are frequently discussed in creation research journals. Flood geologists locate most of the water for the flood in the “fountains of the great deep” that burst forth in one day as described in the Genesis record. Rains fell as a consequence of that eruption, not the cause of the flood. As continental plates moved rapidly away from the mid-oceanic ridge, the waters flowed over the continents, creating the Great Unconformity, the sedimentary layers and the fossil record.

Only an uninformed reporter would picture water gently coming down as rain. The Flood was a cataclysm that forever changed the world’s geology, mountains, drainage channels, lakes, volcanoes, ocean basins and rock record. As a result, there are “billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth” as Ken Ham quips.

Asked and Answered

Pester seems to be drawing from atheist sites to mock the Flood.

The biblical tale has other questionable sections. For example, Noah was 600 years old when the flood started — we know humans don’t live that long — and most species wouldn’t survive being reduced to just two animals as they wouldn’t have enough genetic diversity to create a viable population. What’s more, it’s unclear how every animal would be capable of making it to the ark in the first place — imagine penguins waddling from Antarctica to the Middle East.

More straw man tactics are seen in these claims. These have all been addressed by Bible scholars, creation geneticists and flood scientists. It was a different world before the Flood, with a stronger magnetic field and fewer mutagens. People don’t live to 600 years now, but why not in different circumstances close to a perfect creation, before the effects of the curse on sin had accumulated to the high levels we see today? Even now, geneticists speculate that human life could be extended substantially. Mutational load was likely far less than now, and there was high genetic diversity within each individual in a population back then. Creation geneticists can account for all the human “racial” differences within the few thousand years since the Flood, yet we are all one species.

And if God brought the animals to Noah, it is an attack on his power and wisdom to think he didn’t know how to accomplish that, if his purpose was the preservation of the animals. He brought representatives of the land animal kinds to the Ark, not all species. “Kinds” were most likely at the taxonomic level of family, so a great deal of diversification occurred after the Flood. Today’s penguins did not need to waddle from Antarctica to the Middle East; good grief! And of course, all marine creatures did not need the Ark. Many of them were buried and became fossils, but the survival of a few could repopulate the seas. Again we see that Pester raises objections but gives no chance for rebuttal to scholars who have already answered them.

Ignoring Vulnerabilities

Pester failed to mention the numerous anomalies in the geological strata and fossil record that violate evolutionary and deep time assumptions (example). He failed to mention the Grand Canyon evidences (see Bill Hoesch’s list of Ten Evidences at Grand Canyon for a Global Flood at this site). His one-sided presentation makes it seem like secular geologists have no weaknesses of their own to address.

The article ignores the fact that today’s world is impoverished of species compared to what the fossil record shows. Many animals were larger and more robust than their modern counterparts (20 March 2023). That seems opposite the expectations of evolution. All the dinosaurs are gone, and those that survived on the Ark (probably juveniles), were most likely eliminated by man within a few centuries as pests (consider the heroic “dragon slayers” of legend). Evolutionists cannot figure out why all the dinosaurs (large and small) went extinct from an asteroid strike that didn’t destroy delicate butterflies and frogs. Human nature after the Flood gives a rational explanation.

Answer Me This

Interestingly, Live Science also stated in another recent article that there must have been 1.7 billion Tyrannosaurus rex individuals that had lived in evolutionary deep time, and yet “we have only found the remains of 0.0000002% of these giant dinosaurs.” Does that make any sense? Only 1 in 2 million show up in the fossil record? A better explanation is that the actual number of all dinosaurs was far lower within the few thousand years of Biblical time, and most of them were buried during the Flood. That’s why we also find soft tissue in many dinosaur bones; it wasn’t that long ago.

This is another argument against deep time: if there were billions upon billions of dinosaur giants over the millions of years they existed, why are there so few fossils? And why do the fossils have intact proteins and tissues? Why, too, are so many dinosaurs found in the posture of suffocation, with head arched back over the spine? This posture is so common, it has a name: the “dinosaur death pose.” It looks like they were all suffocated by drowning. Why are so many dinosaur bones found in massive graveyards with fish and flood-deposited rock, as at Dinosaur National Monument?

Pester’s dismissive answer to the question “Did Noah’s Flood really happen?” thus fails in at least two major ways: misrepresenting the flood geology position, and ignoring the severe problems with the secular position.

False Framing

After ignoring geological arguments, Pester then uses the religion-vs-science meme to reduce the Flood to myths and legends.

According to historical documents, Noah’s flood is a retelling of older stories, and it’s likely allegorical rather than a literal recounting of an event. Ira Spar, professor of ancient studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey, told Live Science that the biblical stories in the Old Testament, which were written down between 800 B.C. and 500 B.C., likely came from older oral traditions and multiple sources.

There are slightly different accounts of Noah’s flood story in other religious books, such as the Quran, while earlier versions of a cataclysmic flood stem from ancient Mesopotamian texts. Spar noted that there’s a Sumerian flood story recorded in fragments that dates back to the late third millennium B.C.

No scholarship by creation scientists is quoted by Pester in response to these well-known criticisms of the Genesis Flood, which are all answered at length in their literature. If there was a global flood, it would have left observable scientific evidence in geology and paleontology; and it does! Isn’t it interesting that secular scientists can envision megafloods on Mars—which has no water—but cannot fathom enough water to cause a global flood on Earth, whose surface is covered 70% with water even today. See video from Harvard.

Rather than dismissing the flood as a myth, why doesn’t Pester consider the possibility that flood legends around the world are distant cultural memories of a single real event? Why do the legends become more fanciful as a function of distance from Ararat? Why does the Genesis account sound so much more reasonable, describing events in a straightforward timeline in detail, exalting the righteousness and regret of a holy God over human violence filling the earth due to sin, instead of talking about selfish gods upset with all the noise people were making, as in the Mesopotamian accounts?

 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. ¹² And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. ¹³ On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, ¹⁴ they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. ¹⁵ They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. ¹⁶ And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in.

¹⁷ The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. ¹⁸ The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. ¹⁹ And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. ²⁰ The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.

Pester completely glosses over the fossil record, with its multiple “explosions” and extinctions that gave Darwin headaches. This video asks whether fossils are best explained by design or evolution. A lengthy video on the Genesis Flood could have been referenced by Pester had he done his job as a reporter. CEH cannot validate every piece of evidence in that particular video, but collectively, the strongest pieces of evidence in it should not be ignored. See also the series, “Is Genesis History?” and learn about the history of Flood geology and the rise of Lyell’s uniformitarianism in the early 19th century as documented by Dr Terry Mortenson in his book, The Great Turning Point.

If you read my article at Evolution News, “The Darwin Wall Still Stands,” you will understand why Big Science and Big Media get away with straw-manning their opponents. They have the power of monopoly, and power corrupts. With power, they feel no need to do a rigorous literature search and find out what their opponents really believe and argue. Lazy and fat with Darwine and Science Fudge, they can just call up a Darwin Party spokesman to give a quick talking point, like “The one thing we know for sure… is that a global flood never happened,” and be done with it.

Speaking of “stories,” the Darwinists are masters of storytelling. In fact, evolution could be described as Job Security for Storytellers. Isn’t that why so many have compared Darwinian explanations to Kipling’s Just-So Stories? Pester should be ashamed.

On the bright side, power makes the corrupt unfit. They forget how to exercise their minds. The opposition, denied the access to the microphones broadcasting the regime’s propaganda over the world, has been working out. They are strong because they have to know both sides well, and it strengthens their position.

Walls are destined to come down eventually if the pressure keeps mounting. Remember the celebrations by freedom-loving people when the Berlin Wall came down.