Talk:Global flood/Archive1

Rainfall rate

"the water would have been falling at a rate of 462 inches per hour"???

Above, we say the water was 22'6" deep. Over 40 days, that's only about 6" a day. One hell of a lot of rain, but not unimaginable. human^{be in} 15:09, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

Yeah I know but the story is chalk full of inconsistencies, it also says the water coverd every piece of land. The inches number is based on Mt. everest. I will go quote mine the bible to clarafy my point on that. -Ĭ₠ŴΣĐĝё 15:15, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

The phrase is 'chockfull of inconsistencies'. That's 'chockfull', see here, not 'chalk full', which makes absolutely no sense at all. And it's 'covered', 'clarify', and 'assumptions' and 'Ararat' (for later in this page). --211.75.91.21 12:15, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Is it an imaginable amount of rain though? Is there even that much water on earth to cover that much space? (Never mind that people can't breathe all that well above a certain altitude, and we're covering Everest...) ŠтΈṜȳŁЁ^and...? 15:17, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

No, there isn't that much water in reality. On Planet Conservative, however, according to wp:Hydroplate theory, the continental plates float on vast reserves of water, not magma (funny, I don't remember basalt floating...). ISTR someone said that after the flood, the water was 'somehow' launched into space(!), but I really don't care enough to cite it. --Gulik 15:32, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

There is some kind of idea like that. I came across it once before somewhere. The water is supposed to be held somewhere above the atmosphere or some such tosh. --Bob_M (talk) 15:41, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

"Some people" (ahem) think the water ended up as comets. human^{be in} 14:42, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

Just make it clear. Right now the article is inconsistent - first it says 22'6", then later 462 in/hr. As long as the assumtions behind both are clear, no harm. I could imagine 6" of rain for 40 days - and that would be one hell of a flood. (a local flood, of course). The only for there to be a "global flood" would be for there to be no high ground. Um, yeah. human^{be in} 15:39, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

Even if it did not cover Mt. Everest the Ark itself came to land on top of mount arat which is 16,854 ft. high. -Ĭ₠ŴΣĐĝё 15:42, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

Well, I think the exact phrase is "in the mountains of ararat", but still, that's crazy ;) human^{be in} 15:49, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

Air pressure

Say, I'm looking at those varying flood depths and wondering, what happened to the air pressure? Would it have gone up as the seas rose and forced the air above upwards? Or would it have gone down as the effective height increased? Either way, how would this affect Noah? --Kels 17:07, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

If it were possible that it happened, those questions could be answered. human^{be in} 14:42, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

The air pressure can be answered. At the surface it would have remained the same (assuming constant gravity), because all the air would still need to be around, and as close to the centre of gravity as it can get. The Avogadro Constant (or is it Boyle's Law?) might have to come into it for a fuller explanation. Totnesmartin 05:32, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

My (uneducated in this case) guess is that it would have gone down. If you increase the physical volume of the earth by globally raising the see about the tops of the highest mountains then, at any given point on the surface of the new ocean, the column of air above that point would be reduced. Consequently the pressure exerted by that column would be less. But, hey, I don't claim expertise on this one. --Bob_M (talk) 06:38, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

yes, it would have gone down slightly because of the earth's increased surface area, but not that much probably, being only five miles further away from the centre of gravity already nearly 4000 miles away. Totnesmartin 07:11, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

This reminds me of a famous thought experiment about if you run a piece of string around the equator and then add a piece a yard long, how high above the ground would it be? Intuitively, most people say hardly anything at all but of course the maths says 6 inches. Anyway, the theory that the water was in caverns or something beneath the land and then the land collapsed with the water spewing out would mean that there was no net gain in diameter and the airpressure would remain the same. Genghis Khant 14:00, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Again I'm out of my league a little here, but is gravity the most important issue? If we do a thought experiment reduce the quantity of air in the atmosphere by two thirds but leave gravity the same then I would assume that would reduce the air pressure substantially. Indeed, if we took all the air away the air pressure would be zero with the same gravity. So isn't the quantity of air above you the most important issue?--Bob_M (talk) 12:55, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

That is correct, yes. However, as I said above, since this isn't a real "scientific theory", it's missing most of the supposed "facts" that could be used to answer such questions. If there was a clear, step-by-step theory of where the water started off, how it then flooded the world, and what happened to it afterwards (and by step-by-step I mean with numbers and stuff), then things could be calculated. In the end, the closer you work with "real numbers", the more catastrophic the conditions on earth (like a boil-off at the surface due to potential energy released as the water fell, etc.). I'm pretty sure talkorigins.org has clear refutations of every "version" YECs have pretended is their "science". Ditto, by the way, the animules on the alleged "Ark". human^{be in} 13:04, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Hey man. I'm not saying it's right, it's obviously not. :-) --Bob_M (talk) 13:17, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Die, heretic! human^{be in} 13:27, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

I'm an apostate not a heretic! If you're going to burn me at least get the paperwork right!--Bob_M (talk) 13:39, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Paperwork, scraperwork, who cares as long as we meet our quota. We got the wood, and nails or matches, the choice is yours... human^{be in} 13:43, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Not so fast. Form zl0009 states that apostates can only be burnt after the inquisition has had them on the rack for over two days and they have recanted. If they have not recanted after that time they are to be boiled in oil. Meanwhile form ccl009 part B1 states that heretics deserve three days on the rack with death by boiling oil if they recant and burning if they don’t. While I have had my two days on the rack I have not recanted, and consequently demand my right to the boiling oil. Might I request organic vegetable oil? --Bob_M (talk) 14:01, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Evaporation

Anyone want to try and figure out how long it would have taken for all the water to evaporate and for sea levels to return to their norm? I'm getting thousands of years, I think, but I'm also not really sure what I'm doing, or how to really do it. Thunderkatz^Ho! 14:44, 2 August 2007 (CDT)

Interesting idea. Of course the standard creationist claim for that scenario is that the water sunk into caverns in the ground. - Icewedge 14:48, 2 August 2007 (CDT)

Or wound up in the outer solar system ("where comets come from"). The truth is that there is no "standard claim" because there is no theory, just a bunch of random BS. human^{be in} 18:46, 2 August 2007 (CDT)

Two or more

Why does the text claim there is a contradiction here? OK, the whole story's weird,and unbelievable - but I don't see the contradiction in this little bit of weirdness. The OT mentions clean and unclean animals - pigs, horses and camels were ritually unclean (technically because they did not have cloven hooves) and sheep, cows deer were clean. So seven of some and two of another.--Bob_M (talk) 04:49, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Why, oh why, oh why?

What the eff are so many otherwise obviously intelligent people doing, trying to discredit something that is so obviously a load of c**p Keep ^{koi karp (in a pond)} 13:31, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Guess some people get a kind of sado-masochistic kick out of it. Also there are plenty of people in the good old USA who believe it literally happened.--Bob_M (talk) 13:33, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

It's an interesting thought exercise, which shows us to be more intelligent than the flood-believers. And it beats bloody sudoku any day. Totnesmartin 14:31, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Everyone's more intelligent than flood believers! Keep^{to the left (in the UK)} 14:38, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Right! Now: how many angels can get on the head of a pin? Keep ^{koi karp (in a pond)} 13:37, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Thomas sayz: None, or an infinite number. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 13:49, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Zippy! human^{be in} 15:02, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Yow! Am I theological yet? --Kels 15:47, 7 August 2007 (CDT)

Giants

The giants described in the Bible were intelligent and could talk so they would not have classifed as animals this means that Noah would not have taken them on the Ark, so how did they survive?

If it wasn't for Gen7:22ff, I would say you have your answer there. The whole 'giants/anakim/nephilim' stuff is all weird, though, so maybe that's why. -- מְתֻרְגְּמָן וִיקִי ^{שְׁלֹום!}

Maybe they kept their heads above the water. Genghis Khant 01:33, 8 August 2007 (CDT)

What about Gen 7:22? - Icewedge 15:50, 7 August 2007 (CDT)

Animals

Lest anyone misunderstand me, I'm not arguing the point here, just playing devil's advocate. There is a certain assumption by the Flood naysayers that the distribution of animals was the same as it is now. This is not neccessariy true, koalas, llamae etc. may have been living in Palestine at the time of the Flood and eucalyptus might have been a native species. If you believe the kangaroo stories, koalas may have clung to roos to excape all the horrible stuff that was going on in the "Holy Land" at that time. Genghis Khant 17:29, 7 August 2007 (CDT)

Eh, I am still working. But how do you propose dodo birds and wolves coexisted? - Icewedge 17:36, 7 August 2007 (CDT)

Oh and there is no habitat where both a polar bear and a rattle snake can live in harmony. - Icewedge 17:39, 7 August 2007 (CDT)

Polar bears are an anomaly. They can live on floating ice, just like penguins. Genghis Khant 01:16, 8 August 2007 (CDT)

Something to also think about is the amount of food needed to feed the animals. An Elephant eats around 220lbs-440lbs a day. That is 80,300lbs for one elephant for the year (low number for argument sake). An Elephant's average weight is 16,538lbs so the food takes up way more mass than the elephant. With these numbers ~82% of the ark would be just for food storage. On that same note ever heard of a person lift thousands of lbs each day for care of the animals? Noah's children would have been huge! (Not to mention their caloric intake to sustain the muscle growth).--TimS 14:49, 13 August 2007 (CDT)

Actually this is one of my pet worries about the situation before the last ice age. If mastodons were living and grazing in Siberia beforehand - just what were they living on? Genghis Khant 15:41, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

Grass and leaves and stuff? Siberia is not all ice and tundra if that's what you mean. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 17:59, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

Integrity of the Ark

How big was the biggest non-fictional wooden ship ever made? Bigger then Noah's, smaller...? --Gulik 11:37, 8 August 2007 (CDT)

About 150 shorter that the Ark. - Icewedge 13:11, 8 August 2007 (CDT)

A timber warship built for Ptolemy IV (around 200 BC), and described by the Roman historian Plutarch was 128 metres long (about 390 feet). That's about 40 feet less than the Ark. This ship, known as the Tessarakonteres, is recognized by the Guiness Book of Records as the world's Largest Human Powered Vessel. The obelisk barge of Queen Hatshepsut (about 1,480 BC, Late Bronze Age), is estimated at 95-140 metres long and 32 metres wide. The larger of these lengths is almost exactly the probable length of Noah’s ark (a little over, in fact). The 'Giant Ship' of the Roman emperor Caligula was 104 metres long (about 341 feet), and 20.3 metres wide (66 feet), with six decks. It displaced between 7,000 and 8,000 tons, and carried a crew of 700-800. More comparisons here. --211.75.91.22 12:28, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Yes, that's a fascinating article, and, of course, overthrows all the nay-saying that the article here has been throwing around. For instance, "The information in the Genesis flood record is reliable, and is proved so by archaeological findings. There was a real Noah, a real ark, and a real flood. There was a real judgment, sent by a real God." reference = the link left by the anon IP above. human^{be in} 15:28, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Actually it doesn't overthrow 'all the nay-saying that the article here has been throwing around'. The article here is aimed directly at opposing the 'global flood' interpretation of the Genesis flood, whereas the article to which I linked presents a local flood interpretation of the Genesis flood. So the article to which I linked doesn't actually overthrow 'all the nay-saying' here, because it's not intended to. --211.75.91.22 15:55, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, I forgot the </sarcasm> tags... I did like the boat refs, though. By the way, that WP article above is pretty sketchy. I guess it is probably in the middle of being improved. human^{be in} 16:13, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

I did assume you were being sarcastic, but my point stands regardless. Most of the 'nay-saying' here is perfectly legitimate, and I may contribute to it myself. If you want to improve the WP article above, then go right ahead (though sketchy or not, the facts remain). --211.75.91.25 20:05, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Ah, good, ok. No interest in that WP article, certainly not enough to try to fix it. And, yes, it seems to, vaguely at least, describe boats of a similar vintage and size. human^{be in} 20:10, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

I don't think there's anything vague about the WP article. It refers to one ship, the Tessarakonteres, provides the historical reference for the ship (Plutarch), gives the specific dimensions, and identifies it as recognized by the Guinness Book of Records. Oh, I've just realized you might be referring to the 'WordPress' article, not the 'WikiPedia' article. In that case your objection is even less coherent, since the WordPress article is not in the least vague. It provides specific historical details of the Tessarakontes, Caligula's Nemi ships and giant barge, as well as the obelisk barge of Queen Hatshepsut. Specific dimensions are given, specific dates are given, specific historical and physical evidence is provided, and images are also given of one of the Nemi ships and of the obelisk barge of Queen Hatshepsut. A wealth of specific historical detail regarding relevant ANE maritime history and technology is also provided. There's nothing 'vague' about it.--211.75.91.21 22:14, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Nothing vague, but it is not exactly "ready for prime time". Half the boats it mentions are just descriptions. Anyway, I also don't know from whatever this "wordpress" crap is, or having my "objection" called "less coherent". That is not a nice way to discuss things. Do I know you from somewhere? You seem familiar... Anyway, the WP article I referred to was the one you linked to at WikiPedia. I have read many WP articles on many subjects, and that one is still embryonic at best by WP standards, so I trust it less. Anyway, the point of whether a boat of that size could have been built around that time is at least partly substantiated - has this been addressed in the article yet? I tend to only fix typos in it (that's my job here), I'm really don't have my panties in a bunch over whether the novel called Genesis has any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead. human^{be in} 00:01, 24 August 2007 (CDT)

The WordPress article lists six ships. One is described by Memnon. One is described by Plutarch. These two have no corroborating physical evidence. Two others are the Nemi ships, one of which still exists to this very day (and a photo is helpfully provided). A fifth is Caligula's giant barge, which also exists to this very day. A sixth is the obelisk barge of Queen Hatshepsut, which is not merely 'described', but has undisputed archaeological support. So it isn't true to say that 'Half the boats it mentions are just descriptions'. You could say a third of them are, at the very most. I'm sorry that you took offense at my description of your objection as 'incoherent'. It wasn't intended to be personal, it was simply a statement of the facts as they presented themselves to me. The fact that the WikiPedia article is 'still embryonic at best' doesn't change the fact that the information in it is both verifiable and accurate. I know, because I took the time to personally verify it myself, including reading Plutarch and the related article on the largest wooden ships ever built (which is far more developed, and contains numerous references). I don't believe that the point of whether a boat of that size could have been built is addressed in the article yet, but I'm not sure that's what the article is there for. Isn't the article to list objections to a global flood and ridicule every detail of the Genesis flood narrative, rather than to present a balanced assessment? This is RationalWiki, after all, it's not an NPOV encyclopedia. --Taiwan boi 02:23, 24 August 2007 (CDT)

What probably should be noted is that none of the known wooden ships of this size were intended for use beyond very peaceful seas. An ark, on the other hand, would have to contend with major storms.--MountainTiger 02:33, 24 August 2007 (CDT)

That's a separate issue to whether or not they could be built, which is the issue questioned in the article. But last time I looked, the Mediterranean was not a very peaceful sea, yet Caligula's Giant Barge managed ok. The 324 foot schooner-barge 'Santiago' enjoyed a service life of just over 20 years on the Great Lakes (yet strangely this ship is never mentioned when large timber ships are raised - people only want to hear about the one which kept leaking, though this one didn't), notorious for storms and shipwrecks. It was finally sunk in a gale, but managed to survive through plenty of rough water. --Taiwan boi 03:55, 29 August 2007 (CDT)

Palestine

The article bizarrely assumes Noah was in 'Palestine'. Not only does the Bible say nothing of Noah being in 'Palestine', 'Palestine' didn't even exist at the time of Noah. References to 'Palestine' should be struck out. --211.75.91.22 20:08, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Ironically, Palestine does not exist now, either. Where would you suggest the article should refer to the events occurring (or not)? Judea? The Middle East? human^{be in} 20:12, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

I suggest the article state clearly that the Bible does not say where the events took place, but places them in an ANE setting. --211.75.91.21 22:15, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Would you mind explainging what "ANE" means? Signed, too stupid to figure it out and too lazy to google it, human^{be in} 23:50, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Ancient Near East. --Taiwan boi 02:14, 24 August 2007 (CDT)

Thanks! Now if someone will edit the article to reflect that... human^{be in} 02:21, 24 August 2007 (CDT)

I've made an edit using 'Mesopotamia', which might be more accessible to most people. --Taiwan boi 02:32, 24 August 2007 (CDT)

If the Earth were the size of a cue ball

Would it be smoother than a cue ball? Yes.

Anyway, why would you attempt to argue using natural constraints what is obviously a super-natural event? 22:25, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Um, maybe it's because 1. the world works according to natural constraints and 2. the "super-natural events" described in Genesis are just a bunch of bullshit that have always been used by religious and political zealots as part of an attempt to keep people ignorant and afraid of big, invisible vengeful man in the sky. PFoster 22:35, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, whatever. But why are you guys spending so much time on how the animals got to the ark? It is not rational to pursue that line of thinking. 22:38, 23 August 2007 (CDT) ^{— Unsigned, by: 64.22.92.56 / talk / contribs}

But it IS rational to assume that a guy built a boat big enough to....never mind...PFoster 22:40, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Dear anon, first, please sign with four tildes so we can at least get familiar with your IP. Second, we spend energy on many things here. One or three users enjoy working on this article, who are any of us to fault them for their labors? human^{be in} 23:52, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

Fragile architectural structures

What happened to this section? --Taiwan boi 19:10, 25 August 2007 (CDT)

Unexplained reverts

Is there a reason why everything I contribute to this article is simply wiped out in a revert? --Taiwan boi 20:58, 30 August 2007 (CDT)

The racist sections make us, oh, a bit wary of you? Where's your writing plan? -- מְתֻרְגְּמָן וִיקִי ^{שְׁלֹום!}

Excuse me? Which 'racist sections'? To date I've written only one thing which could possibly be construed as having anything to do with race (and was certainly not racist). Nothing else I've written did, and yet everything has been reverted. Explain please. --Taiwan boi 02:49, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

1. if anyone wants to accuse someone of "racist" edits, please provide difflinks. I tried to research this and gave up. 2. Taiwan boi, you might be crashing into an article writer who thinks they "own" the article. Which is not good wiki-style, but can happen. Please, if anyone wants to post difflinks so I can follow these accusations, I'll be glad to be a jerk judge and say meaningless things about it. human^{be in} 03:14, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

I'm happy to post my suggestions for future edits here for discussion. --Taiwan boi 03:49, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

Well that oughtta work. I hate to see a contributor's work minimized. The strength of a wiki is in the collaboration, after all. human^{be in} 04:04, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

Stop channeling Ed, Human. It's scary. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 04:16, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

What I really need to know is the extent to which this Wiki is intended to be a parody or satire, and the extent to which it is trying to be taken seriously. I made some facetious edits previously to highlight some of the ridiculous statements already in the article, because I assumed they were facetious. But perhaps they were supposed to be taken seriously, and someone considered my satire to be vandalism. --Taiwan boi 04:38, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

Well, our policy is here: RationalWiki:Project Whitewash/What is a RationalWiki article does that clarify things?--Bob_M (talk) 05:11, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

It doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know. I know RationalWiki is deliberately POV and makes no attempt to present balanced articles. I know it doesn't require sources to be cited, or statements to be substantiated with sources. I know it encourages satire, sarcasm and absurdism. My last few edits were exactly that. Yet they were removed. That's what I'm wondering about. --Taiwan boi 05:21, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

Well, I was trying to answer your general questions about parody and satire and thought the link might help. I note that further up this thread that Human offered to review your posts if you give him the difflinks. :-) --Bob_M (talk) 05:28, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

It was helpful, with regard to confirming my understanding of RW. As for differences, see here. You will note that Icewedge helpfully reverted an error I had actually corrected. One section of the article referred erroneously to 'The contemporary English translation of the Bible'. There is, of course, no such thing. What was meant was 'The Contemporary English Version of the Bible', an actual Bible translation, and the specific translation quoted in this section of the article. Unfortunately, since Icewedge was ignorant of the fact that 'The contemporary English translation of the Bible' is a meaningless statement, and that 'The Contemporary English Version of the Bible', is an actual Bible translation and the specific translation quoted in this section of the article, he blindly reverted my correction so that the article is now in error once more. You have to wonder if people actually take the time to think about what they're doing, and carry out any kind of research. --Taiwan boi 05:39, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

You might also want to browse this section RationalWiki:Help to find out a bit more about us. --Bob_M (talk) 05:13, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

OK, human, a difflink - I find the argument 'Noah could not have built the ark because he was not a white person', oh, I dunno, a bit close to the edge. -- מְתֻרְגְּמָן וִיקִי ^{שְׁלֹום!}

Not to mention factually wrong. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 07:28, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

No it's not racist, not even close. And only part of it is wrong - the conclusion that Noah could not have built the Ark because he was a white person. It's actually a parody of an argument made in the article, that Noah couldn't have built the Ark because he lived a long time ago, long before clever white people figured out how to build timber ships over 300 feet long, but that even clever white people couldn't make those ships properly seaworthy, so Noah certainly couldn't have. I inserted it to demonstrate the lunacy of the argument already in the article, which is simply a thinly disguised version of the more obviously ludicrous argument I inserted. --Taiwan boi 20:32, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Hmm, let me see if can shed some random light here. Although we do encourage humor in our articles, I think we also are trying to be clear, and so if a joke could easily be misconstrued, it would need to be improved or removed. This isn't UC, we are trying to get a point across, not just make lots of random humor (well, ok, we do have "ACD:" for that) We do encourage citations, and if an assertion of fact is made, someone will end up asking where it came from. We just aren't as strict as WP on that - we don't instantly delete uncited additions. As far as the reverted edits, it looks like several in a row were made (by Taiwain boi), ending with the "white people" thing about boats. Then Icewedge didn't just remove that one edit, he rolled back to the version before Taiwan boi edited it. Well, was there anything good in those edits that should be restored? Perhaps that contemp. bible title thing? It's always good to make clear edit comments so people know what you are doing, of course. Perhaps the original author meant the simple phrase, uncapped, or perhaps they just forgot to capitalize. In the end (haha) we'll get it all right I'm sure. I often come to this article and fix typos and such, the primary author (Icewedge, not that he "owns" the article) tends to play fast and loose with English sometimes. Anyway, I hope these comments help make clear what happened and how we can move forward, gloriously... PS, sorry about that Ed Poor riff, AK! human^{be in} 16:11, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

I inserted a number of arguments which were parodies of arguments already existing in the article. The article contains factual errors, as well as facile arguments which are so poorly constructed that I can imagine some Christians wanting them to stay there, just so that they can laugh at how pathetic atheist arguments against the Genesis flood narrative are. The Wiki article does a much better job of detailing the problems with a global flood, and a lot of this RationalWiki article has nothing to do with a global flood anyway (the part about the rainbow is completely irrelevant to the issue of a global flood, for example). A number of the arguments in the RationalWiki article were so absurd that I thought for a while they were deliberate parodies of Young Earth Creationist arguments, but to my horror I finally realized that they were intended to be serious. If this article is intended to be serious and intended to be factually accurate, it is going to need a major overhaul. If it's supposed to be a hilariously idiotic parody of Young Earth Creationist arguments, using all the same logical fallacies, poor reasoning, and lack of proper research, then I would leave it as it is. Which is it to be? --Taiwan boi 20:32, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

If you want to improve the article, improve it. If you're not sure what the improvement should be, discuss the flaws here in talk. Adding more junk to what you think is junk doesn't help anyone; making it better helps us all. Goatspeed!!! Oh, and by "Wiki", you mean Wikipedia, right? Clearer abbr. is WP. human^{be in} 20:47, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

reverts part 2

I made straightforward, non-satirical edits to the article previously, when I first arrived here. They were (predictably), reverted. That's when I received the impression that the article was supposed to be satirical rather than serious. No explanation was given for these reverts (as seems to be typical here). Yes, but 'Wiki' I mean 'Wikipedia'. I find that 'WP' is often confused with 'WordPress'. I'll try making factual edits to the article, and see how promptly they are reverted this time. I'll suggest they won't last 24 hours (don't worry, the Wikipedia article on Noah's Ark is the same - you can even show them that a statement made in the article has no support whatever and is contradicted by authoritative sources, and they'll still insist it stays). --Taiwan boi 21:15, 4 September 2007 (CDT)--Taiwan boi 21:36, 4 September 2007 (CDT)--Taiwan boi 21:36, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

OK, well, the two edits you just made were to delete two complete sections. I'm not going to "stand up" for their accuracy, etc., but, you make no edit comment, you don't copy them here and explain the issues for discussion... is there any wonder your edits get reverted? human^{be in} 21:25, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Make that three deleted sections. You undertand I'm just going to roll these all back, if no one else does, right? Why not at least quote what you have issues with here and discuss the improvements/corrections/logical issues with, er, the rest of the contributors and editors who are interested? human^{be in} 21:27, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Good grief, give me half a minute! I just spent the last five minutes writing up several paragraphs explaining those deletions in detail, and now I can't post them because you've changed the page while I was editing it. Now I have to start again. Before you go off all guns blazing, give me at least 5 minutes to explain my edits. --Taiwan boi 21:36, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

For future reference, if there's an edit conflict, scroll down to the bottom of that screen, and your stuff should be in the edit window at the bottom. Just cut & paste into the upper edit window, and it should go through fine. That's what I usually do. --Kels 21:46, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

I did that several times before it actually worked. It just kept telling me there was an edit conflict, without updating the page. --Taiwan boi 21:49, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Sometimes that happens, very frustrating, I know - especially if you were editing a small section of a large page. Another way around it is to, as I think you did, create a new section. It might read a bit odd, but never edit conflicts. Oh, and re: your comments in the new section, thanks. Hopefully whoever is "invested" in what is in those sections will chime in and defend them or discuss new/better wording. Are there any other weak areas in the article you can suggest making stronger? human^{be in} 21:57, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Recent edits

I have removed the following sections:

• Sons of God: This section referred to the Contemporary English Version of the Bible using incorrect nomenclature. It also made an entirely spurious argument by selectively quoting this translation of the Bible without explaining why this particular translation is superior to others. The fact is that the translation 'supernatural beings' found in this translation is not found in the majority of standard English translations over the last 400 years. It is a gloss, and a fringe gloss at that. The entire argument made in the 'Sons of God' section relies on the 'sons of God' being 'supernatural beings', something which the Bible never says. Making an argument from a single Bible translation which contains a gloss not found in any standard reputable modern Bible translation is not only very sloppy research, it commits the fallacy of selective quoting. I note that the article does this quite a lot. There are about four or five different Bible translations being quoted, each one in order to justify a particular 'spin' on the Genesis narrative.

• Human lifespan: Same problem as above. Once more a loose paraphrase of the Bible has been quoted (not even a translation), and once more this paraphrase is being uniquely quoted in the article (apparently only in this place, and only because its translation creates an apparent contradiction in the text. Once more there is no explanation given as to why this paraphrased version of the English Bible is authoritative, and the majority of standard reputable modern English translations are ignored (undoubtedly because they do not contain this 'contradiction'). This is sloppy research and selective quoting.

• Giants: This section claims that since giants lived after the flood, they must have survived the flood and been carried aboard the Ark. This commits the logical fallacy of the non sequitur. There is no necessity whatever for giants to have survived the flood. Giants can be born to non-giants, and typically are. This argument was based on completely faulty reasoning. Another error it commits is in claiming that the statement made by the men of Israel that the Anakim made them feel like grasshoppers really means that the men of Israel were claiming that the Anakim were so large that the physical difference in proportion between the Anakim and the men of Israel was the same as the physical difference in proportion between a grasshopper and a fully grown human adult. This is nonsense, as the text says no such thing

If I have my way, the 'Rainbow' section won't last long either. It contains the wholly unsubstantiated claim that the ancient Israelites thought that the rainbow was a physical object. It also starts by saying that the Bible seems to say that God created the rainbow after the flood, and then immediately continues on the basis that this mere assumption is a statement of fact. The Bible nowhere says that God created the rainbow after the flood, and early rabbinical exegesis says no such thing (the earliest rabbinical exegesis says that the rainbow was already around from the beginning of creation). --Taiwan boi 21:36, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Does "your way" in any way attempt to debunk the (ridiculous) idea that the entire world was flooded? Just curious... because the way this article reads, it is more about (as far as I can tell) various contradictions or logical weaknesses in the biblical story, rather than being a more scientific refutation. And, if it does wilfully quote mine by using too many "versions" of the bible, that might be weak. Of course, they were all the pure and given word of God in their day. So maybe the ever-changing truths in the many bibles needs to also be addressed. Either that or we all learn Greek & Hebrew (& c.) and hope we have the best extant rewrites of the "originals". human^{be in} 22:01, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

My 'way' simply involves correcting factual errors in this article. I have no intention of including in this article any evidence that the Genesis flood narrative is plausible, since that would violate the stated aim of RationalWiki as I understand it (which is to attempt to deny that any Biblical narratives are plausible). On the other hand, I believe I've already made it clear that I'm perfectly happy with the idea of debunking the concept of a global flood, which is an event I believe has never happened (nor do I believe the Bible records a global flood, but that's another issue). Yes, the article as it stands is more a 'contradictions in the Bible' article in the usual limpwristed style, rather than an article which is directed towards an examination of the Genesis flood narrative.

As I have demonstrated, the article does deliberately quote mine in several places. The very fact that so many different versions of the Bible are quoted, the very fact that paraphrases are quoted rather than translations, and the very fact that minority renderings of the text are quoted, is all indicative of this.

No, they were not 'all the pure and given word of God in their day'. Modern paraphrases and versions are specifically identified in their introduction or forward as being paraphrases or versions, and they do not claim to be in the same position to present the text as actual translations (a 'version' or 'paraphrase' is simply a re-rendering of an existing English text, it is not a translation from the original languages). Not only that, but most modern Bibles contain footnotes or marginal notes explaining various translation or rendering decisions which have been made, acknowledging ambiguities and/or alternative translations/renderings (when these passages are quoted, it is honest to include these footnotes or marginal notes). This has nothing to do with 'ever-changing truths', an idea which (with your 'we all learn Greek & Hebrew' comment), is an unfortunately common misunderstanding of the entire field of textual criticism and translation. --Taiwan boi 22:55, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Perhaps the contradictions part should be relocated to different articles but I fail to see how this is quote mining. The text is not shown in a single block with the proceding verses included because that would impair the general readability of it. If you can expand the context for any of those quotes and demonstrate how they are being quote mined then they should be removed from the article, if you cannot please keep your alogations of quote mining to your self.

As to using multiple translations some are just clearer than others.

PS. frogive my spelling I am gramaticaly impared. - Icewedge 00:32, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

Let me explain to you (again), why it constitutes quote mining. It constitutes quote mining because it is a particular form of selective quoting. Not only is it a form of selective quoting, it is a particularly insidious form of selective quoting which requires sufficient deliberation to warrant suspicion of intentional misrepresentation. I am not objecting that sufficient context hasn't been quoted. I have made my objections quite clear (please read them).

It's all very well saying that some translations are clearer than others, but the whole issue is that when you quote one translation over another on the basis that you believe it is 'clearer than others', you have to actually prove that it is in fact 'clearer than others' in the place being quoted. If you don't have any idea of how to go about this, then I suggest you find out before you try this again.

I suggest you read what I wrote. What the article does on a couple of occasions is quote from Bible paraphrases which render the text in an unorthodox manner which is radically different to the vast majority of standard modern English Bible translations. That should send up warning flags already, but if that wasn't bad enough no justification whatever is made in the article for such selective quoting.

I note that all of my changes have been reverted, despite the fact that not one of my objections has been addressed. This demonstrates that the 'RationalWiki' is not as open minded as it claims to be. But I already knew that. --Taiwan boi 20:14, 6 September 2007 (CDT)

I believe part of the point of the article to refute biblical literalists. Which, I think Taiwan boi just did a very nice job of. There's a decent article in what he wrote above, can anyone think of a good title? Then we can copy the good stuff over there. PS, forgive me if I misinterpreted "boi" to mean "male". human^{be in} 00:36, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, and it's ok I am male. --Taiwan boi 20:14, 6 September 2007 (CDT)

I've made him an essay space (see below) Susan Jayne Garlick^talk 00:48, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

THIS IS ALL FLAWED IN THAT IF GOD CAN CAUSE THE FLOOD IN THE FIRST PLACE, THEN CAN HE NOT DO ANYTHING

As the title suggests, it makes no sense that God can cause the global flood yet not protect, feed, etc. the animals. In fact, all of those arguments are invalid if you assume that God is omnipotent, which is suggested by the general global flood idea. 68.185.157.191 (talk) 00:53, 3 October 2014 (UTC) Well the argument that you provide here is pretty much goddidit and is therefore irrelevant.N7.Geth (talk) 19:24, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

The topic is of interest, not because any competent person believes that something like what is described in the Bible happened, but for the twists and turns of imaginations running loose while claiming to cleave to a literal reading of an inerrant text which is sufficient in itself. It is interesting how many self-contradictions the human mind is capable of accepting, given enough motivation. It's sort of like one of those picture puzzles where one is supposed to pick out all of the mistakes (like the character wearing one ice-skate and one roller-skate). TomS TDotO (talk) 19:50, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

cover story

user:Thunderkatz added the nomination template. "(hope i did the noincludes right)" - they don't matter until it is approved. They should be around teh "cover" template as well, of course.

I haven't read through this recently, but as I recall it's a pretty good piece, so I'll vote YES human 19:13, 28 January 2008 (EST)

Thanks for the correction. And I vote Yes, yes, ohhh yes! Thunderkatz^Ho! 19:18, 28 January 2008 (EST)

Adding. human 03:27, 6 February 2008 (EST)

I think we should "un-Cover" this for now, it either wasn't very good back then, or someone mucked it up a lot recently. Needs some cleanup all over the place. Thoughts? ħuman 18:15, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

There is a possibility it was never particularly good. We have so few articles of a substantial length that they stand out from most of the articles that get written; we may have assumed that because it was a decent length that it had to be good. Just a thought... Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 02:14, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

Well, I don't know if its length was the compelling factor in thinking it was good, but why don't we "de-cover" it until it is worthy again (or for the first time)? I'll go look at the diffs to see if it was once glorious or not. ħuman 16:59, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

Revisited

Three years on from this nomination, we have the brainstars. I think it's good to go. Besides, we haven't put a new cover up for ages. ADK^{...I'll waste your snake!} 04:11, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Totally worth it just for the Bible Adventures pic. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:13, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Ty^talk 11:35, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Rerevisited

Seriously, just what is keeping this from gold? It is one of the damn best articles RW has, along with Non-materialist neuroscience and Citizendium. Any objections, a list of what is needed, something? Else, I proceed. --Ray's Super Fun Hellhole! ^{g͘͡r̸̀a̸̶̡n̶̶͜ţ̡ ̀҉̴̨͡m̀͘͜͢e͡ ̸͟҉̷̢ỳ̸̡̀͞ơ̡̢̡ų̧r̴̀͡͝ ̡҉҉̧̛s̵̕͏̡ǫ̀́͢ų́l̵̕҉} 00:20, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll have a check through then remind myself exactly how cover articles work these days. ^pathetic 13:10, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Section on difficulties of keeping animals alive edited out?

There's a nice block of text that has been "arrowed" out--any idea why? PFoster 09:41, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Footnotes

Do we purposely have two sections called Footnotes, one halfway down the page and one at the bottom? Also, the last sentence of the section "The Rain Itself" doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Thunderkatz^Ho! 09:58, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

No, so I fixed it. That sentence means, I think, that the atmosphere can only hold "one inch" of rain in a vertical column, so for more to fall, it has to "blow in" from elsewhere. Looks pretty dubious though. ħuman 16:35, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

Speaking of which, for a cover story this thing seems to be all hacked up. Has someone recently added a lot of lesser material to it? For instance, that same section, it referred to the earth have a "volume" in "square miles", and equates 3% with 3/1000. What's up? ħuman 16:40, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

That whole section seems to have been added. When I came across it, it talked about the total volume of water, but the numbers didn't reflect anything that made sense. I tried to add correct numbers, but could't make heads or tales of what was actually the point. I'm still looking for help on the math aspects which don't really do anything for me.--En attendant Godot_{"Such is life."} 19:02, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

OK, so what sections have been added, and are they specifically why the article has started sucking, and how did we miss them if this is the case? ħuman 01:39, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

I checked the revision history. The bizarre rain mathematics came courtesy of Teresita. Where there any other problem sections you had in mind, or was that the main one? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 02:00, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

I removed Teresita's addition. The mechanics were so indecipherable, and, more importantly, unscientific (no sources were cited), that the section as it stood had no hope of redemption. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 02:17, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

It would facilitate identification of the sucky parts if someone could point to a version of the article that reflects when it was still "good". Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 02:06, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

I think that what the bit about rain etc. meant was that, at 100% saturation, the air above any one point would only hold 1" of liquid rain (as vapour) at any one time. Therefore, for the rain to continue for n days, falling at say 1" per hour, the actual air above the area would have to be completely replaced each hour. If this was happening over any substantial area then the windspeed to bring in the new water laden air would have been rather high and would have been constant for the whole period. There's a lot of maths involved in working out how much rain can be held in a static column of air - not to mention a moving one - but I'll wager that someone's worked it out somewhere. (Of course it could just have been the celestial dome cracking & allowing the waters to flow down from heaven.) I've been Googling for facts to back any of this up, but no real figures so far, e.g.:

    *  The mixing ratio (w) is the mass of water vapor per mass of dry air

    * Water vapor is at most 4%, so the mass of water vapor is small compared to dry air

    * Therefore, the units of mixing ratio are grams of water vapor per kilogram of dry air

    * Because the Earth’s surface is the source of water vapor, the mixing ratio typically decreases with height

(from here)

  ^Contribs_Talk 05:33, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

Is there a way to phrase it in layperson's terms? It won't help the promotion of science if no one can understand it. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 15:27, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

As I said above, I can't find anything that'll give actual figures fo the amount of water in the atmosphere at saturation (i.e. when it starts to rain) but just a rough statement like:

"The atmosphere above any point can only hold so much water at any one time, When this water is removed, by falling as rain, there has to be a replacement of the air by moist air from elsewhere. This, atmospheric movement, is known as wind. To maintain rain over a period of time there would be wind for the whole time. The greater the amount of rain per hour, the greater the wind created by replacement air entering. There is also the problem of saturating the incoming air. Wherever it came from the air had to have passed over water under conditions of high evaporation (usually sunshine!)."

Just off the top of my head.   ^Contribs_Talk 15:38, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

Right off the top of my head as well, the water vapour needs a seed of some sort to condense on (like champagne bubbles), usually dust particles of some sort but also ionised particles (that's the basis of a cloud chamber for observing sub-atomic charged particles). There also has to be saturation or supersaturation of the water vapour to encourage the water to condense, and the temperature of the air controls how much vapour may be held in the air. That's why you get rain on a "front", where saturated warm air meets cooler air and the air then becomes supersaturated and condenses. Генгис^pillaging 17:06, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

Update: The Footnotes isn't shown for some odd reason. Can someone check it out? [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 12:45, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It was the dpl in the see also section. Since the page now has a global flood navbar to the right, I don't think it's necessary, just add the most relevant see alsos to the see also section manually. --  Nx/talk  12:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

links to the bible

Shall we change the links to the bible to our own (Annotated Bible) or simply leave it to BibleGateway? Just a thought that might encourage people to actually put notes on the Annotated Bible. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 23:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps? One thing I kind of like about BG is that one can switch between versions so easily. ħuman 00:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Rainbow and Sunlight

Question: Would rainbow become a rare scene (rare enough they have never seen it before) if it is heavily cloudy almost everywhere (still some sunlight but not enough for a large scale rainbow)?

Also, the ref link regarding sunlight seems not very good: "Remember, there is no one cause of anything. There are only contributing factors.", as quoted from the article. Say that again for AIDS (HIV isn't the only cause? Ouch). A short explanation may fit better. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 22:57, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I think "There was no sunlight" pretty much covers your first comment. I agree, [1] is a crappy ref and should be deleted from our fine wiki. ħuman 01:25, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

No, homosex is the cause of AIDS, not HIV. The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 00:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Results of total darkness

Even if there was total darkness - rather than just no direct sunlight, which is all that is needed to prevent rainbows - there are microbes which get their energy from geothermal heath. Not all such microbes live in the water, are thus are not subject to violent currents, and violent surface surface IMHO, this whole section detracts from the article. TomS TDotO (talk) 00:53, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Percentages

To go from a population of eight to a population of 27 million in 350 years would require a population growth rate of 136.07%. That is 133% more than the fastest growing portions of the world today.

I checked the link provided. The fastest-growing portions of the world today have a population growth rate of 3%. Now, 136% is not 133% more than 3%. It is 129% more. This is because "129% more" means "multiplied by 2.29", and 2.36 is indeed 1.03 multiplied by 2.29. ^{— Unsigned, by: 91.107.181.241 / talk / contribs}

How about we just change it to "roughly forty times more..."? ħuman 00:25, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Just saw this after the discussion below showed up in recent changes, but the math in this section is wrong. To go from a population of 8 to 27 million in 350 years takes an annual growth rate of (27,000,000/8)^(1/350), or 4.39%. According to the CIA World Fact Book link, the fastest population growth in 2013 is Libya with 4.85%, which is actually higher. Libya's growth includes immigration, but the 4.39% rate is actually within human biological possibility (there are countries with higher birthrates than that), with a doubling time of just under 16 years. Similarly, going from 6 to 30,000 in 100 years takes an 8.89% growth rate, not 500%, and that rate is still possible if most women have as many children as they can, as fast as they can, and avoid death in childbirth (some creationists claim that Noah and the tower builders had advanced technology, so that's not an unreasonable stretch in their scenario). A criticism of these rates should therefore reflect their social implausibility rather than their biological impossibility, and have greater emphasis on things that are more clearly deal-breaking, like genetics. I'll take a crack at updating the section in a few days if there's no objection. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 01:35, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

No objections. I imagine whoever knocked up that section didn't take into account the exponential nature of it. Have made some amendments. ^bomination 12:59, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Duplication

The section "Post-flood animal survival" has duplicate information in the two paragraphs. Not wanting to step on anyone's toes could someone else (who modified the section perhaps) do a quick tidy-up? Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 10:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

j

One text I read said that what happened was people meeting up from different places referred to 'the flooding in my grandparent's time' 'We had the same thing, must be the same flood' -syncretically making a giant flood from little local difficulties. ^{— Unsigned, by: 82.44.143.26 / talk / contribs} 17:07, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. (You can indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line.) Thank you. -- Nx / talk 17:16, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Are these statements that creationists make?

• The Earth was "flatter" prior to the flood than it is now (i.e. the Grand Canyon was cut and Everest rose during the flood).
• It rained all over the Earth and water came up out of the Earth in many places over a forty day period.

--Edgerunner⁷⁶_{Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?} 15:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I've heard creationists make the first one--Thedoctor80 (talk) 22:11, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Silver

This is way better than bronze and the sort of thing that goes on the cover - David Gerard (talk) 11:05, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

BoN's explanations

I think they're hilarious. Is there any way we can keep them? Jack Hughes (talk) 10:07, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Will this do? Rennie McGreet (talk) 11:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it won't do because, without any context, they're not good enough for an article of this importance. If we wrapped each one with "One response is" or "A fundie's response was" of something, but, as they stand, they're not quite good enough. That's why I ended up reverting. Jack Hughes (talk) 11:42, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

There is RationalWiki:Best of the crazy, you can add the diff link there.--ZooGuard (talk) 12:03, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Humans, the Flood and Climate Change etc

Humans' sins led to the Flood - and therefore were responsible for climate change, the death of species, etc.

I read somewhere that 'the global flood' was probably in part the conflation of a number of stories of actual local floods 'just beyond living memory' - it was assumed that they all referred to the same flood.

'Giants' might well have been relative: given nutritional limitations at the time, many people might well have been shorter than we are now, so someone who did reach 'maximum height' might well have seemed taller than to us. (A variant on the argument used about Nestor - he lived to 90+, when the average lifespan was 30-40, so had lived more than two lifespans.) 82.198.250.5 (talk) 19:16, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Rainbow redux

Would it be possible for the rainbow thing to work (no rainbow pre-flood) if rain only occurs during the night and finishes way before dawn? Just trying to get cases covered. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 20:41, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Depends on how you want to "define" a rainbow. A rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by light diffraction, which means its perfectly possible for it to occur at any time (I think it works with the moon, I'll have a look). ^theist 20:43, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

wp:Moonbow ^moral 20:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

You've solved it! Oh, so it has to be on a moonless night, with no fires. that's doable. one rain a month, every month only at night! one would think the bible would mention such a thing of course.Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 20:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

To cut a long story short, the only way for a rainbow not to exist is for everyone to be completely unable to see. ^moral 20:59, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Biomass Argument (Hugh Ross)

I have also pasted a version of this on Talk:Evidence_against_a_recent_creation. Hugh Ross (OEC) claims on his website that in the earth there is around 80 quadrillion tons of fossilised biomass, locked up in limestone. Ross compares this with the estimates of current biomass - and concludes that the limestone total exceeds this by around 122,000–348,000 times.

Ross uses this biomass argument (sorry I can't find this in print - it's about half the way through the video) to demolish the YEC's simplistic model of flood geology, ie that the biblical flood created the fossil record. If every creature alive today suddently perished in a global catastrophe and became fossilised, it would only constitute around 0.001% of the total of the biomass locked up in limestone. Is there any evidence in the scientific literature to support this argument? If so, this is a killer for YEC 'flood geology'. On the other hand, perhaps they will just claim that they have now found where all the dark matter in the Universe has gone to. --CatWatcher (talk) 11:39, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

You guys are a bunch of shit heads

The reach that when into this article is beyond awful. Have you guys ever read the Bible? How can you discern the validity of something without even reading it? The Bible says that animals and humans did not eat meat before the flood, so that kinda makes animals eating each other a non factor.^{— Unsigned, by: 65.100.37.15 / talk / contribs}

The reach the whent into you're spellin and grammer is aslo aweful, budy. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 09:56, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey shit head - maybe you should read your bible. Death and consequently meat eating started after the fall of Adam. Not the flood. As per, you know, the Bible. You fail. Aceⁱ⁹ 09:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

and you just proved my point, you guys didn't read the Bible. According to the Bible God didn't give humans permission to eat meat until rite after the flood.

Think about what you are saying. The Fall of Adam was when God introduced death and suffering into the world. It was after The Fall but before the Flood that meat eating began. It is all in the Bible you think I haven't read. Aceⁱ⁹ 09:53, 5 February 2013 (UTC) Hang on, hang on - I take it back. You may very well be right. I apologise and retract. Aceⁱ⁹ 09:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Humans weren't given permission to eat until after the flood, but there is no indication that animals remained vegetarian after the fall. From the limited study that I have done, it is an open question whether other animals became carnivorous after the fall.eg here --Damo^Hi 09:59, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I for one have never heard of fishing. What is fishing? Can you explain it to me? Blue (pester) 10:01, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

People disagree on the point. After all it seems likely that animals were killed for clothing/shelter prior to the flood and Calvin, for example, thought that the covenant was effectively giving humans a guilt free pass for what they were already doing (ie, eating meat). Regardless, it's like arguing the finer details of a Grimm brothers story, was Thumbelina 4 or 5 inches? Who exactly were the seven dwarfs? No article will ever address your specific theology, but perhaps if you lay out how you believe lions ate plants prior to the flood etc... then people will engage with you on this talk page and disabuse you of those beliefs. Tielec01 (talk) 10:02, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you're argument seems entirely focused on details that, in the end, don't make much difference. Now if you want to debate, say, whether or not there is proof of said flood, then I think this whole site will be all-ears. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 10:06, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

(ec x 3) And here does it say that animals were vegetarian. Because a lion's teeth were totally "created" to eat carrots. Or did God make a mistake? What amazes me is that you claim to have read the Bible, and still think the Flood story has any credibility. --PsyGremlin^講話 10:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

If there were no carnivores before the flood, then one of the following must be true:

• God created the carnivores after the flood. If so, why even bother with the ark, why not just create everything after the flood? And why doesn't the bible note the sudden appearance of a whole bunch of new animals on land and in the sea?
• The current carnivores were modified by God post-flood, to accommodate the enormous changes in the skeletal, digestive and muscular systems that would be needed to move to their new diet. God would also have to modify the numerous dead animals as well, else the fossil record would show vegetarian lions and sharks. As there were no dinosaurs after the flood anyway, why did he modify their corpses to make several of them look carnivorous as well? And as before, if god intended to do so much wholesale tinkering post-flood, why even bother with the ark? VOX^HUMANA 10:14, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Of course, as the flood never actually happened, it's all a bit moot.--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 13:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I didn't see the need to state the obvious. VOX^HUMANA 22:21, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Not only did the flood never happen but there is no god to make any flood happen! Scream!! (talk) 14:34, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Of course there was no flood of such gigantic proportions. However the article (and its related articles) are largely written as a 'what if' assuming that there was a flood. Its imaginary status is not crucial to the articles. Damo^Hi 22:25, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

As Damo said, a common approach with many of these theological positions (creation, young-earth, global flood) is to simply accept them for the sake of argument, and then follow the implications to the logical conclusion. Here we are discussing the assertion "there were no carnivores prior to the flood", and as demonstrated above, it is easy to deduce the absurdities that necessarily arise once you accept that notion. Simply shouting "it never happened" without supporting argument is no more convincing that shouting "it did happen" as our fundamentalist colleagues tend to do. VOX^HUMANA 23:07, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Proof by contradiction, as you might call it. You can't disprove something by presupposing it's false, that ends up being circular. So it's perfectly valid, especially when there's a counter side saying "here is our evidence", you just say "okay, so if this is true, then you must accept that this is true, which renders it absurd." It's hardly a controversial methodology. ^postate 01:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

"Explanation" for how the animals spread out to where are now after the flood, post-flood

http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter17.pdf

This could be quoted as an example of the just silly explanations they offer for how and why the animals got to where they are now after the went off the ark.Homsefar (talk) 22:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Ocean salinity

Could somebody do me a solid and "fact check" my hypothesis here. I see as yet another issue with the global flood the fact that the oceans are salty today. If the flood was a freshwater flood, it should have diluted the oceans to the point of being freshwater, and so today's oceans should be freshwater, not saltwater. I mean, there's always the generic "goddidit" response or the more specific "god shed big soppy tears into the new oceans to make them salty again" response, but I think this is a valid argument against the flood that I haven't seen elsewhere. Tiefling (talk) 14:46, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

From what I've read recent creationist thought is on "the fountains of the deep" being a source of the flood in conjunction with the rain from heaven. So salt water could be supplied from below. I really must knuckle down to reading Snellling's book and posting a critique. But I'd be interested to hear the response if you try to make that argument in creatards forums. Генгис^marauding 16:25, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that, once you start trying to explain something as preposterous as the flood in "real" terms then you're allowed all sorts of nonsense. The idea that that much water can come and go is so ludicrous that to believe that it

• picked up salts as it was washed up from the fountains of the deep
• picked up salts as it washed down the pre flood mountains.
• rained salt water

are no more ludicrous. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Walt Brown's hydroplate "theory" uses salt water. As long as even one creationist has an explanation for this, even if the rest of the "theory" is wholly inconsistent with everything else the creationist is relying on, you lose. Cuddles. 19:47, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Shared Flood mythology

"Many other flood myths have existed throughout history in many cultures, but most of these likely arose independently, as virtually all of them were written by societies that resided near regularly flooding bodies of water."

Is this correct? The flood in Genesis is a mirror image of the Gilgamesh flood myth (likely derived from the 1700BC Atrahasis epic).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panbabylonism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atra-Hasis

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 01:13, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

While the Gilgamesh story is likely related to the Genesis one, creationists also point to a vast number of other stories from around the world that mention floods. These are more likely to be independently derived. Peter ^mqzp 01:32, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Torah/Bible

Sorry for being a pedant, but the flood isn't found in the Bible and the Torah, as is claimed on this page - this is technically inaccurate, as the Torah is just the first 5 books of the Bible. You might as well just say Bible (as this is more well known as Torah) as otherwise it suggests that there are two flood stories found in the two separate entities 'Bible' and 'Torah'. Again, sorry for being a pendant, it's in my nature. --Beenz715 (talk) 15:12, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Except for the fact that they are used by totally different religions of course. --PsyGremlin^Snakk! 15:30, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Judaism and Christianity are totally different? There's rather a lot of overlap... Sophie^Wilder 21:50, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps "Jewish Torah" and "Christian Bible" to cover all bets?--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 22:05, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:Noah in Islam. Sophie^Wilder 22:23, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

When the boat comes in

1. Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy,
2. Thou shall hev a fishy when the boat comes in.

... and the ship in the series never actually went to sea.

Could there be a list of places which #do not have# flood narratives (which 'disproves the case using the Flood-promoters own logic'). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:19, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

The boat don't float

Would the boat and contents have been able to float at all (never mind being seaworthy)? With the animals needing to be moved about would there not have been occasions when the centre of balance was too much to one side and the ship tipped over?

No matter what the practical arguments against 'those convinced of the Bible's complete accuracy (despite the Bible-as-we-know-it being a selection from a much wider range of writings, and the various internal contradictions)' won't be persuaded otherwise - even if God, the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the FSM appeared and said it was a partial record, with various stories being conflated.

The rest of us will accept that there were various actual historical floods in which 'narrator characters, their families and their animals' were in a locality subject to widespread flooding, got onto 'the local ferry and coracles' (taking whatever goods and chattels were readily available) and floated around to a new locality (that happened to be on higher ground). They then encountered others who had done the same, and all claimed that 'our father and mother the creator gods kept us safe.' Subsequently theh heard of similar floods elsewhere and 'a flooding' involving the Black Sea-Mediteranean complex and a garbled retelling of the flooding of Doggerland and transformed the whole into the stories of Gilgamesh and Noah. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:13, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

... and writers of religious texts did not know about copyright, so quite happily borrowed from each others' works (and 'the peasants, being canny' knew enough about each faith to be able to quote relevantly/express sufficient ignorance to 'get the benefits of being converted' - and so the stories got entangled. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

What is the size of the ark?

Let's say the calculation would be fun! let's try!

According to evoultionwiki, the average size of a land animal is the size of a sheep. Therefore, in average, they need about 100m² each to have some free space, and maybe a small shelter (Cause the LORD doesn't want them to choke, right?) Let's say there are roughtly 100,000 ground animal species. Yep, it makes about 20,000,000 m². Aka a rectangle being 10 km long and 2 km wide. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!...

... cause the LORD doesn't want them to starve, neither, does he? Let's say the sheep also has the average in term of feeding. And he eats no less than 3 kg a day... It makes us no less than 600 tons a day. And what about the entire trip? 220 kilotons of food! Storing that would need about 1m² for 100 kg. We need 2,200,000,000 m² of storage.

Now, let's say the animals need light. They occupy all the upper deck, which is no less than 10 km long. How many storages decks does it takes to store food if the boat is 10 km long and 2 km wide? 110. It means that the ark approximately has the height of the Chrysler Building. This is way too high. We need to expand the ark again. It is now 4 km wide and 50 km long. And there are 11 floors. Because... GODIDIT!!!

P.S. I hope my english isn't too bad. Towerator (talk) 10:45, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Calculations are moot. The size is given in the Bible. The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it. ^{Don't click here} 11:52, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, well, then the arch maybe has an internal pressure similar to a neutron star. Because the Bible! Towerator (talk) 14:16, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Also, because baraminology. ^{Don't click here} 14:37, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

While I understand that it all happened by magic so logic isn't important your calculations still leave us with an Ark with is way to small.

The problem is that you haven been way too speciesist in your typical animal selection. ::::There are countless numbers of insects, beetles spiders or what have you which need to live in very specialised environments. Then there are the parasites which would need hosts - many of whom would die so you'd need to double up on your larger animals as well. (And ,of course, someone would need to carry the human parasites and diseases.)There are also many bacteria which, I suspect, would not do well under water. Obviously multiple special environments would have been needed for all this - rainforests, tundra, desserts or whatever. In addition, depending on whether the water covering the globe was salty or not, a series of massive aquariums kept at different temperatures would also have been needed.

What you really need is a fleet of Arks of the size you suggest.

And your english is great. : -) --Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 14:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but just imagine we're talking about ships being as long as NY! Really... And we need to create sealed environnements for organism which are killed by oxygen! And what about the 2M bugs? And what about fungi? And wat abot the entire plant reign? They would need to carry a whole living redwood to replant it as soon as they reach land! No, seriously, if there was only 1 ark, it should be... let's say... 1 Mm(it's Megameter, right?) long? And one that can survive a 10-kilometer-high gigatsunami (cause megatsunami don't fit, sometimes)! Now, go in front of me and tell me it happened. I'll laugh. Towerator (talk) 15:07, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

'The ark' solved

It is actually 'The Earth' floating on a sea of infinity. Noah was merely involved in the local equivalent of the flooding of the (English) Somerset Levels of early 2014, making use of a series of barge-equivalents to transport his animals (which lived off floating greenery and 'somewhat waterlogged plants', while the (precursors of) Van cats fished.. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:31, 22 May 2014 (UTC), updated 82.44.143.26 (talk) 14:25, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Everything is clear now.--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 14:52, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Van cats (mild cuteness alert) here [2]. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:39, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Clean animals

Is it seven grand total, or seven of each male and female, for a total of fourteen? Even on this wiki I've seen both. For a cover article we need to get this right NOW. Thanos6 (talk) 04:42, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Again, we need to fix this. The article itself can't decide between seven or fourteen. This is unacceptable for a cover article. Thanos6 (talk) 22:35, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Fine, I fixed it myself. Thanos6 (talk) 07:12, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

God and the rainbow

So were there rainbows or not before the flood?

And why 'the fire next time'? (Rather than snow, drought, black flowers...)

Given the behavior of people #in the Bible alone# after the flood with God not doing much, what did the pre-flood people get up to, to invoke God's anger (rather than the narrative being a confluence of various narratives recording actual large scale floods/a retelling of Gilgamesh. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:23, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

How can you have a "rationalwiki" without doing any rational research

I can't even see the Islamic view on Noah, who was Prophet Nuh in the Quran... So your telling me that the Author of this article (and the many people following) did some research on the flood and never happened to come across Islam?^{— Unsigned, by: 81.129.231.222 / talk / contribs}

We don't bother breaking down every story that exists, because this article mostly exists to refute people who claim "the flood" is scientific fact. In general, our repositories on Islamic creationists are a bit thinner because the primary pushers of that particular type of nonsense are Christians. Ikanreed (talk) 19:53, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

As our IP editor seems to be interested in the topic I wonder if he could tell us what percentage of Muslims buy into the Islamic version of the flood myth?--Coffee (talk) 21:31, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot include the most important part, when dealing with IPs: if you have something useful to contribute, we welcome it. Our articles are never done. Ikanreed (talk) 21:58, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

ROFL ROFL ROFL. There's no way some of the bullies here would let him edit this article. Nutty Roux (talk) 23:23, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, boo hoo, we don't constantly fall for the balance fallacy, and poor nutty roux is so oppressed as a result. Ikanreed (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Levels of salinity tolerable by freshwater fish species

The article states that, "Most freshwater fish are unable to survive in water with any salt at all". This is simply untrue. There are low levels of salt in most freshwater bodies of water. Fish-keepers often treat sick fish by adding small amounts of aquarium salt to help the fish keep up their electrolytes. Increasing the salinity of the water is a common and effective treatment for ich among other fish diseases. Some freshwater fish tolerate salt better than others; but the point is that you cannot truthfully say "Most freshwater fish are unable to survive in water with any salt at all," or anyone who knows anything about fish-keeping will think you're an idiot.

It really doesn't help your cause if the people you are criticizing for not knowing a lick about science know more about science than you. 140.182.10.62 (talk) 03:53, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

It's poorly worded with the "most" and the "any... at all" parts, which imply that even the minimal amount of salt can kill them. It would be nice if you didn't call us out on lying and assuming that the guys who support Global Flood know about fish-keeping more than us, but thanks for catching and correcting the error either way. LEFTYGREENMARIO 06:28, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Flood Myth Explained

The Australian aborigines have a flood myth. Australia was inhabited 60-70,000 years ago. North and South America have similar flood myths, and the continents were first settled 12-15,000 years ago. Seems to me that a GLOBAL flood is unnecessary to explain similar myth if all of humanity was concentrated in one area, like the Middle East, when a flood event occurred. This was the case when Mount Toba in Indonesia blew up 74,000 years ago. It deposited up to a foot of ash along the African coast, and may have created Tsunami waves that battered both India, Africa and the Red Sea. This event may have almost destroyed the human race, reducing human population to less than 10,000 individuals.

The Flood myths may be similar everywhere not because the flood occurred everywhere, but because the flood (tsunami) occurred so long ago when humankind was concentrated in the small area of Eastern Africa, Mesopotamia and possibly India (where stone tools have been found below the ash layer from the Toba eruption). The oral history of this singular and actual event may have survived in the myths of human cultures as they spread across the world in the ensuing 74,000 years.

I'm throwing this out there for discussion as I've not seen this disaster connected in any way with the pervasiveness of Flood Myth around the world.

K. E. Bevier Camden, SC^{— Unsigned, by: 108.236.26.169 / talk / contribs}

What is one to say other than "that may be true"? Nutty Roux (talk) 03:53, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

No one doubts that floods occur in lots of places at lots of times. Sometimes really big ones with great loss of life and property. We don't need to insist that there is only one flood for any or all of these stories in even one place, yet alone in other places. What is clear is that there is no reason to resort to imagining that to account for even one such story. Floods happen. There is no reason to think that there was one flood taking place simultaneously everywhere over the globe within the lifetime of humans. And the imaginative distortions resorted to by the apologists for the Biblical account should speak for themselves. The only thing that is hard to explain is that anyone takes them seriously. ^{— Unsigned, by: TomS TDotO / talk / contribs} 08:49, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

As others have said - floods occur. Sometimes big floods occur. Way back when did a particularly big flood occur which gave rise to many different stories? Perhaps - though without evidence it's just an unsubstantiated hypothesis.

Did a flood occur as described in the Bible? We can be certain that that didn't happen.--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 12:55, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Gigamesh and Noah

The Gilgamesh flood myth is slightly more plausible than the Noah myth.

Noah takes his immediate family, and 'all the animals.' Result much intermarriage - within a few generations everybody is their own cousin 15 times over. While on the ark there are visits from time-travelling Prevention of Cruelty to Animals groups (creatures kept in small cages and only a handful of people to look after them all etc etc).

Utnapishtim loaded into the boat he had built his silver and gold, all the living beings that he had, his relatives and craftsmen, and "all the beasts and animals of the field". A far larger number of people, sufficient to maintain genetic diversity, and with skills to construct a new village/town. The animals are in reasonable numbers and can be looked after properly (food being provided by [3]).

The various flood stories are probably based on 'real events' - with conflation and exchange of prehistoric memes among many story tellers and others creating the versions we know today. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 19:35, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Population growth post "flood"

I dont claim to be an expert, but from what i can tell searching the internet for "population growth calculators" is that they seem to point to this result

given 4500 years (rounding up to be nice) given a starting population of 8 an ending population of 7 billion

all that is needed is a growth rate of .458%

example http://www.miniwebtool.com/exponential-growth-calculator http://www.endmemo.com/algebra/populationgrowth.php

so, even with the other pertinent issues, it does seem "possible" that the population growth is reasonable? is there a better tool or equation, if so why is it better? obviously just because it gives a more favorable result doesn't mean its better.

The population of the Earth reached into the billions only recently, so the growth rate for most of time after the Flood would be quite small. The problem for the growth post Flood is not that. (Indeed, there is an argument against "old earth" that shows that with even a small growth rate over tens of thousands of years, human population would be impossibly big today. The reality is that there has, until recent times, been a varying population, with plagues interrupting minuscule population growth and long-term stability which makes simple exponential models unrealistic.) The problem with the recent (4500 years ago) population bottleneck of 8 is how to make it big enough at the times shortly after the Flood to account for significant human activity world-wide in antiquity: the Tower of Babel, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica. This is what the text of this article is concerned with. TomS TDotO (talk) 10:12, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Fresh-water fish and amphibians

The survival of fresh water fish and amphibians would have required Noah to build and fill an aquarium. Such would have of course required the creation of glass and metal. But think of all the difficulties that would entail.

It is still impossible (as of 2015) to build a self-contained aquatic ecosystem. And that is before I even discuss rounding up the necessary fish, amphibians, etc.Pbrower2a (talk) 06:08, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

plant world

what about plants? grasses? trees?

I have read the bible thrice but I did not ponder on it, search on it for details. Was NOah commanded to take seeds of any and every plant, vegetable and fruit as well? did he take? does the "word of god" mention something about it?

if not, trees or plant world can also not survive the flood. this also must be one of the issues that need to be clarified by bible believers. --Sir artur (talk) 05:38, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

No, the Bible never commands Noah to take seeds with him, as there would be no need for seeds because there was no plant life. No rainbows means no rain, and no rain means drought. Even if you give the plants a liberal amount of dew ever morning, that's hardly enough to keep a plant alive. Not to mention, if you subscribe to the canopy theory (the only semi-plausible way to have no rain, though how the canopy managed to stay up is anyone's guess. Not to mention, the canopy theory has so many latent problems that even AiG has left it for dead), you have yourself living in a hyperbaric chamber (this is how creationists like to explain the very long life of the population of the Bible), meaning your plants will grow quite large and need far more water than even very liberal amounts of dew every morning.

So now that we have no plants due to a drought, it's certainly a good question as to how Noah and his family even lived at all. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but for me, food is a preeetty important thing to eat regular amounts of. No rain means no plants means no food. And if there was no food and Noah couldn't have even survived childhood (or have been born at all as his parents wouldn't have had food either), well, how could Moses have written the Torah? Moses wouldn't have even been alive. Anim (Carfa) 01:34, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

And regarding canopy theory — that's all been adressed in Hovind theory! I invite everyone to drop whatever they're doing for just a moment and (re)watch the following classic YouTube video on the subject. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 01:59, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Also, while the relative level of oxygen in the atmosphere does play a role in determining the maximal sustainable physical size of certain species (e.g. depending on their breathing apparatuses), one thing that more oxygen would not facilitate is biblical longevity. In fact, longevity in homo sapiens is impaired by exposure to too much oxygen, for the simple reason that oxygen is a highly reactive gas. Guess why it plays such a prominent role in fires and explosions, never mind why certain metals rust? As such, excess oxidation wouldn't exactly enhance the lifespan of any member of homo sapiens. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:27, 4 April 2017 (UTC)