Question from the religion board needing a scientist's rational mind?

Question

Humor me:

Has anyone ever catalogued the species known to exist in Noahs time and calculated the approximate square-footage two of each animal would take up? Would they all fit on the arc? And what did they eat? Let us assume that the animals were kept away from their predators. Did Noah bring extra rabbits to feed the tigers with?

Answer 1

There have been some pretty good analyses done on the subject. The problem is in a lot of a vaguarities involved.

For example, here's a big one: according to the bible account, Noah took at least a pair of every living kind of land animal at the time. According to creationists, every fossil in the ground is the result of burial during the flood. This means that if the bible account is literally true, Noah must not only have put at least six million species of currently existing animals on the boat, but also the other 99% of species shown in the fossil record but NOT alive today. He has to not only make room for elephants, but also tyrannosauri!

Another discrepancy that creeps into calculations is the age of animals. Presumably as long as he can care for them, there's no reason Noah has to bring adult animals along. Obviously, if he can bring along eggs and infants instead of full-grown adults, it not only saves him a lot of space but also cuts down on the food he needs to bring to feed everything too!

The last major dispute is about 'kinds'. The bible knows nothing of modern biology, of course, so it has Noah just bringing along two of each 'kind' of animal, not two of each species. Some people claim therefore that Noah's need for space was much reduced as all the modern species could have come from just a few antideluvian 'kinds'. This is plausible only if you assume that much of what scientists observe today was wildly different in the past and that therefore much of the conclusions they draw are simply false. Of course, if you're willing to allow this then reasoned argument on any subject is pretty much impossible.

Some good summaries of possible space-filling models are below. The most generous for Noah involve him filling only about 10% of the reported volume of the ark with actual animals. The more rigorous ones fin that he needs at least 50% or so, and perhaps as much as 30 times more space than he had (or even more, depending!) if you start including all the ocean animals that can't survive in a rain-water environment (which is most of them!).

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

What I want to know, is how Noah got 2 of every animal... I mean did he travel around the entire world or just take the ones from where he lived?? If he only took the native fauna from where he lived then the ark would be able to be alot smaller. I watched a program about scientists trying to find out if the flood really happened they did not find evidence of one flood covering the whole world, but rather several localised floods in different areas across the continent around the same time due to weather conditions, so if this is true, it is plausible to assume that really the story of Noahs ark could be based on the true story of a man who did build a large boat to escape a flood that he may well have thought covered the whole world, at least as he knew it. He could have only brought two of all the animals he knew of in the area, this makes it possible.... if he only brought the animals he knew of then it may have been no more than say 100 different species. If we could find evidence like the remains of the ark, we would be able to know how many different kinds of animals he brought (probably from droppings) and we would then be able to truly calculate how much square footage of arc would be needed to hold all the animals and enough food for them. Until then we can only speculate randomly about how much space would be needed for however many animals he brought along.. Nobody knows the answer to that question. It cannot be proven, and the story of Noah's Ark remains fiction, because we can prove that it is impossible to build a ship large enough, to hold 2 of every species on the planet at that time AND enough food for all of them. The vessel would have to be the size of a small continent.... and would have definitely left some traces of its colossal existance. Since there is no evidence we can only guess, and your question can never be answered with proven scientific fact until we find some. Really any calculation made is irrelevant until we have real evidence suggesting how many animals he took. As for all the species of animal at that time fitting onto a boat... it just isnt possible and any calculation of that is also flawed because we dont have any scientific evidence on all the species that existed at that time. There are still thousands of undiscovered animals living on the earth today... how are we to know every animal that existed back in Noahs time if there are still more to be discovered today?

Answer 3

I have not heard of anyone bringing this up before. But the answer is easy: if you assume that the ark story is true, then ALL the species now existing went for a ride -- the number is the same now as it was then. There are over a million species of animals, but a lot of them are very small, so trying to come up with a square footage would be difficult. But of course, the ark story is not true -- the flood would have left specific traces, none of which nave been found anywhere on earth, and various geological, paleontogical, and anthropological records all show that no such event ever occurred. Indeed, three separate civilizations were busy creating written records before, during, and after the purported time of the flood; somehow, the event managed to escape their notice.

Answer 4

regardless of your glaring stereotyping (oh look i'm being snarky), what scientists imagine does not have any touching on my personal judgements. i'm not a scientist myself, and my judgements concerning idea in faith/god had not something to do technology. i'm also prepared to settle for that faith might want to be valuable to three human beings even regardless of the reality that i trust it really is in accordance to personal want not truth. And this situation is truly not valuable. Edit: by employing the way, if i develop into going to seek preparation from a scientist or psychologist, it would not be the kind represented contained in the object. *voms* in spite of the undeniable fact that the guy from Harvard did not sound like he develop into saying something valuable about faith.

Answer 5

Before you begin this ludicrous math,consider that Noah was told to save eight of all clean,that is kosher animals and a pair of all unclean animals. He was advised that he was to save all animals as God's flood was going to wipe out all life on Earth not in the ark. So he had to have a enormous aquarium as well as a skookum zoo. He also had to have knowledge of Mosaic dietary laws centuries before Moses was born or Leviticus or Deuteronomy was written. Noah was a far greater man than we could ever understand or believe. The math just got a lot harder.

Answer 6

If the story of Noah's arc has some basis in reality then one would have to assume that he gathered up what he could in the area in which he lived. There are no tigers in Israel.

Answer 7

Given the stated dementions for the ark and allowing 9 cubic inches of space for each pair of creatures, the ark could not hold a pair of all the species of insects. Not to mention a pair of all the reptiles, birds and mammals.

Answer 8

Yes, the number of species has been estimated and the space needed also calculated. I'm sorry that I don't recall the source. How he fed them would have been a nice problem. The flies, of course, could have taken care of themselves.

Answer 9

Cretinists (sic) will often actually assert that dinosaurs were on the ark, and that all species were vegetarian via miracle from the invisible sky pixie.

Answer 10

Fairy stories are not supposed to be dissected.