Wrong Solution, Guys (Probably)

Humans and Neanderthals interbred — but it was mostly male Neanderthals and female humans who coupled up, study finds
News | By Kristina Killgrove | published February 26, 2026
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/neanderthals/humans-and-neanderthals-interbred-but-it-was-mostly-male-neanderthals-and-female-humans-who-coupled-up-study-finds

This article says the lack of Neanderthal X chromosomes is relative and depends on mostly Neanderthal man marrying (or raping) Sapiens tribe women.

Rather, the surprisingly high amount of modern human DNA chunks found in Neanderthals can be explained by mate preference, the researchers concluded. Because females carry two X chromosomes and males carry only one, a preference for mating between female H. sapiens and male Neanderthals would mean fewer Neanderthal X chromosomes would enter the human gene pool, producing the pattern the researchers identified in the genomes.

That pattern being, half paragraph a little earlier:

There are regions on the X chromosome — the sex chromosome that every human has at least one copy of — where no living humans have any Neanderthal ancestry.

The problem with this solution is, if this were the reason, one would see Neanderthal Y-chromosomes more. Check this:

Le chromosome Y de Néandertal
https://www.pole-prehistoire.com/fr/actualites-fr/actualites-scientifiques/339-le-chromosome-y-de-l-homme-de-neandertal

Comment expliquer la disparition du chromosome Y néandertalien ?

This suggests, but the other more recently published article denies, the solution of toxicity. Now, the article could be true in the main solution.

Neanderthal men could have raped or seduced sapiens women, but only their daughters survived pregnancy. Possible.

I still think there is another solution. And that it's preferrable.

No purebred Neanderthal man was on the Ark, and if any purebred Neanderthal woman was, the only candidate is Noah's wife, supposing her daughters in law were not her own daughters, whose mitochondriae didn't survive ... but actually, supposing there are so few Neanderthal X chromosomes, this would hardly be the case if every one of her three sons had one from her.

So, Noah's mother could have been Neanderthal, her mitochondriae cannot be passed on beyond him and her X chromosomes only to daughters, not to sons, of him.

Or any one of the daughters in law could have had a Neanderthal father. His Y chromosome was not passed on to and therefore not through a daughter, and the X chromosome he passed on would have been one out of two in her, then out of four more in the other inlaws, then the three sons would between them have inherited both X chromosomes from Noah's wife. So, overall 1/8.

Purebred Neanderthals (except possibly Noah's wife) were not on the Ark. The remainder of Neanderthal genomes are a selection of the selection of them that was on the Ark.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Chad of Lichfield
2.III.2026

Lichfeldiae, in Anglia, sancti Ceaddae, Episcopi Merciorum et Lindisfarnorum, cujus praeclaras virtutes sanctus Beda Venerabilis commemorat.

I'm Against Sola Scriptura. AND. I'm a Fundie. Unlike a certain Ian Plimer.

This is written* by my friend (with some tensions) Mackey:

I have previously pointed to the ironical - and I think humorous - situation whereby the likes of an anti-fundamentalist professor Plimer can sometimes be clearer about certain principles of biblical exegesis than are those who embrace sola scriptura; whilst the latter can sometimes, here and there, be more scientifically accurate than are the professional scientists.

Ian Plimer will, in the case of the fundamentalists’ global Flood, absolutely and hilariously ridicule - and rightly so - such a notion, using a heady mix of science, common sense, and sailing nous.

He will describe the preposterous situation of a Queen Mary sized Ark being tossed hither and thither in a turbulent global sea, it being overloaded with dinosaurs and other massive animals, not to mention those swarms of irritating insects and pests.

OK, what are Ian Plimer's credentials in shipbuilding or navigation?

Ian Rutherford Plimer (born 12 February 1946) is an Australian geologist and professor emeritus at the University of Melbourne.

Thank you, wiki!

Wait, he has some connection:

Plimer is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering

Now, what was he saying again?

the preposterous situation

Pretty please, make it "of living among millions or billions one year, being shut off in an ark, and a year later being lone survivors, a crew of 8" ... that situation is preposterous. But that's how God arranged for our survival.

of a Queen Mary sized Ark

The Ark is actually shorter. Koreans evaluated the Ark to 137 m, while RMS Queen Mary was around 300 m.

being tossed hither and thither

I calculated the rolling period of the Ark, it corresponds to a passenger ship.

in a turbulent global sea,

It would certainly have been turbulent in the bottom streams, touching rock or deposing sediment from hypersaturation. But the turbulence on the surface in a high degree depends on angle of waves. A wave that's 10 m high and 10 or even just 20 m from crest to crest is turbulent. A wave that's equally 10 m high but 100 or 200 m from crest to crest isn't.

Now, the waves can be idealised to circle segments, and the centre of each has a lowest possible placing at the bottom. If a wave of 10 m has a width of 20, probably the sea bottom is sth like 20 m below the crest. But this won't happen if the bottom is about 1 km lower. On the open Pacific, you have winds in which it's unsafe to stand openly on Kon Tiki or Uru, but that's for the risk, of getting swept off the raft. The waves didn't sisk sinking them.

La isla del día siguiente. Crónica de una travesía por el Pacífico** es el relato de esta odisea que lideró Kitín Muñoz y en la que, además de él y de Frattini, ahora con el Reto Pelayo, participaron Pepe de Miguel, Kiko Botana y Juan Ginés García, quienes buscaron emular los pasos del legendario explorador y biólogo noruego Thor Heyerdahl y sus espectaculares viajes con sus naves Kon-Tiki, Ra, Ra II y Tigris.

The Island of the Next Day. Chronicle of a crossing of the Pacific is the story of this odyssey that was lead by Kitín Muñoz and in which, apart from him and Frattini, now with Reto Pelayo***, participated Pepe de Miguel, Kiki Botana and Juan Ginés García, who sought to emulate the steps of the legendary explorer and biologist from Norway, Thor Heyerdahl, and his spectacular voyages with the "ships"° Kon-Tiki, Ra, Ra II y Tigris.

So, Uru and Kon-Tiki were on the Pacific. The Atlantic, where we had Ra and Ra II is less deep. Even there Thor managed. Such waters are not turbulent. Not to an Ark floating sideways in a wave trough where the distance to the crest is safely great.

A large regional Flood would be less safe, since the water would be shallower.

it being overloaded

I don't get that impression, given that one couple of hedgehogs on the Ark easily gave rise to 17 species in 5 genera. There are dog breeds that look more different than Erinaceus Europeaeus does from Hemiechinus auritus.

with dinosaurs and other massive animals,

I'm not a huge fan of Kent Hovind, given his dissertation disses Church Fathers and Alexandrine school, given his insistence "this is not my wife, it's just a picture of her," cute, but is a totally unnecessary polemic against the basics behind Nicaea II in 787, or just his take on alcohol, my grandpa was a distiller. But even Kent Hovind can answer this: if juvenile examples entered the Ark they didn't take up all that much space nor require all that much food. Noah only needed to "take a blue one and a pink one" not necessarily ones that were already ready for reproduction.

not to mention those swarms of irritating insects and pests

I'm not sure how much lice eggs, a k a nits, can survive without a host. But apart from lice, who need human hosts with warm blood, once hatched, I'm not aware of any insect that couldn't theoretically have survived on some flotsam. Genesis 6:20 when mentioning creeping things probably meant reptiles rather than insects. Leviticus 11:20 uses another term for them. So it's not as if the text forced us to believe insects were on the Ark. Those that were (not as passengers) probably were the ones best suited for food (to birds or hedgehogs), perhaps also compostation of waste.

Perhaps I should mention where I did my calculations of number of animal pairs, rolling period, and so on: Baraminological Note · For Sea-Farers .... · Rolling Period of Ark? · Ark : empty weight and freighted weight, number of couples on the Ark. · Small Tidbits on Ark, Especially Mathematical.

With the competence Ian Plimer probably has from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, he could arguably prove the feasibility of the Ark better than I, if not as well as the Korean team, but he was set on ridiculing Creationists, so, he gave his techno skills a vacation.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Sts Hermes and Hadrian of Marseille
1.III.2026

Massiliae, in Gallia, sanctorum Martyrum Hermetis et Hadriani.

PS. I was tired this night and didn't attend to the fact that Lord's Days take precedence over most Saints' Days, especially the ones in Lent. It's obviously Second Lord's Day of Lent, also known as Reminiscere, and Sts Hermes and Hadrian are just remembered, not actually celebrated, even in Marseille./HGL

* Genesis, Flood, Ark Mountain (you may need to log in to Academia), despite this passage, the typological readings seem very decent. Edifying. Wish he had left out that non-edifying words, but, but ...

**La isla del día siguiente
http://nauta360.expansion.com/2016/11/03/de_costa_a_costa/1478197268.html

*** I suppose the Spanish means "now in couple with cancer survivor Reto Pelayo"

° Rafts or Egyptian style reed ships.

Two Points Against non-Geocentrics in Creation Ministries International

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Keaton Halley Misses a Beat · Creation vs. Evolution: Two Points Against non-Geocentrics in Creation Ministries International

Yet we were generally accused of mistakenly calling the Tychonian system a kinematic model, instead of a dynamic model. But Tycho Brahe’s system is absolutely a kinematic model (it only describes motion, not the reason for the motion). It is a mathematical system that attempted to explain the then-available data, but did so without physics. It is simply not true to assert otherwise.

True.

However, Riccioli, who wrote an astronomic text book about the Tychonian Universe, called Novum Organum, did discuss the reason for the movement. He presented it as four distinct options before settling for one (a common procedure among theologians at the time, like St. Robert Bellarmine on a heretical Pope says "Therefore, the true opinion is the fifth, according to which the Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church." ... he has discussed the four other options first, one of them being the absurd one that a Pope ceases to be Pope even at purely interior heresy, which is absurd because an interior and not outwardly expressed heresy would leave the Church at a loss as to whether the man were Pope, since nothing outwardly seemed to barr this). Note, this discussion is about individual celestial bodies, not about Heaven as a whole.

1) Direct action of God.
2) A created but purely mechanical cause, like Kepler suggesting magnetism.
3) Celestial bodies are alive and move by themselves.
4) Angels move them.

He rejected direct action by God, because God creates things so they may be causes, and therefore leaves a lot of things to be caused not directly by Himself, but by a created factor. This leaves the other three options, since mechanics, biology (or quasi-biology) and angels are all created factors.

He rejected a purely mechanical cause, because Celestial bodies are between us and God's Heaven, the Empyraean Heaven over the Fix Stars where God has His throne and throne room. Such things should have a nobler cause.

I think he rejected celestial beings being biological or quasibiological for that reason, that's not as noble as spiritual, but one could add that St. Thomas thought this option totally refuted by the absence of observed changes in the objects (not sure if NASA would today agree with that view when viewing protuberances).

This leaves the fourth view, it is consistent with Scripture — angels are called "morning stars" in Job 38:7, Sun, Moon and Stars are enumerated in Daniel 3:62—63 in a larger list starting with angels in verse 58 down to the just who in Sheol were waiting for Jesus to descend (which the Good Thief didn't need to wait for, Jesus had died before he was killed by breaking of leg bones) in verses 86,87. It is also the opinion of an overwhelming number of approved theologians, Coimbra Jesuits (welcomed in 1542, banned in 1759 by Pombal), Suarez, St. Thomas Aquinas, Nicolas of Lyra (Bible commentator), Nicolas of Cusa and lots more.

So, while the Tychonian view didn't come with an automatic mechanism attached, it also didn't lack a mechanism, that was simply a separate question, given to theologian or philosopher rather than to astronomer as such. Riccioli being a Jesuit priest felt more comfortable handling these questions than Tycho would have been.

Today, we accept a “geokinetic” (moving-earth) view based on the work of Newton and Einstein. For the student of history and/or science, how we came to the modern view is an amazing exploration of how things work and a testimony to the amazing ability to reason that God uniquely put into people.

We live in a created universe, meaning its existence did not come about through naturalistic processes alone. We also live in a well-ordered universe; meaning it behaves according to a set of rules.

However, physics and biology are not the only processes that God governs by law.

He can govern His own direct acts by law — which I think He does every day in moving Heaven as a whole (question previous to above in Novum Organum, and Riccioli was against the opinion I and Thomas hold in common). He can govern the actions of angels by law. For instance, if St. Michael wants to fight Satan over the body of Moses, it's probably out of obedience, and he shows a certain decorum in not reviling even the devil. Or, if the angel who takes the Sun around ... us each day (Riccioli) or the Zodiac each year (Thomas Aquinas and I) wants to show mourning over God being crucified by His creatures, He certainly doesn't do so wilfully, but either asked permission or was given an order by his Creator and Lord.

Therefore, the angelic view, which is the most standard mechanism for a normal Tychonian system, actually does fall within the theological desiderata directly mentioned.

Unfortunately, CMI also voiced this: "We live in a created universe, meaning its existence did not come about through naturalistic processes alone." The problem is, it presupposes a watchmaker God. A God whose divine action sets the universe going and into existance, but where divine interference after that is exceptional.

Paley would not have found a fan in St. Thomas who considered the universe as comparable to an instrument that God first makes as an instrument maker and then plays as a musician.

And what did St. Paul say? Allow me to make numbered underscores in a famous passage from Romans.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven (1) against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world (2), are clearly seen (3), being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also (4), and divinity: so that they are inexcusable
[Romans 1:18-20]

1 — we see and they saw it in heaven, i e in the sky.
2 — what is seen did not need geographical discoveries like the Americas or microscope or telescope, but could always be seen
3 — by the naked eye if we aren't totally forgetful of what we are watching
4 — and it's a thing (perhaps among others) where God shows off working every day without any fatigue

God turning the universe around us each day fits all these criteria. However, in the previous question Riccioli posed, he unfortunately denied this. He considered Heaven as a whole is not moved. The historic reason is, to St. Thomas, God was turning the star sphere around us each 23 h 56 min or whatever, this sphere then touches the sphere of Saturn, the sphere of Saturn that of Jupiter, that of Mars, that of the Sun, that of Venus, that of Mercury, that of the Moon and then the atmosphere and then this touches the waters. Tycho refuted the idea of solid spheres, because he proved a comet was not a meteorological but an astronomical phenomenon, it's not in the airs, it's between planets. If I resume the idea God is turning the visible universe (below Empyrean and above Earth) around us each day, I need another mechanism for transmission, and if I have it, Riccioli didn't. However, he considered Thomas' Prima Via as having this meaning.

My own mechanism is, every piece of bodily creation is "bathing" in a substance I'd call aether, which is continuous, not discrete, so, not particles. It's the medium of space (which is why a star moving around us in 23 h 56 min doesn't need to go through the aether in 6.28 times the speed of light, it just follows along the movement of the aether), of light (so, light is waves) and of vectors (which is why Geostationary satellites work: holding a position straight above a fixed place on earth means they have a momentum Eastward through an aether moving Westward). The portion above Earth and below stars behaves like a solid ball that can be moved around, whatever place on it you move around the axis, the other places move along. So, God can do that. When we see a sunrise or a sunset, we see God at work, even on the Sabbath, as Jesus recalled after curing a lame.

A miracle, then, isn't God doing more in His creation than He usually does, but doing it differently from usual, either so we can see it (when He obeyed Joshua and stopped the daily movement Westward for the time of about a day) or instructing us to believe it (when He instructs us to believe He turns bread and wine into His flesh and blood, even if it doesn't show, or a sinner into a saint, at Baptism or Confession).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Roman, Abbott
28.II.2026

In territorio Lugdunensi, locis Jurensibus, depositio sancti Romani Abbatis, qui primus illic eremiticam vitam duxit, et, multis virtutibus ac miraculis clarus, plurimorum postea Pater exstitit Monachorum.

Resources by CMI I commented on:

Refuting absolute geocentrism
By Dr Robert Carter | Published 27 Aug, 2015 | Updated 06 Sep, 2016
https://creation.com/en/articles/refuting-geocentrism-response

Why the Universe does not revolve around the Earth
By Dr Robert Carter, Dr Jonathan Sarfati | Published 12 Feb, 2015
https://creation.com/en/articles/refuting-absolute-geocentrism

Resources I've used:

1) Liber nonus. De Mundi Systemate
Sectio secunda de motibus caelorum
CAPVT I. An Caeli aut Sidera Moueantur ab Intelligentijs, An verò ab intrinsecò à propria Forma vel Natura. P. 247
http://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/pageview/194748

Next page : 248
http://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/pageview/141308

2) Memory of a previous or subsequent chapter about heaven as a whole.

3) My translation of relevant passages is available here:

What Opinion did Riccioli call the Fourth and Most Common One?
Thursday, 28 August 2014 | Posted by Hans Georg Lundahl at 17:24
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-opinion-did-riccioli-call-fourth.html

4) Nearly forgot, an online resource by CMRI, meant to prove "Popes" who think Muslims or Jews worship the true God are not Popes (and I'd add, neither are Evolutionists) by referring to a Latin text by St. Robert Bellarmine:

Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen: St. Robert Bellarmine: What if a Pope [were] to Become a Heretic
https://cmri.org/articles-on-the-traditional-catholic-faith/on-the-roman-pontiff/

They think we haven't had a Pope since 1958, I that we have had Popes with a one year break, again, since 1990, Popes Michael I and II.

Are Catholics Supposed to Assign Genesis 1—11 to the Literary Form "Myth" Because of Ancient Near East Parallels?

I once upon a time used to think Pius XII allowed for believing Adam had physical ancestry.

No, Humani Generis only allowed for discussing that behind closed doors. The only reason why YEC or Old Earth Progressive Creationists should keep their arguments against this behind closed doors would be to hide from the faithful that this position existed. Given the secret no longer isn't one, this discretion can hardly hold any more. Nor have I found that Popes Michael I and II have imposed it on me.

I once used to think Pius XII, by promoting Old Earth in 1951 was promoting apostasy. But he was probably unaware of carbon dates, so, probably considered humanity was 5199 years old when Jesus was born. Given carbon dates and the relation between an old atmosphere and a high level of carbon 14 around the modern one, this has now become inconsistent, but as per 1909, it is not currently stamped as a heresy. One can argue that it should be, but it isn't. And I cannot prove Pius XII went beyond that position, the 5 billion years were 5 billion years before the creation of Adam and Eve, 6000—7500 years ago.

I also used to dread the idea that by promoting the study of literary forms in Divino Afflante Spiritu, he had prepared the idea alluded to in the title. Or at least promoted divisions of Johannine corpus or of Isaias or the Pentateuch into different authors. Which he didn't promote.

46. But this state of things is no reason why the Catholic commentator, inspired by an active and ardent love of his subject and sincerely devoted to Holy Mother Church, should in any way be deterred from grappling again and again with these difficult problems, hitherto unsolved, not only that he may refute the objections of the adversaries, but also may attempt to find a satisfactory solution, which will be in full accord with the doctrine of the Church, in particular with the traditional teaching regarding the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture, and which will at the same time satisfy the indubitable conclusion of profane sciences.

Key point: a conclusion of a profane science has to be indubitable before we are required to satisfy it.

Other key point, he actually welcomes what I have been doing.

First, geology means, either the Flood was laying down all or most layers, or it is very untraceable. Solution, the Flood is actually global, not just large regional. Which means, there is no geological basis for Old Earth (old = well beyond Biblical chronology, whether 40 000 or 4 000 000 000 years).

Second, Geocentrism means, there is no basis for the Distant Starlight problem.

Third, Palaeontology means, most well preserved fossils were buried in situ and for land biota, that means one layer.

Fourth, a rise in carbon 14 compared to carbon 12 is not just a theoretical possibility which can be used in a handwave or "we'll sort the details out later" answer to human remains carbon dated to 40 000 + years ago, but for many dates between the Flood and the Fall of Troy, adequate calibrations can already be made on a somewhat rough and amateuresque level.

Fifth, while I may be wrong about anchor points related to the Sojourn in Egypt and the Exodus ... I'm considering to replace some XIIIth dynasty Pharao with Amenhotep II which might make the Hyksos Hebrew rather than Amalekite ... I think I have a very firm reason to consider Genesis 14 occurred a little less than 2000 BC (more or less 1900 BC) and is carbon dated to 3500 BC, namely Asason Tamar = archaeology of Ein Gedi. I am nearly as firm about Babel of Genesis 11 being:

• most of the years from Noah's death to Peleg's birth (like 40 out of 51)
• and this being archaeologically in Tas-Tepeler
• though an older layer of Göbekli Tepe or an older and in size comparable complex, potentially a city, being able to dethrone the current carbon dates of Göbekli Tepe.

The least firm part of this being whether the Hebrew words that normally refer to bricks and bitumen can have meant sth else prior to certain technological changes. But there was a world wide near monoculture prior to this, and there were very marked splits in regional cultures after it, especially as to the signs that could be writing or sth similar. Tas Tepeler is (mostly) in Mesopotamia, which is probably meant by Shinar, and from any landing place of the Ark in the mountains of Armenia, the people going into Shinar there would have been removing literally from the East, the most normal translation of miqqedem.

47. Let all the other sons of the Church bear in mind that the efforts of these resolute laborers in the vineyard of the Lord should be judged not only with equity and justice, but also with the greatest charity; all moreover should abhor that intemperate zeal which imagines that whatever is new should for that very reason be opposed or suspected. Let them bear in mind above all that in the rules and laws promulgated by the Church there is question of doctrine regarding faith and morals; and that in the immense matter contained in the Sacred Books - legislative, historical, sapiential and prophetical - there are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the Holy Fathers is unanimous. There remain therefore many things, and of the greatest importance, in the discussion and exposition of which the skill and genius of Catholic commentators may and ought to be freely exercised, so that each may contribute his part to the advantage of all, to the continued progress of the sacred doctrine and to the defense and honor of the Church.

I think I merit this charity more than people who invent the "literary" category "mytho-history" in order to allege that while Genesis 1—11 are obviously true, they are not literally and factually true. Or who base this on the parallels with other Ancient Near East writings that we have the habit of classifying as myths, with no clear idea of what that word entails. I'm not sure whether Pius XII would have shared my views on Greek myths, probably not, but I am sure that he referred to the already then popular understanding of "mythology" as essentially fiction when he denied Genesis to contain myths, in Humani Generis.

Certain items in the Babylonian Flood Story are fraud, theological or political, tied to post-Flood Shuruppak or to a non-extant assignment of divine roles into "Enlil" and "Enki" the judge and the friend of men being opposed to each other in that false polytheism.

38. Hence the Catholic commentator, in order to comply with the present needs of biblical studies, in explaining the Sacred Scripture and in demonstrating and proving its immunity from all error, should also make a prudent use of this means, determine, that is, to what extent the manner of expression or the literary mode adopted by the sacred writer may lead to a correct and genuine interpretation; and let him be convinced that this part of his office cannot be neglected without serious detriment to Catholic exegesis. Not infrequently - to mention only one instance - when some persons reproachfully charge the Sacred Writers with some historical error or inaccuracy in the recording of facts, on closer examination it turns out to be nothing else than those customary modes of expression and narration peculiar to the ancients, which used to be employed in the mutual dealings of social life and which in fact were sanctioned by common usage.

It could be, on even closer inspection fewer and fewer of these appeals to customary modes of expression are required, and the literal fact can stand. Obviously, when Moses says the following, he is not talking of the subjective idea of people speaking of Bab-Ilu:

And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries
[Genesis 11:9]

But would Nimrod have spoken of Bab-Ilu, or would he have admitted a form of balal, confuse? Obviously, later Pagans didn't admit the confusion. Or only in a limited way. The "Lord of Aratta" alludes to it, but doesn't tell it's backstory in a way we find preserved, this text is also a fragment. Ancient Near East and even Greek, Roman, Celtic, Germanic, Hindu and perhaps also Persian paganisms have managed to forget this event. Like Homer probably managed to forget the Hittites, if Eratosthenes dated the war correctly. But like Bedřich Hrozný deciphered Hittite, though this be only indirectly related to Biblical Hittites, so Klaus Schmidt very arguably dug up Babel. And didn't know it.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Cyril of Alexandria
9.II.2026

[28.I] Alexandriae natalis sancti Cyrilli, ejusdem urbis Episcopi, Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris; qui, catholicae fidei praeclarissimus propugnator, doctrina et sanctitate illustris quievit in pace. Ejus tamen festivitas quinto Idus Februarii celebratur.
[9.II] Sancti Cyrilli, Episcopi Alexandrini, Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris, cujus dies natalis quinto Kalendas Februarii recensetur.

"Why Bother About Creation Science, the Flood was a Miracle, and Miracles are Miracles, Right?"

I have seen a man change his opinion on the Flood, from local / regional to global.

His perspective was entirely supernatural. Who cares where the water came from and where it went, God can do miracles.

It is obviously better to believe this way than to take cop-outs like a local/regional flood because of "the evidence" even if it contradicts the Bible. However, it is also not quite correct. I refer to my essay What is a Miracle? What Does it Take? and cite one paragraph:

A miracle, by contrast, is caused by a mind, but by a mind other than the mind experiencing them. They have no physical causes, but - unlike illusions - they do have physical effects.

The bread and fish to feed 5000 men, not counting women and children, had no adequate physical cause to exist, only God's omnipotence. It did however have physical effects, the crowd mentioned had bread and fish to digest and twelve baskets of leftovers were filled.

This might tend to suggest that the water that covered even the highest mountains still is on Earth today. However, a certain Hugh Ross finds this problematic.*

Sorry, a certain Steve Sarigianis, but the same site, Reasons to Believe:

A regional flood interpretation fits the scientific facts about the quantity of water available in Earth’s crust and atmosphere. Genesis 7:11-12 indicates that the floodwaters came from Earth’s aquifers and atmosphere and eventually (according to Gen. 8:1-5), returned to those places. Physical scientists can calculate that Earth contains only 22% of the water required to cover every mountain on the planet.

Some interpreters have postulated radical geologic changes over the entire Earth during the Genesis flood year as a way to reduce the required quantity of water. However, such monumental rates of plate tectonics and erosion defy all geologic evidence collected over the last 200 years. Additionally, the ark could never have withstood the catastrophic forces generated.

In other words, the Earth contains 22 % of the water necessary to cover Mount Everest, which is the highest. Was it the highest?

I take the view of Answers in Genesis and of Creation Ministries International on the erosion, grosso modo. If they accept some ichtyosaur was covered in Flood mud while giving birth, and didn't disintegrate despite erosion levels, because luckily covered in a spot no further eroded, they can obviously accept a similar view, in principle, even if they are not doing so currently, on Neanderthal burials and Homo erectus cannibal remains (like skulls divided).

But on tectonics, I actually take a more conservative view. The four rivers of Paradise can still be localised, since covering large world scale fluvial basins in new sediment can easily still leave them as large world scale fluvial basins.** And Mount Everest rose to present height, not in the Flood year, but was still not fully that height centuries after.***

The forces generated, somewhat more modest on my view than on CMI's, I suppose, would primarily have affected the sea bottom where things were eroding and sedimenting from super-saturated mud flows. The surface of the then world wide ocean would have been calmer.

Was the Ark Too Long for a Wooden Ship? Local Flood—Yes. Global Flood—No.

The takeaway would be, as I've said previously, it's significant that SS Wyoming sank close to land, in Nantuckett Bay, where the medium depth or shallowest depth (forget which) is c. 9 meters. It's equally significant that the Kon Tiki didn't sink over the Pacific Ocean. Now, a Global Flood, if pre-Flood mountains aren't all that high and if "15 cubits above" was not the highest level, but the highest level Noah could know, since he had built the Ark on top of the Highest Mountain and the water line was 15 cubits, in other words, a water level 1—2 km above the ground and the Seas and not much shallower over the highest mountain while it last, that is a lot like a Pacific Ocean. But a Local Flood is necessarily if not as shallow as Nantuckett Bay, at least too shallow for the Ark to be safe.

In this essay, I cite wooden ships that sunk and where they sunk, provided they didn't burn first. It's consistently in shallow water.

But as Saragianis took up impossibilities, how about his view of why the local Mesopotamian flood didn't run off sooner than in a year?

From 400 miles northwest of Ur to Ur (the location of the Persian shore at the time of Noah), the Euphrates and Tigris rivers drop just 300 feet in elevation. This drop provides a grade of only about 0.01 percent. With that gentle a slope, the Flood waters would have moved very slowly out to the Persian Gulf.

This is actually a passage added by Hugh Ross. These 400 miles NW of Ur would be SE of Ninive:

The approximate distance from Nineveh to Ur is about 1,142 kilometers (or 710 miles).

And to get even from Ninive, let alone sth SE thereof, to the Mountains of Armenia, by boat ... just good luck! Mosul, near Ninive, has an elevation of 223 m (732 ft).° Meanwhile, Mount Nisir is 2,588 m (8490 ft.)°° Mount Judi is 2,089 m (6,854 ft)°°° Anything SE of Mosul is considerably lower.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. John Bosco
31.I.2026

Augustae Taurinorum sancti Joannis Bosco, Confessoris, Societatis Salesianae ac Instituti Filiarum Mariae Auxiliatricis Fundatoris, animarum zelo et fidei propagandae conspicui, quem Pius Papa Undecimus Sanctorum fastis adscripsit.

* Noah’s Flood: A Bird’s-Eye View
July 1, 2002, by Steve Sarigianis
https://reasons.org/explore/publications/facts-for-faith/noah-s-flood-a-bird-s-eye-view

** Answering Carter and Cosner on Eden and Trying to Break Down "Reverse Danube" or "Reverse Euphrates" Concept

*** Himalayas ... how fast did they rise?

° Mosul
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul

°° Mount Nisir
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nisir

°°° Mount Judi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Judi

Inaccurate Reasoning in CMI

If Toba and Campi Flegrei were both in the Flood, why is Campi Flegrei my carbon date? · Inaccurate Reasoning in CMI

Radiocarbon dating “inaccurate”
Published 11 Feb, 2025 | First appeared in Creation 40(4) | Page 11, October 2018
https://creation.com/en/articles/c14-dating-inaccurate

On the other hand, the calculated ‘dates’ are much too old compared with the time they were actually buried (c. 4,500 years ago).

So far agreed, except the actual Flood date in 2957 BC is more like c. 5000 eyars ago. But watch the reasoning:

This is because age calculations need to calibrate for the fact that vast quantities of carbon-containing plants and animals were buried during that cataclysmic, global Flood.

Fact, correct. Causal connection, not so.

This would have drastically upset the atmospheric ¹⁴C/¹²C balance.

Nothing like it. Not immediately.

Can we get a hint on where they got wrong?

Also it would have upset the biosphere’s balance because lots of ¹²C would have been buried.

¹⁴C would have been buried with ¹²C in the exact same proportion as just before the Flood. The immediate post-Flood atmosphere would have had soon enough less carbon, overall, since increase in living creatures would deplete part of what the pre-Flood carbon cycle had left in the atmosphere.

And this soon enough less carbon would lead to making an equal carbon 14 (¹⁴C) production having a greater impact. So, suppose N tonnes of ¹⁴C were created in 3000 BC, before the Flood, N tonnes of ¹⁴C were created in 2900 BC, after the Flood, those N tonnes would lead to faster increase in pmC, since pmC isn't amount of ¹⁴C, also not ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio, but percentage points of the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio we call "modern carbon" or more precisely "corrected for pre-industrial values".

Suppose 50 years after the Flood, the amount of carbon overall was already just 1/2 of the pre-Flood share of the atmosphere. That would make, by itself, even with no other factors, the pmC point additions go 2 times faster than 50 years before the Flood.*

The cause of initial low carbon 14 content in misdated organic material is therefore not that the Flood buried more carbon 14 than carbon 12, proportionally, but that the pre-Flood buildup of carbon 14 was slower. This means, a post-Flood rise was needed to arrive where we are at.

Whether the Flood date in carbon as per Campi Flegrei was 39 000 BC or 34 300 BC, that's because of how high (still much lower than today) the carbon 14 had climbed by the time of the Flood.

Alt. I

2958 BC

1.6277 pmC, dated as 37 000 BC

Alt. II

2958 BC

2.8567 pmC dated as 32 350 BC

For Alt. I, I consulted Newer Tables, Flood to Joseph in Egypt. For Alt. II, I calculated the alternative number of extra years, then used that in proportion to the halflife and then that as exponent to 0.5.

32 350 - 2958 = 29 392 extra years
0.5^(29 392 / 5730) = 0.02856725266

In fact, it seems the Creation Answers book on CMI has it right. Here is the quote, words following those quoted in the footnote:

¹⁴C is continually being produced, at a rate that does not depend on carbon dioxide levels (it comes from nitrogen). Therefore, the ¹⁴C level relative to ¹²C increased after the Flood. So, the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio in plants/animals/the atmosphere before the Flood had to be much lower than what it is now.

So, I suggest they read their own resources a bit more thoroughly. Meanwhile, this is one of the factors, and this one would allow for an increase in the speed of added ¹⁴C other factors being equal. But if they weren't equal, the speed could increase first for some other reason (I've suggested a higher input of cosmic radiation, leading to both the Ice Age setting on quicker and to the shortening of human life spans) and then drop.

Either way, the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio has increased since the Flood, and if in 1950 it was somewhat lower than actual 100 pmC, that's still way higher than for instance 1.6277 or 2.8567 pmC.

The correct reason about low initial pmC is therefore not that the pmC was lowered by or after the Flood, but that it was very low just before the Flood. 35 to 61.4 times lower. And even in the subsequent part when it's rising, up to when it reaches 100 pmC, it will still have been lower and therefore still give a mirage of extra years, be dated earlier than the actual date when it was alive, plant or animal.

Meanwhile, the wording allows the apparent inference that the rate of carbon 14 production has been constant or (if we look at magnetic field, previous paragraph) increasing. I reject that proposition. It has, after an initial post-Flood increase and thus rapid rise in pmC decreased. If it had just been the same, starting with 3—4 pmC at the Flood, we would now have a c. 45 or 49 pmC level and the carbon 14 still rising. Could that be? No, when we compared the known artefacts with organic material to the carbon levels, we would then have had to conclude for a half life of 2000 + years, not 5730 years. Of course, if 5730 years itself were such a mirage, a halflife of 11 460 years plus a rise would give approximately the same effect over the last 3000 years. But I think the halflife is probably better measured than allowing for that.

And if the production had been constantly rising in speed, the carbon dates in the middle would be way older than they are.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Severine of Noricum
8.I.2026

Apud Noricos sancti Severini Abbatis, qui apud eam gentem Evangelium propagavit, et Noricorum dictus est Apostolus. Ejus corpus ad Lucullanum prope Neapolim, in Campania, divinitus delatum, inde postea ad monasterium sancti Severini translatum est.

* Or, suppose the concentration of carbon was 16 times higher before the Flood than x time post-Flood:

Also, the Genesis Flood would have greatly upset the carbon balance. The Flood buried a huge amount of carbon as fossils, coal, oil, and gas. Then plants regrowing after the Flood absorbed CO₂, drawing down the atmospheric CO₂ to what it is today. Indeed, the pre-Flood atmospheric CO₂ concentration was 16× today’s.

Then the pmC would at x time post-Flood, other factors being equal, have a 16 times faster pmC add than before the Flood.

Let's see what that makes. 2262 years. 0.5^(2262 / 5730) = 0.76061357994 (76.061 pmC); normal replacement = 1 - 0.76061357994 = 23.939 pmC / 16 = 1.496 pmC. Pretty good match for my immediate pre-Flood values 1.6277 or 2.8567 pmC. But if we had just had 16 times faster, i e today's production since then, 2957 + 2026 = 4983 years, 0.5^(4983 / 5730) = 0.54728586164 = 54.729 pmC, normal replacement = 45.271 pmC. We would be on 46.09 pmC, not 100. With the problem as described in the text, in the paragraph "Meanwhile" ...

Did Everyone Catch What I Said?

How did Henry Drummond Explain Human Language? · Did Henry Drummond Have Any Other Hunch on Language? · Did Everyone Catch What I Said?

Here are my expressions of this truth, from both previous essays:

We must conclude that Tolkien had reached the idea of "expressing meaning by sound" from being taught English as a child, and probably already had realised the existence of non-English languages as well, from actually being taught or at least told at this stage of French (back in Bloemfontein, he may have heard Afrikaans and Sesotho).

[T]he main problem is actually, he assumes once a "Homo alalus" is anatomically equal to a Homo sapiens surely an adult "Homo alalus" would at the very least show the talent in language making of a five year old or ten year old Homo sapiens, thereby becoming a Homo sapiens.

But he had two other leads, or three, one of which is resurfacing and the other ones of which aren't so much. They are just very subsidiary to this egregious error. The problem being that the five or ten year old actual human person actually started talking by being taught that. And an adult so far "alalus" (non talking) would, by definition, not have had any such teaching.

In a more general way: the idea of expressing meaning by sound is experienced in language learning before being in any way, shape or form formulated or thought about in general. A five year old boy confronted with the fact that adults say "duck" or "water" when he says "quack" but they still quite understand him, when he says "quack", isn't concerned with the abstract proposition "can I express meaning in sound?" but with a much more humdrum proposition "how do I express this meaning in sound?"

And before a child can somewhat actively work on his vocabulary (depending extensively on the feedback from adults who have already mastered the language), he has to have some vocabulary and syntax (even if it's just two word syntax "Tommy cold" = "I (Tommy) am cold") to pragmatically understand the concept.

The critical period hypothesis states that the first few years of life is the crucial time in which an individual can acquire a first language if presented with adequate stimuli, and that first-language acquisition relies on neuroplasticity of the brain. If language input does not occur until after this time, the individual will never achieve a full command of language.

Footnoted to Lenneberg 1967, meaning: Lenneberg, E.H. (1967). Biological Foundations of Language. New York: Wiley. ISBN 978-0-89874-700-3.

I would say, this is not just a hypothesis, this is a solid fact. I have no doubt that Eric Heinz Lenneberg formulated it as a solid fact. The article on him states:

In his publication Biological Foundations of Language he advanced the hypothesis of a critical period for language development; a topic which remains controversial and the subject of debate.

The problem is, there is no source given for the opposite view or the existence of the debate. There is no presentation of what that debate looks like. I would say, calling the critical period a "hypothesis" is wishful thinking on the part of those who want to defend an evolutionary origin of language. A pdf in his memory cited as a source by the wikipedians include this passage which is not in favour of the evolutionary origin:

He went on to explore the evidence that language capacity is a specialized form of a more general cognitive capacity rather than a development of either animal vocalization or nonvocal communication.

Thank you very much. He didn't believe in animal vocalisations or non-vocal communication being the origin of human language. And this despite the fact that as far as we know, he was not a Theist. Now, the question is, could the general cognitive capacity of man, given it got biological existence, have worked on the presumed "ancestral" heritage of animal vocalisations and turned it into this specialised form? I would say no.

The problem is not just that a "man with ape language" would have not acquired Language (the human capacity) during the critical period. It's that the "inherited" vocalisations and non-vocal communication would have blocked, positively blocked, the appearance of human language.

And like Greek has Logos for both "word" and "thought" it is — hat tip to Stephan Borgehammar — very unlikely or even impossible for a human being to acquire thought without acquiring language. In other words, the phrase:

[o]nce the idea had dawned of expressing meaning by sounds,

refers to an occurrence that's impossible. The pretended "homo alalus" had never learned to express meaning by sounds, in the specifically human way, and therefore, had no means of having ideas dawn on him. Including this one.

Now, the exception some will cite is, Managua, 1980.

The conditions necessary for a language to arise occurred in 1977 when a center for special education established a scheme that was initially attended by 50 deaf children. The number of pupils at the school (in the Managua neighborhood of San Judas) then grew to 100 by 1979, the beginning of the Sandinista Revolution.

In 1980 a vocational school for deaf adolescents was opened in the Villa Libertad area of Managua. By 1983 more than 400 deaf pupils were enrolled in the two schools. Initially, the language scheme emphasized spoken Spanish and lipreading, and the use of signs by teachers was limited to fingerspelling (using simple signs to sign the alphabet).

The scheme achieved little success, with most pupils failing to grasp the concept of Spanish words. The children subsequently remained linguistically disconnected from their teachers, but the schoolyard, the street, and the school bus provided fertile ground for them to communicate with one another. By combining gestures and elements of their home-sign systems, a pidgin-like form and a creole-like language rapidly emerged — they were creating their language.

The problem is, citing this as an exception is only possible if the Nicaraguan Sign Language they created was the very first language they had. Well ... yes and no. It was the first standardised language they had, and they standardised it as adolescents, but each had come from a home where brave parents had done efforts to communicate with them, with signs, seeing they couldn't hear.

Imagine that homeschoolers of parents who taught their children only conlangs, one set of parents speaking Quenya with their children, one Dothraki, one Klingon, one Lìʼfya leNaʼvi, one Mangani language (you'd be better off trying to teach it to a child than to an actual great ape, despite the hypothesis in the Tarzan book series), one Kiliki. Each of the couples having two children, no language had an advantage of numerical superiority later on. The children were taken away from the parents and handed over to a school where the teachers were deaf and only understood sign language. These children would develop a pidgin or even a creole to communicate verbally with each other. It would be the first language they had in common, but it would still not be the first language each child had. Neither was the Nicaraguan Sign Language.

Now, I left out part of the quotation. Just to show my parallel is not pure speculation, here is what happened before 1977:

Before the 1970s, a deaf community largely socializing with and amongst each other was not present in Nicaragua.[2] Deaf people were generally isolated from one another and mostly used simple home sign systems and gesture (mímicas) to communicate with their families and friends, though there were several cases of idioglossia among deaf siblings.[3]

Polich, Laura (2005). The Emergence of the Deaf Community in Nicaragua: "With Sign Language You Can Learn So Much". Gallaudet University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv2rcnfjw.
Meir, Irit; Sandler, Wendy; Padden, Carol; Aronoff, Mark (2010). "Emerging Sign Languages" (PDF). In Marschark, Marc; Spencer, Patricia Elizabeth (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies, Language, and Education. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195390032.013.0018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-12-19. Retrieved 2024-05-05.

Here is a fuller quote from the latter:

Homesign is a basic communication system created within a family with one or few deaf members. The obvious difference between such a system, which may be conventionalized for the solitary child who creates it, and sign language is the number of people for whom manual-visual language is primary. In homesign, it is one, while in either a village or a deaf community sign language it is many, and this difference leads to structural differences in the two kinds of language. However, the distinction is not categorical but gradient. Homesign systems can emerge in a family with more than one deaf child. In such cases, the community numbers several individuals.

Aha ... yes, in 1980, the adolescents who came together were already tolerably fluent in a sign language, except that sign language was one created ad hoc within a family. It's pretty much the equivalent of a new auxlang between children raised in Quenya, Klingon and the other conlangs in my fictional hypothesis.

This is not a valid refutation of the Critical Period fact.

But there is one more. Human anatomy, from Homo erectus (if we politely "concede" the chronology as a convention) to us, is very well adapted for communication in human language. It has all the traits needed. An ear that is not too thick to pick up consonants. Chimpanzees, Australopitheci, Paranthropi, all have ears that, through thickness, can only hear very low frequencies, and therefore basically growls. A hyoid that doesn't carry any air bags providing distortion. The hyoids of chimps and one found of an Australopithecus did hold air bags and do provide distortion. Impossible to hear "what vowel" is pronounced. A brain that has (presumably) Wernicke's and (certainly) Broca's area. The FOXP2 gene in its human expression (the Neanderthal version is some loci different, but clearly human rather than chimp). None of these things are necessary for the vocalisations of beasts. All of them are necessary for human speech. And no skeletal remains that's sufficiently complete leaves us in any doubt on which side these things fall on, and they all fall on one side or the other, unless the skeleton is too incomplete to check. These things would not be useful without language, and language would not be possible without them. They are too many to be due to just one or two mutations.

I would say, I have not tried to make a case for irreducible complexity. I have succeeded.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Severine of Noricum
8.I.2026

Apud Noricos sancti Severini Abbatis, qui apud eam gentem Evangelium propagavit, et Noricorum dictus est Apostolus. Ejus corpus ad Lucullanum prope Neapolim, in Campania, divinitus delatum, inde postea ad monasterium sancti Severini translatum est.