Was Noah's Ark Impossible? Baraminology

Was Noah's Ark Impossible? Building the Ark · Was Noah's Ark Impossible? Baraminology · Was Noah's Flood and Ark Textually Possible? Interrupting Refutation of Robert A. Moore to Turn to Damien Mackey

The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark
Creation/Evolution Journal | Volume 4 | No. 1 | Winter 1983
https://ncse.ngo/impossible-voyage-noahs-ark

Without going into the details of genetics, it can be stated that every inherited trait, however small, is coded for by one or more genes, and each gene locus may have a substantial number of variants (alleles), which accounts for the great variety observed in a given population. Any specific individual, however, has at most only two alleles per locus—one from each parent.

I think more recent research has shown that many traits are made from more than one locus, in the variation, so that pretty few alleles are all that's needed in each locus.

It is also probably the case that many alleles arise from mutations that degrade parts of the trait, since they take away information.

This means, not every allele present today needs to have been present on the Ark.

When it comes to what collections we consider one kind, I think the important thing is to show it's reasonable to consider certain collections of species as one kind in sufficient number of the species.

And 17 species per kind is sufficient.

This means if one very probable kind shows 17 species, baraminology is feasible as a solution, even if it's not a concrete well documented study.

There is such a kind. Hedgehogs.

I think all believers in evolution admit each population of hedgehogs today, Ateleryx algirus or Erinaceus europaeus or Hemiechinus auritus, developed from one population of hedgehogs.

Unless their single population spanned both hedgehogs and gymnures, which I am open to being one kind.

From this we can see that the original canine baramin in Eden would have needed a fantastic set of giant chromosomes with alleles for every trait that would someday be manifest in coyotes, wolves, foxes, jackals, dingos, fennecs, and the myriad of minute variations in hair color (twenty-four genes at nine loci), height, face shape, and so forth that are seen in the domestic dog (cf. Hutt).

I would disagree with the position emitted by some Creationists who are not specialists in genetics, that all the diversity was in the original kind, or its survivor after the Flood, and merely separated, "untangled" so to speak, after the Flood. Blue eyes, for instance, originated after the Flood, by mutation:

New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team at the University of Copenhagen have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today.

Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor
Science Daily, Date: January 31, 2008
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.htm

6000 to 10 000 BP = 4000 to 8000 BC. The older date would be just after Babel, in 2556 BC at the birth of Peleg, the younger date would be between 2039 and 2022 BC, the decades before Abraham was born, according to my recalibration:

2556 av. J.-Chr.

51,761 pcm, donc daté à 8006 av. J.-Chr.

...

2039 av. J.-Chr.

78,209 pcm, donc daté à 4089 av. J.-Chr.

2022 av. J.-Chr.

79,035 pcm, donc daté à 3972 av. J.-Chr.

Obviously, I think that mutations spelling out genetic differences between the species and genera of hedgehog have also happened after the Flood.

Plus, some speciation could have happened even before the Flood. Some Baraminology may be overkill:

So, the number of couples on the Ark would vary between 2,032 and 7,317 according to dimensions and empty weight of the Ark. With less food per individual, even more so.

Ark : empty weight and freighted weight, number of couples on the Ark.
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2021/10/ark-empty-weight-and-freighted-weight.html

For that calculation, I used the proportions of weight of animal to weight of food found in ruminants like sheep. But ruminants require a very huge load of food. I think the accomodation was no problem in that way.

That's why Robert A. Moore was so eager to attack baraminology, no doubt (I'm deliberately not quoting several more of his paragraphs on the topic). I think lots of the attacks against baraminology and the implications for the Ark can be traced to his essay.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Martha
29.VIII.2024

Tarasci, in Gallia Narbonensi, sanctae Marthae Virginis, hospitae Salvatoris nostri ac sororis beatorum Mariae Magdalenae et Lazari.

PS, no need for the Ark to have been built in the plains of Shinar!

God himself intervened by implanting in the chosen pair from each species the instinct of migration, and by this mechanism they gathered from the four corners of the world and headed for the Plains of Shinar (Whitcomb, p. 30). ...

A closer look reveals that a miracle is indeed called for in the gathering of the animals, but it is a much larger and more complex one than merely imparting "premonition" and migration. In the first place, a glance at Jarman's Atlas of Animal Migration shows that of all the birds, fish, and terrestrial animals whose paths are shown, only one, the common crane of southern Russia, currently migrates to the Mesopotamian Valley. Therefore, God not only programmed the animals to go to Noah's place before the flood, but afterward he deprogrammed most of them and rerouted all the rest except the common crane—a reverse miracle. Incidentally, it is noteworthy that many aquatic creatures migrate, a faculty whose origins the creationists find incomprehensible unless these creatures were also sent to the ark.

I would rather have the Ark built on the highest pre-Flood mountain! Besides Whitcomb has been left behind by modern Creationists who believe the pre-Flood world doesn't show much in the post-Flood world. They even say I underestimated the destruction of the Flood in this essay:

Trying to Break Down "Reverse Danube" or "Reverse Euphrates" Concept
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/07/trying-to-break-down-reverse-danube-or.html