Chapter 3:

Two Worldviews in Conflict
What do thousands of scientists believe about creation and evolution?

The Creation Model

• The biblical Book of Genesis describes a great cataclysmic flood that supposedly covered the entire earth approximately 4,500 years ago.^[86] Famously known as the story of Noah’s ark, this flood was to destroy every living creature on earth except one man named Noah, his wife, their sons and their son’s wives, seven pairs of each animal that was approved by God for eating and sacrificing, seven pairs of every kind of bird, and one pair of every other kind of animal, male and female; all these were saved in a large boat (or ark).
  
  
• While evolutionists dismiss this biblical account as plainly mythical, most creationist scientists see it as a literal historical fact. In fact, a literal interpretation of this account is central to the creation model. Yet, if this biblical account is to be taken seriously, it must be demonstrated that the story is not unreasonable to believe as an actual fact of history. If such a worldwide flood occurred sometime in the past, the account should stand up to an objective analysis; not only must it be reasonable, there should also be evidence to support its claims.^[87]
  
  
• Recall that the best and most likely way for a fossil to be produced is by the rapid burial of a creature at the time of its death. A worldwide flood, then, would be a good explanation of how most of the fossils around the globe could have been produced. Millions of living creatures all over the earth would have naturally been quickly killed, buried, and fossilized in such a great cataclysm.
  
  
• Thus, if the biblical account of a global flood and its aftermath is true, one would not only expect to find sedimentary layers (rocks laid down by water) all over the earth, but one would also expect these rocks to contain the fossil remains of many kinds of creatures. Where there are similar types of creatures alive today, these fossils would be basically the same as their living representatives — for example, bats would still look like bats, and turtles like turtles.
  
  
• Indeed, these predictions are observed to be fulfilled. Today most of the earth’s surface (80 to 90 percent) is in fact composed of sedimentary rock,^[88] consistent with the expected results of a biblical global flood. And many fossils highly resemble today’s creatures — that is, fossil bats look like today’s bats, and fossil turtles like today’s turtles.
  
  
• Additionally, many types of animals that lived before the Flood would have died out. Many marine creatures, for example, would have died out during the Flood, and many land creatures would also have become extinct during the succeeding centuries. Thus, one would predict that many creatures would be found in the fossil record that look quite unrelated to anything alive today. Again, that is exactly what is found. For instance, the pterosaurs (flying reptiles), as well as the dinosaurs and many other extinct types of animals can be observed in the fossil record, but are not living today.

• How could the ark described above have possibly carried all the different types of animals?
  
  
• The Genesis “kind” of animal is undoubtedly a more flexible term than the biological species. Many of today’s species of animals could have descended from these different “kinds.” Thus, if the scientific genus is taken to be equal to the biblical “kind,”^[89] then this would result in about 8,000 genera, and therefore, nearly 16,000 animals on the ark (this accounts for both live animals and extinct animals known from fossils).^[90]
  
  
• Noah would not have needed to take sea creatures because they would not necessarily be threatened with extinction by a flood. However, turbulent water would cause massive carnage, as seen in the fossil record, and many oceanic species probably would have become extinct because of the Flood. Noah would not have needed to take plants either — many could have survived as seeds, and others could have survived on floating mats of vegetation. Many insects and other invertebrates were small enough to have survived on these mats as well.^[91] The ark had to transport only land animals, so the mammals, birds, and reptiles were essentially all that would have needed accommodations.
  
  
• There would have been ample space available on the ark to store these animals. According to the biblical record, the ark measured about 137x23x14 meters or 450x75x45 feet,^[92] so its volume was about 44,000 m3 or 1.5 million cubic feet. To put this in perspective, this is the equivalent volume of about 522 standard American railroad stock cars, each of which can hold about 240 sheep. So the ark could have carried over 125,000 fully-grown sheep. The animals, however, did not have to be fully grown. The largest animals could have been represented by “teenage” or even younger specimens. The average size of the animals on the ark could actually have been that of a small rat, according to up-to-date tabulations, while only about 11 percent may have been much larger than a sheep.^[93]
  
  
• According to the biblical account, the ark was constructed in three stories, and each was fitted with “rooms” or “nests” — evidently tiers of cages or stalls — to store the different kinds of animals (Gen. 6:14). If the animals were kept in cages with an average size of about 20x20x12 inches, i.e., 4,800 cubic inches, then 16,000 animals would occupy only 42,000 cubic feet, or about 14 of 522 railroad stock cars. However, even assuming the average size of the animals to be that of fully-grown sheep rather than that of small rats, they would occupy only about 15 percent of the available ark space (i.e., 75 of 522 available railroad stock cars). Thus, there would have been ample room for food storage and living quarters for Noah and his family.
  
  
• Although there also would have been plenty of room for the animals to get exercise, once they were safely on board, lodged in their stalls, and properly fed, many of the animals could have settled down for a long period of dormancy, or hibernation.

• A common objection that is often raised is, “Following the flood, how did animals get from the ark to isolated places, such as Australia?” However, evolutionary anthropologists themselves have no difficulty in acknowledging that men and animals were once freely able to cross the Bering Strait, which separates Asia and the Americas. In fact, before the idea of continental drift became popular, evolutionists taught and believed that a lowering of the sea level in the past would mean that there were land bridges enabling dry-land passage from Europe most of the way to Australia, for example. The existence of some deep-water stretches along this route is consistent with this explanation; evolutionary geologists themselves believe there have been major tectonic upheavals, accompanied by substantial rising and falling of sea-floors, in the timeperiod associated with the Ice Age.^[94] This would have made it possible for animals to migrate over land or ice bridges for centuries.
  
  
• In fact, there is a widespread, but mistaken, belief that marsupials (such as kangaroos) are found only in Australia. But live marsupials are found also in the Americas, and fossil marsupials on every continent. Likewise, monotremes, such as the platypus, were once thought to be unique to Australia, but the recent discovery of a platypus fossil in South America stunned the scientific community!^[95] Therefore, even in evolutionary terms, since marsupials are all believed to have come from a common ancestor, migration between Australia and other areas must have been possible.

• Succeeding the biblical worldwide flood story, it follows that all humans on earth today would be descended from a group of eight people: Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives. Because today there are obvious differences between “races” (i.e., skin color), many believe that a literal interpretation of the biblical record must be impossible; such diversity could only have arisen by evolving separately over tens of thousands of years.
  
  
• Modern genetics show, however, that when a large freely interbreeding group is suddenly broken into many smaller groups which from then on breed only among themselves, different racial characteristics will arise very rapidly. A simple lesson in heredity shows that one pair of middle-brown colored parents could produce children of all known shades of color, from very light to very dark, in just one generation.
  
  
• The biblical record contends that for several centuries there was only one language and one culture group in the world. If so, this would mean there would be no barriers to marriage within this group, which would tend to keep the skin color of the population away from the extremes. Very dark and very light skin would appear, of course, but people tending in either direction would be free to marry someone less dark or less light than themselves, ensuring that the average color stayed roughly the same. Under these circumstances, distinct racial lines would never emerge. This is true for animals as well as human populations. To obtain separate racial lines, one would need to break a large breeding group into smaller groups and keep them separate, that is, not interbreeding any more.
  
  
• If the Bible is taken literally regarding its claim that the “whole world spoke a single language” and that God subsequently confused mankind by supernaturally “giving them many languages, thus scattering them across the earth,”^[96] people would have consequently begun to break up into smaller breeding groups. Once separate languages were imposed, there would have been instantaneous barriers. Not only would people tend not to marry someone they couldn’t understand, but entire groups which spoke the same language would have difficulty relating to and trusting those who did not speak the same language. Thus, humanity would have been broken into smaller “breeding” groups, and would therefore begin to develop distinguishing “racial” characteristics in a very short period of time.

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