Claim CH512:

Noah's ark could have carried pairs of all kinds of animals for a year.

Source:

Response:

1. Woodmorappe (1996, 1-44) has done a detailed analysis of the possibility of fitting all animals aboard the Ark. He found that the animals, together with the food and water they require, would fit in about 90 percent of the available space. However, he made several invalid assumptions that, when corrected, fill the ark past overflowing (Isaak 1998).
   
   
   • The "kinds" used in Woodmorappe's calculations were genera. Taking individual species, which is a much more reasonable definition of kind in the context of the ark, increases the load three- or fourfold.
     
     
   • Woodmorappe did not account for the extra clean animals, considering their number negligible. However, he believed that the only clean animals would be thirteen domestic ruminants traditionally considered clean. But if the Bible is taken literally, all ruminants would be considered clean. Under Woodmorappe's assumption, the extra clean animals would increase the load by 1.5 percent, or 3 percent if you include seven pairs of the animals. Taking all ruminants increases the load by 14 or 28 percent.
     
     
   • Woodmorappe included only juveniles of animals larger than about 10 kg. This assumption, however, is unbiblical and, for some animals, impractical. Taking adult animals would increase the total mass more than thirteenfold. Taking even some of these animals as adults or taking older juveniles could easily fill the ark beyond capacity.
     
     
   • According to the creation model, dinosaurs and other animals now extinct would have been alive at the time of the flood and therefore would be aboard the ark. The only extinct animals that Woodmorappe included in his calculations were the ones that were known at the time. Since then, many other dinosaur genera have been discovered, and no doubt there are many more as yet undiscovered.
     
     
   • Woodmorappe excluded land invertebrates from his calculations, despite the fact that they must have been aboard the ark. These animals are small enough that they alone would not have increased the load significantly, but they are numerous enough and have many special requirements, so the infrastructure needed to house and care for them would have been significant.
     
     
   • Woodmorappe made no allowance for food spoilage or water wasted from spilling, although the conditions he described aboard the ark guarantee that both of these problems would have been severe.

Links:

Isaak, Mark, 1998. Problems with a global flood, 2nd edition. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

References:

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