Creationists: can you explain post-Flood repopulation?

[Magnus Vile]

And evilutionists uniformitarism raises its ugly head again...


Do you really think that the population growth rate was constant all the time?

No, of course not!

Look at the world today - how fast the population grows... but yet most families have one two or three children.
But that isn´t the maximum of childeren a man can sire in his lifetime, especially if he is allowed to have more than one wife (which seems to be the case in early biblical times)

So it is obvious that populations multiplied by a few 1000 percent in the years immediatly after the flood, and only continued to rise at the currently observed levels when, err, when Creationists need it to do so.


See, it´s obvious and you are all stupid if you don´t accept that.

Tragically, the YEC's didn't even make that much effort, which, while idiotic, at least has the benefit of being amusingly idiotic.

 

[Jet Black]

Not the Romans, that was a bit later. The relevant cultures would be Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese and the Indus Valley.

sorry, my sentence construction was shoddy, I mean that they are calculating the rates to get to the populations at the time that the populations were recorded, i.e. how much people would have had to breed to produce the roman empire for example. The Egyptians, Sumeriand, Chinese and Indus Valley populations are a novel problem. But I have a solution.....

Those cultures mysteriously continued on without a blip on the radar despite the flood. What I find most interesting is that they not only replaced all the people in those cultures, but those descendents of Noah coming in oddly adopted the same language, culture, achitecture, art and (here is the kicker) RELIGION that had previously existed.

see those big pyramids, and those big teracotta statues in China and so on.

they're cloning vats. a couple of trained adults could concievably clone HUNDREDS of people in a few months. Ever read Brave New World? notice how few workers there were in the cloning factories... well that's how they did it Using subliminal edulation while the clones are being grown, you can educate them to be whatever culture or religion you like.

YEC's hearing this tend to push back the date of the flood to a more "convenient" date. Of course, this abandons the literal reading of the genealogies, which is what their young earth is based on, so what's the point?

That's true.

AiG sticks to their guns regarding the date of the flood and just ignores all the historical and cultural issues. Much less messy.

that's also true.

"what Egyptians?"

"the egyptians that are mentioned in the Bible, you know, the ones who kept jews as slaves?"

"oh they were only a little group of world controllers, there weren't many of them."

 

[Hydra009]

see those big pyramids, and those big teracotta statues in China and so on.

they're cloning vats. a couple of trained adults could concievably clone HUNDREDS of people in a few months.

Have you ever played Rise of Nations? The Terra Cotta statues REALLY are cloning vats!!!

 

[Jet Black]

Have you ever played Rise of Nations? The Terra Cotta statues REALLY are cloning vats!!!

no I haven't played that, it appears the secrets are leaking out. there must be a mole in the illuminati conspiriacy somewhere.

 

[Rowell]

Hmm. Guess I'll be the first Christian to tackle this one. Note I'm by no means an expert, but a hobbiest. This is my second post on the website too! Woo.

Well, obviously around this time these people lived a long time (Methusala got to around 900 something, right?) Can't exactly remember if it was before or after the flood that the book says God shortened man's lifespan to 120 years, but that solves your time issue either way.

Secondly, its safe to assume that the genetic diversity was still rather prominant in the Ark's occupants (unless you believe there was an asian on the Ark, or that Ham was actually black, or something of the like). Adam and Eve's population of the planet with so many different races is due to the fact that these first animals had a gene pool that we couldn't begin to fathom, and that all the races of the world may even have been combined into this proto-humanity race of perfection. In either case, 8 occupants had enough time, and enough genes, to produce many children, who could then even breed with siblings (once again, big gene pool here), but didn't necesarily have to with the others. Even now, it takes 10 generations of inbreeding to result in some sort of deficiency in the gene pool, so it's obvious that these remaining occupants would have no problem.

Of course I'm not going to get into the geneology of mankind since Noah or something, but there's a relatively adequate explaination from a mere hobbiest.

Happy ... umm ... evolutionisting!

 

[Magnus Vile]

Its not so much the idea of different racial types appearing from a small pool of ancient humans, (since that is what we believe too, though obviously for different reasons) It a problem with the YEC claim that the world was created around 6000 years ago, and then the flood took place around 4000 years ago. (leaving 8 people)

To get from 8 people to 6,000,000,000 people in 4000 years takes a lot of breeding, and even with that high level of breeding the numbers still don't work. Instead of 603,550 Jewish men mentioned in Exodus, (500 years after the flood, give or take a bit) the population of the world would end up at around 700-800. That's the total population. Including the Egyptians, Native Americans, Chinese, etc. (all of whom failed to notice a flood that killed everyone, and somehow managed to pick up where the previous owners of their territories left off without missing a beat).


However, it is nice to see at least one YEC willing to at least try to address the point.

Welcome, by the way.

 

[Jet Black]

these first animals had a gene pool that we couldn't begin to fathom,

actually we know exactly how big the gene pool could have been. 4 alleles for each unclean animal, and 14 alleles (reduced to 12 due to sacrifices) of each clean animal. bear in mind many genes today have over 200 alleles to them within a single species, those 196 alleles have to come from somewhere.

 

[Kasey]

I have another question for the creationists in the forum (by "creationists" I mean the people who are Biblical literalists).

If you take the account of the Flood in the Book of Genesis as literal (ie, global flood with the only survivors being in Noah's Ark), how do you explain the Earth's repopulation and current human diversity starting with a population of 8 (related) people roughly 4400 years ago? Your explanation must respect the current archaeological evidence pertaining to this period.

Explain also how the current biodiversity was achieved from 2 animals of each "kind" and 7 of clean "kind" (note that, according to Genesis, 1 animal each of clean kind was sacrificed after the Ark came down on Ararat), plus whatever plants Noah and his family took into the Ark.

No magical explanations allowed, please.

-----SSH

The Flood of Noah was not world-wide. The Bible doesnt teach that. The Hebrew word for "earth" is "erets" and it means a land region, not the entire planet.

 

[Mistermystery]

The Flood of Noah was not world-wide. The Bible doesnt teach that. The Hebrew word for "earth" is "erets" and it means a land region, not the entire planet.

Good on yah, mate.

 

[Mistermystery]

hello and welcome to the forums.

Well, obviously around this time these people lived a long time (Methusala got to around 900 something, right?)

Wasn't that because those 900 years were derived from a diffrent counting system (i.o.w. like directly translating the binairy 100 to 100 instead of 4)?

Can't exactly remember if it was before or after the flood that the book says God shortened man's lifespan to 120 years, but that solves your time issue either way.

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9708/04/obit.oldest/
Oh dear, she must be rebelling against God, eh?

In either case, 8 occupants had enough time, and enough genes,

Back that up with calulations. I've seen more then enough nonsense from the creationist side to know that it requires exponential growth to get to 6 billion people nowadays. And that still leaves problems like only a handfull of people at the time of exodus, a million at the time of Jesus, magical figures that require people to live longer then they used to, and so on.

(once again, big gene pool here

Big gene pool??

 

[Magnus Vile]

The Flood of Noah was not world-wide. The Bible doesnt teach that. The Hebrew word for "earth" is "erets" and it means a land region, not the entire planet.

I don't think it actually mentions a date either, nor does the bible actually mention the age of the Earth.

Doesn't stop YEC's claiming it does though, which is. I think, the point of the original post.

Anyone that doesn't believe that the whole world flooded isn't going to be worried by the numbers for a world-wide flood not making sense.

 

[Susan Sto Helit]

Hmm. Guess I'll be the first Christian to tackle this one. Note I'm by no means an expert, but a hobbiest. This is my second post on the website too! Woo.

Welcome, Rowell. I hope you enjoy the forums.

Well, obviously around this time these people lived a long time (Methusala got to around 900 something, right?) Can't exactly remember if it was before or after the flood that the book says God shortened man's lifespan to 120 years, but that solves your time issue either way.

How do you reach the conclusion that the exaggerated lifespans in the first books of the Bible were actually real, as opposed to, say, normal lifespans expressed in a non-decimal system? It is also worth pointing out that ancient Middle-East cultures put a huge premium on longevity, so huge life-spans are attributed in those cultures' texts to major figures (with life-spans of thousands of years attributed in Sumerian texts to ancient kings, for instance).

Also, even assuming that the mechanisms of cell death and thus aging were somehow different then (an assumption that definitely goes against the available evidence), it is worth noting that research in mice seems to indicate that increased lifespans lead to decreased fertility.

Secondly, its safe to assume that the genetic diversity was still rather prominant in the Ark's occupants (unless you believe there was an asian on the Ark, or that Ham was actually black, or something of the like). Adam and Eve's population of the planet with so many different races is due to the fact that these first animals had a gene pool that we couldn't begin to fathom, and that all the races of the world may even have been combined into this proto-humanity race of perfection. In either case, 8 occupants had enough time, and enough genes, to produce many children, who could then even breed with siblings (once again, big gene pool here), but didn't necesarily have to with the others.

I'm not sure what you mean by the bigger gene pool. Do you mean to say that these earlier animals had extra genes?

Even now, it takes 10 generations of inbreeding to result in some sort of deficiency in the gene pool, so it's obvious that these remaining occupants would have no problem.

Actually, as far as I'm aware there isn't a given number of generations of inbreeding "needed" to get a deficiency in the gene pool. The reason why inbreeding causes genetic problems is that it both decreases genetic diversity (thus increasing the likelihood of, for instance, a disease cutting a swathe through a genetically homogenous population), and that it increases the likelihood of pairing harmful recessive genes. That can happen in a single generation - for instance, two members of a family of [insert genetic disease here] carriers produce offspring together.

One can argue that Noah and his family had "perfect" gene pools, but their genetic similarity would still make them vulnerable, as a group, to diseases.

-----SSH

 

[Susan Sto Helit]

I don't think it actually mentions a date either, nor does the bible actually mention the age of the Earth.

Doesn't stop YEC's claiming it does though, which is. I think, the point of the original post.

Anyone that doesn't believe that the whole world flooded isn't going to be worried by the numbers for a world-wide flood not making sense.

No, the Bible doesn't mention the age of the Earth. YECs, like Bishop Ussher, get the (in)famous 6,000 years by adding the ages of the patriarchs. Ussher, however, even got an actual date and time for the creation, which is quite remarkable since presumably matters of am and pm weren't all that pressing before the creation of time (don't ask me how Ussher got his date, though).

Obviously a localised flood presents no problems of any kind.

-----SSH

 

[Rowell]

Welcome, Rowell. I hope you enjoy the forums.


How do you reach the conclusion that the exaggerated lifespans in the first books of the Bible were actually real, as opposed to, say, normal lifespans expressed in a non-decimal system? It is also worth pointing out that ancient Middle-East cultures put a huge premium on longevity, so huge life-spans are attributed in those cultures' texts to major figures (with life-spans of thousands of years attributed in Sumerian texts to ancient kings, for instance).

Also, even assuming that the mechanisms of cell death and thus aging were somehow different then (an assumption that definitely goes against the available evidence), it is worth noting that research in mice seems to indicate that increased lifespans lead to decreased fertility.


I'm not sure what you mean by the bigger gene pool. Do you mean to say that these earlier animals had extra genes?


Actually, as far as I'm aware there isn't a given number of generations of inbreeding "needed" to get a deficiency in the gene pool. The reason why inbreeding causes genetic problems is that it both decreases genetic diversity (thus increasing the likelihood of, for instance, a disease cutting a swathe through a genetically homogenous population), and that it increases the likelihood of pairing harmful recessive genes. That can happen in a single generation - for instance, two members of a family of [insert genetic disease here] carriers produce offspring together.

One can argue that Noah and his family had "perfect" gene pools, but their genetic similarity would still make them vulnerable, as a group, to diseases.

-----SSH

Hmm. I haven't given much thought to the probablity of the lifespans being based in a different numerical system, but I personally doubt it, unless the Hebrews used a numerical system extremely different to our arabic one today. As far as the rats go -- scientific experiments prove to have many ill side affects -- the cloned sheep Dolly only lived half the expected lifespan of a sheep. Can we automatically conclude that all clones don't live nearly as long as normals? Nope. Nor can we conclude that we can't perfect cloning to a point where there would be any age difference. In the same like, we can't conclude that human fertility would react the same to rat futility, especcially considering the scientific atmosphere of the experiment, and the fact that rat's aren't meant to have their lifespan toyed with and extended -- but the humans of the Bible, in theory of course, had them altered by God -- who's perfectly capable of making sure there's no problems with it, of course.

By a bigger gene pool, I mean that how they were made up (or even genes they had in them that weren't dominant) far outweighed the meager amount we have. We're the results of them -- most of us don't carry any sort of African genes, or asian genes. These people did, which means they could have passed down these "extra" nondominant, or dominant, genes and took longer for any genetic deficiency to occur. It might not even had occured. Neanderthal man was simply a group of humans with extreme arthritist, so some Creationists hypothesize that they secluded themselves after the flood and had generations until their gene pool was depleted. Who knows. But nontheless, the theory still stands that these Adam and Even, and very well the occupants on Noah's ark, still had waaaayyy too many genes for themselves, and populated the rest of the planet. Secondly, they didn't necessarily have to have "genetic simularity". Noah could very well have spawned a black Ham, for all we know -- how it worked we can't be sure.

 

[kingreaper]

By a bigger gene pool, I mean that how they were made up (or even genes they had in them that weren't dominant) far outweighed the meager amount we have. We're the results of them -- most of us don't carry any sort of African genes, or asian genes. These people did, which means they could have passed down these "extra" nondominant, or dominant, genes and took longer for any genetic deficiency to occur. It might not even had occured. Neanderthal man was simply a group of humans with extreme arthritist, so some Creationists hypothesize that they secluded themselves after the flood and had generations until their gene pool was depleted. Who knows. But nontheless, the theory still stands that these Adam and Even, and very well the occupants on Noah's ark, still had waaaayyy too many genes for themselves, and populated the rest of the planet. Secondly, they didn't necessarily have to have "genetic simularity". Noah could very well have spawned a black Ham, for all we know -- how it worked we can't be sure.

SO basically you'rew claiming all the people on the ark had twenty or so different versions of each chromosone?

How then did it manage to gete down to EVERYONE having 2 versions per chromosone in such a short time

 

[Split Rock]

By a bigger gene pool, I mean that how they were made up (or even genes they had in them that weren't dominant) far outweighed the meager amount we have. We're the results of them -- most of us don't carry any sort of African genes, or asian genes. These people did, which means they could have passed down these "extra" nondominant, or dominant, genes and took longer for any genetic deficiency to occur. It might not even had occured. Neanderthal man was simply a group of humans with extreme arthritist, so some Creationists hypothesize that they secluded themselves after the flood and had generations until their gene pool was depleted. Who knows. But nontheless, the theory still stands that these Adam and Even, and very well the occupants on Noah's ark, still had waaaayyy too many genes for themselves, and populated the rest of the planet. Secondly, they didn't necessarily have to have "genetic simularity". Noah could very well have spawned a black Ham, for all we know -- how it worked we can't be sure.

Unfortunately genetics just doesn't work this way in the real world. While plants can tolerate polyploidy (that is having more than two sets of chromosomes), animals (including humans) cannot. Also, there is no mechanism to reduce this polyploidy in a consistant manner in a few thousand years. If what you say is true, we should be able to find humans today with more four or six pairs of chromosomes, etc. We do not.

The other problem is just in the mathematics. Thelodger wrote a program to determine if the world could have been repopulated by 8 people after the flood, and gave the idea all the benefits of doubt he could. This is his conclusion for the time of the Tower of Babel:

After 180 years from the Flood, at approximately the time period of the Tower of Babel, the population of the Earth the app comes up with numbers in the following ballpark (these are from a specific run, random factors lead to slightly different numbers with each run through):

- Population of the Earth: 61,162

Hey, not bad, I thought when I ran it the first time. A decent seed population for Babel, and only about 500 years after the claimed Egyptian dates... Then, I decided to break it down and I found something fascinating... They're almost all children under the age of 12:

Girls under 12: 25,989
Boys under 12: 21,446
Adults (over age 12 qualifies as an adult here): 13,727

Also, at the time I stopped my simulation at 180 years, there were 6,694 women over the age of 13 of whom 5,291 were currently pregnant. The rest were adult men.

You can find his whole post at: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/may04.html

This is the problem with Creationism... you can make all the ad-hoc explanations you want, but when you look at the details, they all fall apart.

 

[Rowell]

I highly doubt an estimating computer program can be considered great final proof for or against something -- especcially considering I doubt that the programmer included the unique old age of the people during these times. Secondly, its not so much that the genes were "extra", but "more complete". They were still closer to the perferction of Adam and Eve to have nearly no misstakes, so offspring could continue. By the time of Moses, however, you'd have more degenerative problems, and it was necessary to forbid the marriage of siblings because of the higher probablity that the offspring might have double misstakes now, instead of someone outside the immediate family that might not share in the mangled ear problem, or something of the like. Heck, we get these races because of different genes. Its not that we have different skin tones than one another, like say a white or a black, but that we indeed have all the same skin tone -- just increased or decreased levels of melatonin in the skin. Is there a "black" hue? Or a "white" hue? Heck no, there's all sorts of color variations between the darkest and the lightest skins, because different genes produce different dominant melatonin levels. The Native American has a redish skin tone? Why? Not because of melatonin but because the corollaries are much closer to the skin level than in others -- once again, just genetic dominance. Asians are "yellow" because the level of where the fat cells are stored are much closer to the skin, almond shaped eyes because fat is generally stored around the eyes in genetic makeup. If you had a more complete genome, your offspring could inherit these traits.

For two people to produce two children who are absolutely identical without being twins, you'd have to have 2 to the two-thousand seventeenth power of children. That's a lot of children... and yet the genetic diversity is still there. That's how diverse the human genome is in just the combination of 2 people, not those children and other's childrens.

Keep it real!

 

[Vance]

"Keep it real!"

Oh, the irony . . .

 

[Rowell]

Oh, I forgot, evolution is a lie.

For all you evolutionists --

Keep it stupid!

 

[USincognito]

Oh, I forgot, evolution is a lie.

For all you evolutionists --

Keep it stupid!

Metairony! I love it.

What's next, "if we came from monkeys, why is there still monkies?"