Flood Migration

[matthewgar]

Seems my sarcasm wasn't obvious enough.

*giggles face palming....* Actually in this case you don't:>

 

[OldWiseGuy]

In other words matthewgar, you're not relying upon miracles that the Bible makes no mention of. Until you start adding to the Bible things that aren't there, you're never going to understand.

The bible is sketchy about many things. Filling in the blanks properly can enhance the meaning without changing it. God says that his spirit will lead us into all truth. If the Bible contained all truth we would have no need for additional guidance. We are also told to 'meditate', think deeply, about what God has said. If meanings were obvious this too wouldn't be necessary. We are also told that understanding comes 'here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept'. If complete knowledge were found in one place 'searching' the scriptures would not be needed either.

 

[Nostromo]

Like evolution?

Ham, Shem and Japheth?

 

[Orogeny]

We are also told that understanding comes 'here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept'. If complete knowledge were found in one place 'searching' the scriptures would not be needed either.

Wow. This sounds just like what science is doing every day. Strange that those of your ilk try so hard to dismiss it.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Wow. This sounds just like what science is doing every day. Strange that those of your ilk try so hard to dismiss it.

I'm glad you didn't include me in the 'ilk'. I applaud the efforts of science. They are continuously proving bible history to be accurate. Science will eventually discover that the universe is not composed of material substance but energy that appears to be continuously generated from a source that cannot be identified.

 

[tansy]

I'm glad you didn't include me in the 'ilk'. I applaud the efforts of science. They are continuously proving bible history to be accurate. Science will eventually discover that the universe is not composed of material substance but energy that appears to be continuously generated from a source that cannot be identified.

But scientists already know that the universe is composed of energy! They just, as you say, don't know where that energy comes from. I assume they assume it was always there? (Unless they believe in a creator God I mean).
Question I'm not totally sure of is whether that energy was actually created by God, or if it kind of emanates from His own being, but maybe transformed? But that perhaps, is more of a theological question.
So what it boils down to is: Has energy in some form always been here? Did it just appear out of nothing? Or did it/does it come from God, who Himself has always been there?
Maybe one has to answer that question before ever one gets down to Creationism or Evolutionism. Because the arguments (unless one is a theistic evolutionist) will never, I don't think, come to any satisfactory conclusion unless one can agree on a basic premise....which believers and non-believers just cannot, by the very nature of their perspectives, do.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Isn't it odd that creationists think that after the Great Flood, every animal, just happened to migrate back to such ideal enviroments?

Penguins to antarctica...what are the chances of that?

Animals that can only be found on certain islands to such islands?

Ideal predators migrating along with ideal prey. Herbivores to where edible plants can be found.

Each animal to a place with proper temperature.

It seems strange that African Honeybees for example, so succesful in the America's, never migrated to the Americas but instead stayed in Africa. That animals fully capable of surviving and even thriving elsewhere, went to places where they would be kept in check. Rabits now infest Australia, but for some reason, after the Flood, they all went to places where they would be kept in check. As did their predators.

When introduced to Australia the Weasel seemed more inclined to prey on Australia's natives then on the rabbit's infesting, but after the flood it chose to ignore such animals and chase the rabbit.

Almost every marsupial also must have decided to migrate to Australia and no other plave, except the opossum in the americas.

It is also odd that no placentals followed.

It seems that to explain such odd migrations the creationists will have to conjure up another miracle or two. Hence the improbability of Flood biology.

The problem of biogeography is one of many that lead young earth creationists to absurd contortions of illogic in their failed attempt to reconcile the flood myth with modern knowledge. I have posted on this before.
http://www.christianforums.com/t155813/

The Problem
According to the ark story marsupials and the other unique animals in Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea would have had to get there after coming off a boat, in pairs, in the Middle East into a flood devastated world along with representatives of all other land dwelling animals extinct and extant. Overall there are 13 families and about 180 unique species of marsupials in the area including kangaroos and kolas and marsupial mole like animals (of the Order Notoryctemorphia) that only live in sand. The only monotremes (egg laying mammals) in world, the platypus and 2 species of echidna are found in the Australia and New Guinea and nowhere else on earth. The Kiwi, a flightless bird, lives in New Zealand which has no native mammals of any kind. How is it that the marsupials and monotremes made it to Australia where they just happen to exist in fossil record while thousands of species of placental mammals that just happen not to exist in the Australian fossil record did not?

There is no evidence that modern marsupials or monotremes ever lived in Europe, Asia or Africa and the only marsupial fossils ever found on those continents are of very primitive marsupials. The only placental mammals either fossils or extant prior to the arrival of man found in Australia are bats, a couple species of rats and the teeth of a very primitive placental mammal.

How did marsupial mole like animals make it at all, let alone getting there ahead of all those placental mammals? These are animals that only live in sand. Of course this is far from being the only problem. The three-toed sloth can only drag itself slowly on the ground it can’t walk. It can't tolerate low temperatures and moves only about 1 mile a month. How did they make it to the Americas, where sloths just happen to exist in the fossil record? Where they of a fast moving, migrating, cold tolerating kind a few thousand years ago? Does this really make any sense? If they could get around so well why did they only get the Americas where sloths happen to have a fossil record??

The giant spiny anteater (one of the echidna species) is also a slow moving clumsy animal but is supposed to have made it to New Guinea ahead of all nearly all the placental mammals.

The koala only lives in Eucalyptus trees and travels very little if at all. Yet they supposedly came off an ark in the middle east and somehow got to Australia.

The kiwi is a chubby little flightless bird that somehow made it to New Zealand where it had fossil relatives, with no mammals of any kind for company.

How is it that Gila monsters got to the American Southwest and why did they not go to the much more convenient deserts around the Middle East instead? Did these desert reptiles cross an ice age land bridge? How did armadillos make it to the Americas while wildebeest, zebras and giraffe did not? The question is not only how these animals got where they were going but also why other animals equally well adapted for the destination and in many cases far more able and likely to travel did not.

YEC attempts to answer this problem that I have seen either address only a small part ignoring the whole or rely on absurdities such as people took them or they migrated there.

I also commented on how the alleged continent separation in the "Time of Peleg", does not solve the problem, (Of course this rapid separation is total and complete nonsense like most of YEC but it still doesn't solve the problem
http://www.christianforums.com/t155813/#post2651841

The time of Peleg
The other creationist answer is that these animals got where they were going by migrating or radiating to the area they live now before a single continent somehow split up post flood to make the current continents of the world. Aside from the geological impossibility of this rapid continent movement it does not solve the problem. How would marsupial moles and kiwis and koalas get to the southern part of the original giant continent to be a carried to Australia and New Zealand while virtually no placental mammals made it? Even with a single continent it is a long way from the Middle East to Australia.

Let’s look at this migration followed by continent separation scenario in a little more detail. We have marsupial and placental mammals and of course reptiles and dinosaurs coming off a boat in the Middle East two by two about 5000 years ago. The only two of each kind in whole world are right there. Now, just how did the marsupial and montreme mammals get to Australia? Consider the marsupial "mole", a small, blind or nearly blind, burrowing animal that lives in sand. It should be pretty happy with all the sand of the Arabian deserts close at had. Instead it goes to Australia. How does it radiate or migrate to Australia? Does it go across Iran and Pakistan to India? How and why would it cross India? Supposes it crossed India. I don’t think it would get across the Himalayan Mountains through Nepal. Maybe it crossed near Bangladesh. How did it get through the mountains of Burma and Northern Thailand? I have been in that part of the world. I didn’t see much sand for a sand-burrowing animal to live in. After that all it had to do was cross down along Thailand to Malaysia then down to Sumatra then to Indonesia, and then on the through New Guinea to Australia, assuming they were still connected by the time in got there. I suppose the Kangaroos hopped along, the platypus crawled or swam along. The Koalas followed a path of Eucalyptus trees that stretched along this route and the bandicoots, Tasmanian devils, wombats and thalcines(Tasmanian Tigers) walked along with them as did all those flightless birds, some of which moved on to New Zealand with no mammals of any kind for company. Meanwhile, no placental mammals came along except bats and a couple species of rat and none of the marsupials that were "radiating" or migrating along this path thousands of miles long left any evidence of their passing anywhere at all. Maybe someone has a better route. I don’t see one looking at a map. This is the shortest I could find. And this all is supposed have happened in a few thousand years or perhaps much less.

In fact, for those who believe that the continent splitting occurred in the time Peleg, all this radiation and migration has to occur in just over 100 years!

Animals in the Americas are also a problem for this scenario. Just how did slow moving sloth and armadillos get to the western part of the super continent to be carried to the Americas while no lions or wildebeest or zebras made it?

Swimming Kangaroos and more on the magnitude of the problem

The Kent Hovind non answer talks about Kangroos swimming well. However we don't just have kangaroos to deal with. There are kangaroos, tree kangaroos, playtypus, bush tailed possums, echinda, marsupial moles, Antechinus(marsupial mice), planigales, bilbies, wallabies, koalas, wombats, numbats, sugar gliders, dunnarts, ninauis, tasmanian tigers, tasmanian devils, phascogales, bandicoots, quols, potoroos and bettongs and other 180 species of Australian marsupials and the Australian flightless birds and the flightless birds of New Zealand, which has not native mamals of any kind.
Now supposedly all these animals came off the ark in the middle east with aardvarks, elephant shrews, tenrecs, hyraxes, elephants, dugongs, manatee, sloths, armadillos, anteaters, tree shrews, lemurs, bushbarbies, baboons, monkeys, apes, rabbits, pikas, beavers, squirrels, molerats, hamsters, mice, porcupines, guinea pigs, pangolins, lemurs, apes, moles, hedgehogs, dogs, cats, leopards, lions, tigers, cheeta, mongooses, otters, badgers, weasels, skunks, raccons, bears, muscrats, wolverines, genets, horses, donkeys, camels, rhinos, pigs, hippos, giraffes, deer, antelope, elk, wildebeest, bison, caribou, cape buffalo, peccaries, tapirs or at least the "kinds" placental mammals that gave rise to these animals and the 4,000 other species of placental mammals on earth and yet the marsupials and monotremes all ended up in Australia, where they have a fossil record, the kiwi ended up in New Zealand where it has a fossil record and the placental mamals, which got distributed all over Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America did not. Many of these placental animals are more mobile than most of the marsupials and monotremes and some are very mobile indeed.

There is no ecological niche occupied by marsupials or monotremes that is not occupied by at least several species of placental mammals. So how did the marsupials and monotremes just happen to be the ones that ended up in Australia where they have a fossil record?

Remember the question is not only how the unique species in various parts of the world got where they are but how other species, often much better able to travel, did not.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Prior to this knowledge the earth was a pretty small place to many species. I just saw a bit about great white sharks who journeyed thousands of miles across the Pacific to avoid killer whales. Even the scientists that studied them were amazed.

See my post above on this. Koalas certainly don't migrate, nor do marsupial moles. You also have to explain how none of the placental mammals that do migrate ended up in Australia while marsupial and monotreme mammals that don't migrate did end up there.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

The difference between placental mammals and marsupial mammals is enormously more significant than the differences between dark skinned people and light skinned people.

The difference between placental mammals and marsupial mammals is enormously more significant than the difference between light skinned people and dark haired mice.

 

[marktheblake]

The problem of biogeography is one of many that lead young earth creationists to absurd contortions of illogic in their failed attempt to reconcile the flood myth with modern knowledge. I have posted on this before.

I would rather you actually respond with your own criticisms point by point to the articles that creationists have published, than just rehashing your own work. Otherwise you are just doing what they are doing.

Surely it would be worth your while to demonstrate how it all stacks up.

 

[Targ]

Thanks for the quotes Frumious, good stuff. David Siemens also has some useful comments on the subject of animal migration:

Some Relatively Non-Technical Problems With Flood Geology

 

[hillard]

Animal migration is the least of the problems when it comes to a world wide flood, take the water for instance, where did it come from and where would it go?
The waves would be mountainous and horrendous with no land masses anywhere on earth to stop them forming or getting bigger and bigger.

If you are a believer of the flood scenario the only answer you can possibly come up with is 'God did it' that's the only way forward because miracles from God would be needed left right and centre to simply overcome the physics involved.

In short the OT is making our God out to be some kind of idiot which he is not, the ramblings of men thousands of years ago is just that, ramblings, to carry on those beliefs shows nothing but an ignorance of everything and a knowledge of nothing, they are stories for children.

 

[knowledgeIsPower]

In short the OT is making our God out to be some kind of idiot which he is not, the ramblings of men thousands of years ago is just that, ramblings, to carry on those beliefs shows nothing but an ignorance of everything and a knowledge of nothing, they are stories for children.

I agree with this.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people want to shove their god into a tiny area. Look at the wonder of this world. The amazing intricacies of evolution. If there is a god and he created all of by setting in motion our creation through all of the amazing mechanism that we have discovered through the investigation of our physical world then that to me is far more awesome and impressive than "everything sort of just went POOF and appeared out of nowhere when god waved his magic wand".

Stop putting your god in a little box by refusing to acknowledge the amazing splendour and complexity of what you believe to be his creation.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I would rather you actually respond with your own criticisms point by point to the articles that creationists have published, than just rehashing your own work. Otherwise you are just doing what they are doing.

Surely it would be worth your while to demonstrate how it all stacks up.

I thought that is what I did in this post
http://www.christianforums.com/t155813/#post2651841
answering each of the proposed creationist models to explain biogeography and showing them to be not only fatally flawed but totally absurd. I don't know why I should have written it again rather than linked and copied as it was my work as you say.

However if one wants to analyze the time of Peleg nonsense more thoroughly one could look at a map of the supercontinent Pangea before it broke up.



You will notice that it is a long way from what is now the Middle East to what is now Australia. To think that animals like the maruspial mole or the Kola migrated all this way in the 100 or so years between the flood and the supposed time of Peleg, while no placental mammals including no members of the widely distributed deer family or any other placental mammals, made the trip is beyond absurd.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Animal migration is the least of the problems when it comes to a world wide flood, take the water for instance, where did it come from and where would it go?
The waves would be mountainous and horrendous with no land masses anywhere on earth to stop them forming or getting bigger and bigger.

Of course there are many other insoluble problems for the myth of the worldwide flood, coming from physics, geology, paleontology, biodiversity and other branches of science but this one is fairly easy to see and understand.

 

[AV1611VET]

You will notice that it is a long way from what is now the Middle East to what is now Australia. To think that animals like the maruspial mole or the Kola migrated all this way in the 100 or so years between the flood and the supposed time of Peleg, while no placental mammals including no members of the widely distributed deer family or any other placental mammals, made the trip is beyond absurd.

I think what is confusing you is the word 'migrated'.

Let's assume that the Koala bear was even on the Ark.

Were did it come from?

If it came from that part of Pangaea known as 'Australia', then what's the problem?

From the time God told Noah to start building the Ark, to the time of the Flood, was 120 years.

On the day of embarkation, all the animals were present and accounted for.

My point is simply this:

God called them from their respective niches to go to the Ark, and when the Flood was over, He told them to go back home.

So they didn't 'migrate back', so to speak, they 'beelined back'.

Again, this is assuming they were even on the Ark.

 

[AV1611VET]

Of course there are many other insoluble problems for the myth of the worldwide flood...

That's the point -- science cannot solve God's problems -- God solves them, Himself.

 

[LifeToTheFullest!]

I think what is confusing you is the word 'migrated'.

Let's assume that the Koala bear was even on the Ark.

Were did it come from?

If it came from that part of Pangaea known as 'Australia', then what's the problem?

From the time God told Noah to start building the Ark, to the time of the Flood, was 120 years.

On the day of embarkation, all the animals were present and accounted for.

My point is simply this:

God called them from their respective niches to go to the Ark, and when the Flood was over, He told them to go back home.

So they didn't 'migrate back', so to speak, they 'beelined back'.

Again, this is assuming they were even on the Ark.

You know what's confusing?

G6:19... bring two of every living thing...
&
G7:2... bring seven of each living thing...

Now that's confusing...

 

[LifeToTheFullest!]

That's the point -- science cannot solve God's problems -- God solves them, Himself.

God's got enough problems reconciling the hundreds of discrepencies in his holy book, which makes it even more dubious that you look to him to correct science.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I think what is confusing you is the word 'migrated'.

Let's assume that the Koala bear was even on the Ark.

Were did it come from?

If it came from that part of Pangaea known as 'Australia', then what's the problem?

From the time God told Noah to start building the Ark, to the time of the Flood, was 120 years.

On the day of embarkation, all the animals were present and accounted for.

My point is simply this:

God called them from their respective niches to go to the Ark, and when the Flood was over, He told them to go back home.

So they didn't 'migrate back', so to speak, they 'beelined back'.

Again, this is assuming they were even on the Ark.

A beeline you say. You do know that the Koala is a marsupial animal that only lives in Eucalyptus trees and never travels more than a few miles in its entire life don't you? Did God also spring up a line of Eucalyptus trees all the way to Australia for the Koala to beeline down? The marsupial "mole" notoryctes is a blind animal with vestigial legs that only lives in sand.
Marsupial mole - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Was there a continous trail of sand along side the Eucalyptus trees for this critter to "beeline down"?

I guess they just beelined on down there along with kangaroos, tree kangaroos, playtypus, bush tailed possums, echinda, Antechinus(marsupial mice), planigales, bilbies, wallabies, wombats, numbats, sugar gliders, dunnarts, ninauis, tasmanian tigers, tasmanian devils, phascogales, bandicoots, quols, potoroos and bettongs and the Australian flightless birds while all of thousands of placental mammal species, many of which are far more mobile stayed away and out of their way.

This make no sense at all but making no sense at all is what you are best at so I am not surprised by your nonsense reply.