How do we explain how non-salt water fish survived the flood?

RichardT · Jun 10, 2006

Does anyone have an explantion for this?

laptoppop · Jun 10, 2006

That's no problem at all. A global flood is not all the same everywhere -- one would expect huge variations of mineral concentrations, temperature, current, etc. You can imagine huge pockets of fresh water within the overall flood.

and.... Noah liked goldfish! <grin>
-lee-

rmwilliamsll · Jun 10, 2006

oops. wrong forum.
appropriate time to request a delete button in the edit functions window.

LoG · Jun 11, 2006

RichardT said:
Does anyone have an explantion for this?

Fish have the ability to acclimatize to varying salinities.

RichardT · Jun 11, 2006

Lion of God said:
Fish have the ability to acclimatize to varying salinities.

oh, cool , thanks.. Hey, can I become your buddy?

shernren · Jun 11, 2006

Besides, some creationists also propose that the extant life-forms around during the time of the Flood were not specialized but rather generalized ancestral forms of their kinds. E.g. AiG proposes that Noah only took one pair of generic elephant-like-mammals on the ark as representatives of the kind, which later speciated into the different species today after the flood.

While we do see salinity requirements in today's fish, we don't know that the ancestral members of their kinds actually had the same narrow salinity requirements. For all we know, these could have been post-Flood adaptations.

I'm posting this because this reminded me of a discussion I had on the issue a long time ago in Christian Teens. Besides the obvious example of the salmon (which has differing salinity requirements at different points in its lifecycle) I was also surprised to find that there were, say, fresh-water sharks. This can be taken as an indication that the ancestral shark was able to tolerate various salinities, and post-Flood speciated into different salt-water and fresh-water species. As such I don't think that the survival of fresh-water fish is a problem to the worldwide flood.

(Of course, I believe that there are other, far worse problems, but I'm not allowed to say that here. )

MatthewDiscipleofGod · Jun 12, 2006

Many people already did a good job of answering the question. I'll just link up to an article with more information about this here.

shernren · Jun 26, 2006

Did I tell you that Evolutionists are liars? No, I don't think there's an honest difference of opinion. To be sure, there are armature Evolutionists who have simply been fooled, but I'm talking about the Thinkers who spend their time inventing deceptions to promote Evolution.

I notice that you don't exclude the TEs here on ChristianForums. Not a debate post, but pointing out that this is essentially flaming and trolling otherwise.

Poke · Jun 26, 2006

shernren said:
I notice that you don't exclude the TEs here on ChristianForums. Not a debate post, but pointing out that this is essentially flaming and trolling otherwise.

Do you mean those people whose nearly evey post suggests or asserts that Creationists are ignorant? You could wear your fingers out accusing them of flaming. So, why do you reserve your judgement for me?

Dannager · Jun 26, 2006

Poke said:
Do you mean those people whose nearly evey post suggests or asserts that Creationists are ignorant? You could wear your fingers out accusing them of flaming. So, why do you reserve your judgement for me?

We don't, usually. Usually we simply use that handy "Report" button down there. It tends to produce effective results every now and then.

FallingWaters · Jun 27, 2006

shernren said:
While we do see salinity requirements in today's fish, we don't know that the ancestral members of their kinds actually had the same narrow salinity requirements. For all we know, these could have been post-Flood adaptations.

That's a good point.

djbcrawford · Jul 2, 2006

I think there are lots of possible answers to this, most of which have been given.

Firstly, do we know the salt content of the sea at that time? Given the amount of water that would have been added to raise the oceans to the extent that they covered everything I imagine the salt would be pretty diluted.

Another idea is that some people have theorised that prior to the flood there was no such thing as rain. Since fresh water is produced by seawater evapourating to form clouds and then falling to the land as rain, there might not have been fresh water in large quantities prior to the flood.

After the flood, some fish adapted to cope with being in fresh water.

Floodnut · Jul 12, 2006

1. Fish before the flood may have been able to adapt to both environments, but now have lost genetic information and are now more limited in their adaptive capabilities.
2. Many kinds have representatives that require either of the two types of water. There are fresh water varietes of dolpins, catfish, sharks, eels, that cannot survive in salt water, which have their counterparts that are unable to survive in fresh water.
3. There are today various kinds of fish which, as has been pointed out, are able to adapt to either type of water, as well as to the in-between brackish water of estuaries. And some types of fish REQUIRE the differing types of water for various phases of their life-cycle.
4. How throroughly were the waters of the world-wide flood EVER mixed? In evolutionary language "After millions of years, the waters of the world's oceans are still not evenly mixed." Why should we expect that in less than a year of the world-wide flood the degree of saltiness would be completely equalized. 4000 years after the flood the salinity levels of the seven seas are different, indeed various parts of the Atlantic Ocean itself vary in degree of salinity. The cold and warm waters do immediately mix in the ocean, and the same is true in small inland lakes, where there are pockets of water at varying temperatures that do not mix.
In fact a cup of coffee does not immediatley mix. Add cream and note the swirls as it gradually mixes. You add sugar and the bottom of the cup is always syrupy. Multiply that to a cup of water the size of the world's oceans and you see that comparatively it is a wonder that anyone would seriously postulate that the waters of the world would be thoroughly and evenly mixed as to kill off all species of fish that may or may not have been specialized as to the degree of salinity that they would have preferred, tolerated, or required.

The isssue of salinity is no problem to the YEC Catasrophist model. It remains a laughable strawman put forward by opponents to the biblical world-wide flood that was taken as literal by Jesus and Peter.

BrandonGray · Jul 14, 2006

Maybe Noah took two types of fish to represent all fish, and they interbreeded making all of today's fish species?

Floodnut · Jul 15, 2006

BrandonGray said:
Maybe Noah took two types of fish to represent all fish, and they interbreeded making all of today's fish species?

Noah did not take ANY fish on the Ark, except maybe as food. The only animals that were taken on the Ark were land animals and flying creatures "in whose NOSTRILS is the breath of life." Insects, amphibians, water creatures were not taken on the Ark. The "non-Ark" ancestors of those species living today are those that survived outside the Ark. Other animals that were not taken on the Ark perished in the flood and they have no descendents. They are among the animals recognized as extinct since the Flood.

kopilo · Jul 23, 2006

The issue is that some fish are not tempramental when it comes to their environment and some are highly tempramental (not just salinity but alkaline/acidicity). The other thing is not just salt and fresh water but tempeture and physical living quarters, such as with tropical sea life, sea dragon(s) and tidal sea life.

To suggest that sea life adapted over time to become use to fresh water or salt water, seems to me to be suggesting evolution.

djbcrawford · Jul 23, 2006

kopilo said:
To suggest that sea life adapted over time to become use to fresh water or salt water, seems to me to be suggesting evolution.

Ah, the e word. There is a theory that there are two types of evolution.

1) Micro-evolution. Happens within species to allow them to adapt to a changing environment. This allows creatures to grow bigger/smaller, modify their feeding habits, change their water breathing/air breathing requirements, etc, but at the end of the day, a fish will remain a fish. Micro-evolution doesn't allow it to change to something else. Obviously since God would have known that their environments would change, it would make sense for him to have included this ability, otherwise his creatures wouldn't survive.

2) Macro-evolution. This is the contentious one where one species actually changes into another. This is where the fish loses it gills and grows lungs, loses it flippers and grows legs, changing it from a fish to something else.

The fish gradually adapting to it's new surroundings is an example of micro-evolution and in no way contradicts creationism.

theoddamerican · Jul 24, 2006

maby the oceans didnt have as much salt in them before the flood. They did a test with a fresh water fish and added salt into the tank the fresh water fish adapted to the salt and became a salt water fish (micro evolution the only proven one) Then after that they reversed it and the fish died. I have no idea what the study was called but if you go to drdino.com you might find it

kopilo · Jul 24, 2006

djbcrawford said:
Ah, the e word. There is a theory that there are two types of evolution.

2) Macro-evolution. This is the contentious one where one species actually changes into another. This is where the fish loses it gills and grows lungs, loses it flippers and grows legs, changing it from a fish to something else.

Such as how mexican walking fish become salamanders?

djbcrawford · Jul 24, 2006

kopilo said:
Such as how mexican walking fish become salamanders?

Dunno, I would need to know the exact differences between a mexican walking fish and a salamander before I could comment.

How do we explain how non-salt water fish survived the flood?

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