Old Topic Revisited - Food Storage on the Ark

[z3ro]

You got this from AIG, I remember reading this tripe on their site. Let me point out a couple of quick things that you are very wrong about.

Excretory requirements

It is doubtful whether the humans had to clean the cages every morning. Possibly they had sloped floors or slatted cages, where the manure could fall away from the animals and be flushed away (plenty of water around!) or destroyed by vermicomposting (composting by worms) which would also provide earthworms as a food source. Very deep bedding can sometimes last for a year without needing a change. Absorbent material (e.g. sawdust, softwood wood shavings and especially peat moss) would reduce the moisture content and hence the odour.

My wife is a zookeeper. They change animal bedding every day(and sometimes twice a day). I asked her how long animals can go with out fresh bedding, even assuming ridiculous deep bedding. She said about a week before you start seeing infections in the animals. So your year estimate is off by about a year(give or take a week).

Hibernation

The space, feeding and excretory requirements were adequate even if the animals had normal day/night sleeping cycles. But hibernation is a possibility which would reduce these requirements even more. It is true that the Bible does not mention it, but it does not rule it out either. Some creationists suggest that God created the hibernation instinct for the animals on the Ark, but we should not be dogmatic either way.

Yeah, but most animals do not hibernate. In fact, very few(comparitively)do, leaving most of those animals awake. Now sure, god could have put them in a trance, but if god even sends one miracle, it invalidates the whole point of the flood(after all, god could just wave his hand and make things how he wants them, no need for a messy flood).

Feel free to refute my points as desired.

 

[Praxiteles]

Neat. You have a link to something like that around here? I can only recall one or two deconversions, and they were of the gradual kind I think.

PM'd. I don't have a link to the conversions themselves, unfortunately.

 

[RightWingGirl]

This is an excellent question. I've heard about it before but have never been really able to look into it.

According to

Panda.org, which is part of the WWF, there are two types of elephants: the Asian and the African. Obviously if we believe the Bible, there would have been at least four elephants on the ark.

Shall we say four elephants, just old enough to survive alone. First let’s see how much these elephants will eat. (Information in blue is from Wilkipedia)

The mother will give birth to a calf that will weigh about 250 lbs. and stand over 2½ feet tall. Elephants have a very long childhood.



Because elephants only use 40% of what they eat they have to make up for their digestive system's lack of efficiency in volume. An adult elephant can consume 300 to 600 pounds (140 to 270 kg) of food a day. 60% of that food leaves the elephant's body undigested


By the way, it is probable that elephants were created with a much more efficient digestive system that has deteriorated into what we now see, which would make the amount of food needed only 50% of what would be needed now.


Now you suggested that a young elephant would eat half of the food required for an adult. Let us than assume that our four eat 200 pounds of food a day, totaling 800 pounds of food a day. That is 292,000 pounds of food for the (approximate) year, or 146 US tons.

Next we need to know approximately how much space the food for the elephants would have taken up (and ignoring the fact that most of it would have gone bad eventually in a hot damp environment—remember there was only one door and a small window—I would have hated to be on waste removal duty!). This also assumes that the food for only the elephants is being stored on the ground floor, and also ignoring the fact that many animals are carnivores.

All animals were created herbivores, and many turned carnivores after the flood.

Given that, Elephants are vegetarians; so lets assume that they were fed hay for the entire year (again ignore the monumental task of growing, harvesting, and storing of such an immense amount of hay by one family). According to this website, "Regardless of bale size and stacking method, any building with 16' sidewalls will accommodate at least 1 ton of hay in every 20 square feet of floor area." This means one ton of hay needs 320 cubic feet of storage. But it does say 'at least', and of course this is assuming ideal conditions. So again for simplicity and conservatism, lets assume one ton of hay needs 300 cubic feet of storage.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture in Ontario one ton of hay requires 250 square cubits.


“Space requirements vary with the type and density of the bale but normally range from180 to 240 cubic feet per ton of dry hay”--- Alaska Cooperative Extension, Don Quarberg, Professor of Extension, Emeritus.


However we can still go with 300. This means that the 146 tons would take up 43,800 cubic feet. That leaves 1,474,950 cubic feet.

Considering there are anywhere from 1.5-1.8 million KNOWN species

I might be wrong here, but if I remember correctly there are 50,000 known species of vertebrae. Only land animals were taken on the ark.

 

[Split Rock]

First, only two representatives from each kind was required. The easiest example of a kind would be the dog kind, which would only need two representatives to account for all of the dog/wolf breeds. A biblical "kind" would have been a "genus" or maybe even a "family". (Since the flood, each "kind" has undergone variation through both natural selection and artificial selection into various species. This is Micro-Evolution, where no new “information” appears, but the old information is sorted or lost) All of which to say, not all of the animals we see today would need to be represented on the ark, only as possible variants in the genes of the animals on the ark..

This is the old "Kind" argument. In order for evolution to produce all the species from either the Genera level or (even worse) the Family level would take far more than a few thousand years. Furthermore, if we look at paintings of animals found in the pyramids of Old Kingdom Egypt, the animals look the same as the ones we find along the Nile today and the Old Kingdom is thousands of years old.

In any case, let's keep in mind your description of "microevolution" for the next post, below.

By the way, it is probable that elephants were created with a much more efficient digestive system that has deteriorated into what we now see, which would make the amount of food needed only 50% of what would be needed now.

Where do you get this from? Evolution would be expected to maintain efficient digestion, not allow it to deteriorate. By what mechanism would this "deterioration" occur?

All animals were created herbivores, and many turned carnivores after the flood.

Please provide any evidence for this claim, including biblical verses if you like.

Now, let's go back to your description of "microevolution" (from above). You claim that only old genetic information got "sorted or lost." How does a herbivore evolve into a carnivore solely through the loss or resorting of genetic information that existed in a herbivore? Not only do you claim that carnivores did not exist, but in the perfect "deathless" world that God created such genetic infomation would have been anathema.

 

[MartinM]

A generous average size for a land animal is the size of a sheep. Most animals are smaller than the sheep, but it is a good medium. Therefore, we need housing for 32,000 animals the size of sheep. (The animals chosen were probably juvenile pairs)

Who cares if most animals are smaller than sheep? It wouldn't matter if all but one species were sheep-size or smaller if the last took up three quarters of the ark. You're using median where you should be using mean.

 

[ebia]

By the way, it is probable that elephants were created with a much more efficient digestive system that has deteriorated into what we now see, which would make the amount of food needed only 50% of what would be needed now.

You have some evidence (even biblical) for this, or is it just made up to try and help the figures?

All animals were created herbivores, and many turned carnivores after the flood.

You have some evidence for this? On another thread you were concerned with the T.Rex eating people. You gave that as the reason they were not on the ark. Since when did herbivores eat people.

Now you are claiming that they were hebivores all along (except that their physiology makes that impossible). Looks like another example of creationists making up ad-hoc stories that actually cause more problems for them than they solve.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

This is an excellent question. I've heard about it before but have never been really able to look into it.


Shall we say four elephants, just old enough to survive alone. First let’s see how much these elephants will eat. (Information in blue is from Wilkipedia)

The mother will give birth to a calf that will weigh about 250 lbs. and stand over 2½ feet tall. Elephants have a very long childhood.



Because elephants only use 40% of what they eat they have to make up for their digestive system's lack of efficiency in volume. An adult elephant can consume 300 to 600 pounds (140 to 270 kg) of food a day. 60% of that food leaves the elephant's body undigested


By the way, it is probable that elephants were created with a much more efficient digestive system that has deteriorated into what we now see, which would make the amount of food needed only 50% of what would be needed now.


Now you suggested that a young elephant would eat half of the food required for an adult. Let us than assume that our four eat 200 pounds of food a day, totaling 800 pounds of food a day. That is 292,000 pounds of food for the (approximate) year, or 146 US tons.





All animals were created herbivores, and many turned carnivores after the flood.



According to the Ministry of Agriculture in Ontario one ton of hay requires 250 square cubits.


“Space requirements vary with the type and density of the bale but normally range from180 to 240 cubic feet per ton of dry hay”--- Alaska Cooperative Extension, Don Quarberg, Professor of Extension, Emeritus.


However we can still go with 300. This means that the 146 tons would take up 43,800 cubic feet. That leaves 1,474,950 cubic feet.


I might be wrong here, but if I remember correctly there are 50,000 known species of vertebrae. Only land animals were taken on the ark.

Yes Woodmorappe uses the "baby animal" dodge. However, when it comes to large mammals woody forgot what it means to be a mammal. Mammals nurse from their mothers. Elephants nurse for about 18 months and also eat their mothers dung. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Elephas_maximus.html
Who fed all those nursing baby mammals and with what? After they are weaned young large mammals are pretty big eaters as they are growing fast.

Of course young animals are also far more vulernable to predation and can't breed to make replacement until sexual maturity. Elephants don't reach sexual maturity until about 14 years of age.

Since your mythical ark has to contain all land animals you need to deal with some that were much larger than modern elephants such as indricotherium the largest know land mammal and other large extinct mammals such as Brontotherium. as well as all the large modern mammals and the Pleistocene megafauna not to mention all the dinosaur "kinds".

Still the main problem is that 8 people simply could not have cared for that many animals of that many different "kinds" no matter what Woody might have claimed in his bogus book. The book just shows that Woody knows nothing about the actual practical problems involved in caring for diverse animals large and small.

F.B.

 

[z3ro]

Still the main problem is that 8 people simply could not have cared for that many animals of that many different "kinds" no matter what Woody might have claimed in his bogus book. The book just shows that Woody knows nothing about the actual practical problems involved in caring for diverse animals large and small.

Not directed at you, but at any creationist that think the ark happened; if a modern day zoo, with modern feeding techniques and modern cleaning techniques needs at least four people(minimum) to take care of about 30 animals, how did the eight people on the ark take care of more than 50,000 animals?

 

[Loudmouth]

The solution seems obvious. All you need is one pair from the mammal kind, one from the reptile kind, one from the bird kind . . . nevermind.

Anyone who grew up in agriculture (like me) knows that there is no way to make the Ark feasible. Even cruise ships have to come into port on a regular basis to restock on food, and they require hundreds of people to operate and sophisticated equipment for waste and food storage. Woody only wrote that tripe to trick the creationist city folk. I would estimate that a crew of 8 could feed and bed maybe 500 head of sheep sized herbivores (never mind carnivores) on a boat with sufficient room for food. And that's a big if.

 

[Loudmouth]

Not directed at you, but at any creationist that think the ark happened; if a modern day zoo, with modern feeding techniques and modern cleaning techniques needs at least four people(minimum) to take care of about 30 animals, how did the eight people on the ark take care of more than 50,000 animals?

Outsourcing to asian countries.

 

[TheBear]

BTW, immediately after the flood waters would have receded, there would be only miniscule to no vegetation on the ground - not enough to keep all those animals alive once they disembarked from this 'ark'. It would take at least several months for vegetation to be at levels to sustain life. So, that also needs to be calculated into Noah's food storage needs.

 

[ImmortalTechnique]

maybe its just an allegory...

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

BTW, immediately after the flood waters would have receded, there would be only miniscule to no vegetation on the ground - not enough to keep all those animals alive once they disembarked from this 'ark'. It would take at least several months for vegetation to be at levels to sustain life. So, that also needs to be calculated into Noah's food storage needs.

Some animals would have had plenty to eat.

 

[TheBear]

Some animals would have had plenty to eat.

 

[RightWingGirl]

This is the old "Kind" argument. In order for evolution to produce all the species from either the Genera level or (even worse) the Family level would take far more than a few thousand years. Furthermore, if we look at paintings of animals found in the pyramids of Old Kingdom Egypt, the animals look the same as the ones we find along the Nile today and the Old Kingdom is thousands of years old.

Which animals do you think would have had to change their appearance drasticly so rapidly?

Where do you get this from? Evolution would be expected to maintain efficient digestion, not allow it to deteriorate. By what mechanism would this "deterioration" occur?

Deterioration occurs naturally.

Please provide any evidence for this claim, including biblical verses if you like.

Although it is possible, I doubt that God created elaphants with thier present digestive system. I do know that things have been pretty much going downhill for the past 4000 years, and it is very likely that it has gotten worse since then.

Now, let's go back to your description of "microevolution" (from above). You claim that only old genetic information got "sorted or lost." How does a herbivore evolve into a carnivore solely through the loss or resorting of genetic information that existed in a herbivore? Not only do you claim that carnivores did not exist, but in the perfect "deathless" world that God created such genetic infomation would have been anathema.

If the animal was created with the ability (although not the desire) to be a carnivore it would not take any loss of information, or "microevolution" to make the animal turn carnivore. There are recorded cases of herbivores turning carnivore (horses, squirrels etc.) and of a lion who was a herbivore from birth to death, even though it was offered meat.

 

[RightWingGirl]

Yes Woodmorappe uses the "baby animal" dodge. However, when it comes to large mammals woody forgot what it means to be a mammal. Mammals nurse from their mothers. Elephants nurse for about 18 months and also eat their mothers dung.

Young animals would be the most logical candidates, not baby animals.

 

[RightWingGirl]

BTW, immediately after the flood waters would have receded, there would be only miniscule to no vegetation on the ground - not enough to keep all those animals alive once they disembarked from this 'ark'. It would take at least several months for vegetation to be at levels to sustain life. So, that also needs to be calculated into Noah's food storage needs.

If you remember Noah waited until he received an olive branch, proof of vegetation, before leaving the ark.

 

[Split Rock]

Which animals do you think would have had to change their appearance drasticly so rapidly?

Since you are starting some of these creatures at the Family level, I would say most of them do. The "Cat" would have to adaptively radiate into tigers, lions, pumas, leopards, bobcats, hyenas (?), civets (?) etc., etc.

Deterioration occurs naturally.

It does? By what mechanism?

Although it is possible, I doubt that God created elaphants with thier present digestive system. I do know that things have been pretty much going downhill for the past 4000 years, and it is very likely that it has gotten worse since then.

Again, by what mechanism would useful traits be lost at such a fast rate?

If the animal was created with the ability (although not the desire) to be a carnivore it would not take any loss of information, or "microevolution" to make the animal turn carnivore. There are recorded cases of herbivores turning carnivore (horses, squirrels etc.) and of a lion who was a herbivore from birth to death, even though it was offered meat.

It would not be created with such an ability, because they were made "perfect" and there was no death and no killing. What did the [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] cat use his canines on? What did the T rex use his steak-knife like teeth on? How did rattlesnakes come up with venom sags and hollow-fangs "designed" for injecting that venom into prey? By a process of Deterioration? I mean no offense, but does this really make any sense to you?

 

[praying]

How much food would Noah have to store on the Ark, in order to feed all those animals, for all that time? And how much space would all that food take up?

I don't know but do you know how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

 

[TheBear]

If you remember Noah waited until he received an olive branch, proof of vegetation, before leaving the ark.

You mean if I remember the story.

According to the story, exactly how long was it from the moment the first animal stepped foot on this 'Ark', to the last animal to leave this 'Ark'?