On Facebook, Bill Nye issued the following challenge to Ken Ham:
I would challenge him to build a real ark. Instead of trying to fund an ark park, Ken, why not build a real one and take it to sea for a full year? And Ken, if you're too busy with your flock there in Petersburg, KY, have your most competent parishioners take a shot. Send 8 of your toughest, smartest people to, say, Norfolk, have them design and build a 500 foot wooden boat, load it up with 17,000 pretty good-sized animals, and show us how straightforward it would be to have it remain seaworthy for a year. They have to gather all the food needed locally before they set sail, of course. It's one more thought experiment that would illustrate how unbelievable the literal story of Noah is, as translated into modern English. Also, we'd have to stipulate that all humans and animals come ashore alive …
i) The Genesis flood account doesn't say there were "17,000 pretty good-sized animals" on the ark. It doesn't specify the number of animals.
ii) Likewise, it doesn't specify what sorts of animals were on the ark.
iii) Apropos (ii), why assume a sample of current species will correspond to the ark's original cargo?
iv) Assuming the conventional length of a cubit (which is disputable), the ark was 450 feet long, not 500 feet long.
v) Why would they have to gather all the food ahead of time? Can't Ham's parishioners fish while they are at sea? Can't they take fishing poles or fishing nets with them?
Likewise, couldn't Noah and his family collect rainwater while they were at sea?
vi) In what sense does Bill Nye think a wooden ship can't be seaworthy for a year?
vii) Why would all the animals have to come ashore alive? Why assume no animals died on the ark? To begin with, there were extra unclean animals.
And even if some clean animals perished on the ark, so what? Even if that meant some animals became extinct, the flood account doesn't preclude that possibility.
viii) Nye is tacitly assuming and attacking a global flood interpretation. There are, however, Christians who construe the account in local terms (e.g. Arthur Custance, Carol Hill, John Walton, Ronald Youngblood). Nye needs to show "how unbelievable" the literal account is on a local as well as global interpretation.
A big factor that Bill Nye overlooked when, during the debate, he talked about a failed attempt by accomplished shipbuilders to build a comparable ark, is that all Noah's ark was required to do was float. It didn't have to be navigable. Noah wasn't sailing to some port where he'd have to dock. The singular goal of not sinking considerably reduces the engineerng complexity involved.
ReplyDeleteI played the debate in the background while multitasking the day after it occurred. So, my recollection is vague.
ReplyDeleteSteve wrote:
vi) In what sense does Bill Nye think a wooden ship can't be seaworthy for a year?
In the debate (HERE) Nye told of a wooden ship built in the early 20th century, the Wyoming (this one?), that was so big it would twist in three ways (six directions) that it would constantly leak. Ken responded (HERE) about how there's evidence that some ancient boats were built in three inter-locking layers to solve the problem of twisting and maybe the ark was too. Ken didn't seem to mention that Genesis talks about how the ark was covered inside and outside with "pitch." Whatever it was, it probably made the ship water resistant (or even water-proof) and it may have also helped resist twisting.
Nye wrote:
Send 8 of your toughest, smartest people to, say, Norfolk, have them design and build a 500 foot wooden boat...
If I recall correctly, the Genesis account doesn't have God commanding that ONLY Noah's family of eight were allowed to help in the construction of the ark. Even today, non-Christian and atheist construction workers are willing to build churches despite the fact that they may think its construction is loony. Why should it matter to unbelievers how they put food on the table? Of course, Noah probably tried to convince any workers to repent and join him on the ark since he was a "preacher of righteousness" (2 Pet. 2:5). Answers In Genesis argues (HERE) that the maximum amount of time for the construction of the ark is 55-75 years. That's a long time.
For myself, I lean toward a local flood version of OEC.
Steve wrote:
i) The Genesis flood account doesn't say there were "17,000 pretty good-sized animals" on the ark.
Whatever the number of animals were in the ark, Ken argued for approximately only 2000 KINDS which may have been inside it. Also, Ken didn't have time to mention it but standard YEC reconstruction of the events have speculated that Noah didn't necessary take full sized adults of the various species on board. That even if dinosaurs were on the ark they could have been sheep sized adolescents. Also that once inside the ark many the animals may have entered a hibernation state (either naturally or supernaturally) so that would eliminate or cut back on the need for Noah's family having to feed and take care of the animals. Another speculation is that Noah didn't have to go and find the animals. Rather the animals came to him at the right time supernaturally by God's direction. Maybe God gave the animals an instinct to go to the ark for example. Or think of Balaam's donkey which may have briefly been given a heightened sense of consciousness.
In Nye's challenge he allowed Ham to select the smartest and most competent 8 people he could find to re-construct the ark. But the Genesis account specifically states that God revealed to Noah exactly how to build the ark. God may have given much more details to Noah than is recorded in Genesis. So, God's omnisapient wisdom could help explain the ark's seaworthiness.
DeleteAlso, like I said above, why assume that Noah didn't hire outside people to help? In which case, Noah wasn't limited by the intellectual resources of his 8 membered family. Noah may have hired extremely intelligent people to help with the finer details of building the ark.
Nye wrote:
Delete...and show us how straightforward it would be to have it remain seaworthy for a year.
Here Nye is revealing his natural Pelagianism (that we're all born with). As if the physical salvation of Noah and his family was ultimately or entirely determined by how well they constructed the ark before the flood. The God who parted the Red Sea and the Jordan river is the same God who, in His incarnation, walked on water. Surely, that omnipotent God could make sure the ark didn't sink. Besides a direct intervention on God's part, God could have assigned angels to keep it afloat while at the same time testing Noah and his family's faith by allowing some problems to occur which they would need to fix during the ordeal (e.g. leaks).