Study Questions Based Upon
"NOAH'S
ARK: A FEASIBILITY STUDY"
The Following is a Study Guide, Using
FAQ's, For the Book Noah's Ark:A Feasibility Study by John Woodmorappe. 1996.,
published by the Institute for Creation Research).
Following: In parentheses are the page
number(s) in the book where the answer can be located.
1). Was EVERY TYPE of
animal life on the Ark? (p. 4).
2). Was each SPECIES of
animal on the Ark? (p. 6-7).
3). Doesn't belief in
rapid origin of new species mean that Creationists are giving in to
organic
evolution? (p. 7).
4). Were insects and other
invertebrates on the Ark? (p. 4).
5). How could dinosaurs
(including the largest sauropods) have all fit on the Ark?
(p.
4, pp. 67-68).
6). Was the median size of
animals on the Ark sheep-sized, or much smaller? (p. 13).
7). Based on actual
laboratory-animal housing standards, how much Ark floor space was
necessary
to house the 16,000 animals? (p. 16).
8). Must the diets of
captive wild animals, for the most part, closely resemble their diets in
nature?
(p. 17).
9). As the Ark moved,
wouldn't the water have splashed out of the drinking containers? (p. 21).
10). Is it possible to
have designed an arrangement in which the 12 tons of daily animal waste
was
not handled by the 8-person crew at all? (pp. 25-30, 34-5).
11). What prevented vermin
from being a serious problem on the Ark? (p. 30).
12). Wouldn't the methane
emanating from the decomposing manure have caused an explosion,
destroying
the Ark? (p. 32).
13). Isn't the slotted Ark
window an extremely poor design for ventilation? (p. 38-9).
14). Considering all of
the animals, provender, etc., wasn't the Ark overloaded? (p. 47).
15). Weren't the ancient
peoples capable of building only boats and small ships? (pp. 48-50).
16). Isn't it physically
impossible to build a WOODEN ship of Ark dimensions? (p. 50-1).
17). If petroleum was used
as the pitch to seal the Ark, from where did it originate on the
antediluvian
earth? (p. 51).
18). What kinds of
experience did the ancients have in managing large numbers of wild animals
simultaneously?
(p. 58).
19). How could Noah have
dealt with fearful or recalcitrant animals, especially the large ones?
(pp.
60-3).
20). How could Noah have
distinguished males from females in the case of animals whose
genders
appear identical? (p. 63-4).
21). Isn't the taking of
young on the Ark, of large animals, impractical because of the high
death
rate of juvenile animals? (p. 64).
22). Based on realistic
situations, how many animals can be cared for by one person? (p. 71-2).
23). Do actual animal-care
labor studies substantiate the conclusion that 8 people could care
for
16,000 animals? (pp. 72-81).
24). How could exercise be
provided for large numbers of animals in a short period
of
time? (p. 81).
25). When compared with
modern animal housing, wasn't the Ark extremely overcrowded?
(pp.
83-6).
26). Would not the floors
have caused fatal hoof injuries? (p. 87).
27). Were bathing and
burrowing facilities necessary on the Ark? (p. 88-9).
28). If the Ark got wet
inside, wouldn't the food have gotten ruined? (p. 91).
29). Is there any
vegetable which can stay fresh for a year, without refrigeration
or
preservatives? (p. 92).
30). Was there not an
impossibly large volume of hay on the Ark? (pp. 95-8).
31). How could meat-eaters
and fish-eaters have been expeditiously fed on the Ark? (pp. 99-103).
32). Were fresh flowers on
the Ark necessary for the nectar-eating birds and bats? (p. 103).
33). Were fresh fruits on
the Ark necessary for primates, as well as for frugivorous bats and
birds?
(pp. 103-5).
34). How could snakes have
been maintained on the Ark without the need for laboriously
raising
live foods (e. g. mice)? (p. 105-6).
35). Were live insects
necessary on the Ark for those birds and bats which only eat live insects
in
nature? (pp. 106-110).
36). How could certain
highly-specialized eaters (leaf-eating monkeys, 3-toed sloth, panda,
and
koala) be maintained on the Ark? (pp. 111-117).
37). Must the tropical
animals on the Ark have been supplied with a source of heat? (p. 119-120).
38). Must the polar
animals on the Ark have been supplied with refrigerated
enclosures?
(pp. 120-3).
39). If the preFlood earth
had been warm, how could the strongly cold-adapted and heat-adapted
animals
have survived upon it? (pp. 119-123).
40). If there were no
deserts in the preFlood world, where did the desert-adapted creatures
live
then? (p. 123-4).
41). How could the narrow
temperature tolerances of many bats and reptiles have been met
on
the Ark? (p. 124-5).
42). Can animals go into
hibernation only under highly exacting conditions? (pp. 128-130).
43). Wouldn't the constant
motion of the Ark have prevented the Ark animals from
hibernating?
(p. 131).
44). If awakened during
hibernation, wouldn't the Ark animals die, especially if awakened
from
it repeatedly? (p. 135).
45). Must hibernation of
animals have been highly effective in order to have significantly
reduced
the time necessary to care for them on the Ark? (p. 135).
46). Wouldn't the oceans
have gotten intolerably hot for marine life as a result of volcanic
action
during the Flood? (p. 139-140).
47). Weren't the waters on
earth much too muddy during the Flood for anything to have
survived
in them? (p. 141-2).
48). Since most freshwater
fish don't tolerate saltwater, and most marine fish don't tolerate
freshwater,
how could both kinds of fish have survived the Flood? (pp. 143-9).
49). Since amphibians are
very fragile creatures, how could they have survived
the
Flood? (p. 151-2).
50). Would any salt left
behind on land (after the Floodwaters had drained off) have
posed
a problem for plant growth? (p. 153).
51). Since most seeds
don't float, how could plants have survived the Flood? (pp. 153-6).
52). Since seeds got
soaked during the Flood, would not the plants all have germinated
prematurely,
and suffocated? (p. 156-7).
53). How could plants that
have specialized pollinators reproduce after the Flood?
(pp.
159-162).
54). Since the roof
covering of the Ark had been removed by Noah, were the animals
exposed
to the hostile elements? (p. 163).
55). What is one obvious
reason for God having re-instilled the fear of man in
animals
(Genesis 9:2-3)? (p. 164).
56). What are some
advantages of the Ark having landed in a mountainous region
instead
of on a plain? (p. 164-5).
57). What was there for
animals to eat (besides each other) once they got off
the
Ark? (pp. 167-170).
58). How long did it take
for the first food chains to re-establish themselves
after
the Flood? (p. 171-2).
59). How could animals
that breed only when in flocks have reproduced
themselves
from single-pair founders released from the Ark? (p. 175-6).
60). Can single-pair
founders give rise to lasting populations? (pp. 176-179).
62). Isn't the
"Created Kind" an arbitrary concept? (p. 179-180).
62). Can it be
substantiated that the genera of animals released from the Ark
could
have given rise to new species in only a few thousand years? (pp. 180-2).
63). Since Noah's
surviving family consisted of only 8 people, would not inbreeding among
Noah's
immediate descendants have caused serious problems? (pp. 183-5).
64). Doesn't the
"50-500 RULE" of conservation biology rule out single-pair founders
having
sufficient genetic diversity for their descendants to survive? (pp. 187-189).
65). What role did
supergenes play in postFlood genetics? (p. 189-190).
66). Wasn't a miracle
necessary to restore genetic diversity among the
postFlood
populations? (p. 191-2).
67). Could those Ark
animals have been selected which bore an unusually-high
genetic
diversity? (pp. 193-5).
68). Is it possible for
animal populations to regain heritable genetic variance in
only
a few thousand years? (p. 197).
69). If certain animals
lost most of their genetic diversity because of the Flood,
were
they necessarily doomed to extinction? (p. 197-8).
70). Do the frequences of
alleles in modern animals show any hallmarks of a
recent
Ark release? (p. 198-9).
71). What is the
significance of "jumping genes" in the rapid restoration of genetic
diversity
among living things? (p. 201-2).
72). How can so-called
pseudogenes be easily explained in a Creationist context? (p. 202).
73). Are there any lines
of evidence which point to the existence of build-in mechanisms, in
organisms,
for the rapid recovery of lost genetic diversity? (p. 202).
74). Doesn't the close
similarity between the human and chimp HLA complex demonstrate
that
neither humans nor chimps could have undergone a recent drastic reduction in
population
size? (pp. 202-206).
75). How rapidly could HLA
diversity have been recovered after the Flood? (pp. 207-9).
76). How can the
mitochrondrial-DNA "clock" (which includes the "African
Eve") be
compressed
to less than 5000 years? (p. 211-212).
77). Did Noah's family
have to carry the entire load of parasites and pathogens
which
humans can be afflicted with? (p. 215-216).
78). Could host-specific
parasites and pathogens have been carried ONLY by
their
current hosts while on the Ark? (p. 215-216).
John Woodmorappe
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