Noah's flood: What happened to all the other people who knew how to make boats? [Spirituality & Religion]

@hartfire
lol indeed.
Luckily people like the Egyptians missed the memo that they were all drowned in the flood and carried on a millennia old civilization.

@Pikachu Not to mention the Chinese, Indians, North and South American Native peoples, Australian Aborigines and all the other peoples around the planet. :)

@hartfire

Maybe they were just far, far, far, [i]far[/i] more industrious than the Hebrews so it only [i]looked[/i] as if their post flood civilizations had existed for generations...

@Pikachu Ha, ha!
Thankfully we have carbon dating, radio-isotope dating, geological layers on archeological digs, and DNA typing that lay all those extra-super-dooper-industrious myths to rest.

@hartfire

lol yeah it's hard to deny the science. But not impossible. Just ask AiG lol

@Pikachu Unfortunately, it's a common human trait to deny something that doesn't agree with one's beliefs, preconceptions, or self-image - even when the hard proof is staring a person in the face.
It takes a commitment to reality to accept facts even if they don't agree with one one might like things to be.

@hartfire Interesting point about the inbreeding...if we all came from an original, authentic cradle of civilization in Africa (near Odulvai Gorge, for example), what would that look like, inbreeding-wise?

Always wondered about that.

Of course, who did Adam's sons marry? lol

Oh, and the recounting of Noah in the OT claims 4 families are involved, too, so not quite the Egyptian Pharoah situation...but point taken.

@SomeMichGuy From the original Kalahari bushmen there was a large enough gene pool to provide little problem with inbreeding. Even today, their genpool is still the most diverse on the planet, Northern Europeans such as Icelanders the least. As people moved into more specific geographic locations, their genes specialised, became less varied.

The forebears from whom the bushmen evolved were also numerous enough to have diverse genes.

There is also evidence, via blood types, that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man interbred and created new variations.

@hartfire ? The Kalahari is a pretty specific location...and Iceland is a pretty cherry-picked example.

[quote]From the original Kalahari bushmen there was a large enough gene pool to provide little problem with inbreeding.[/quote]

Is this claim based upon actual samples coeval within some period? If yes, what is the range of it? If not, is this extrapolations?

[quote]The forebears from whom the bushmen evolved were also numerous enough to have diverse genes.[/quote]

Hmmm...when a new species arises, what are typical numbers?

[quote]There is also evidence, via blood types, that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man interbred and created new variations.[/quote]

You mean interbreeding w/[i]H. sapiens,[/i] right? Interesting conjecture. What kind of confidence interval? Is this still at the level of "some researchers have hypothesized" or is it generally-accepted?

@SomeMichGuy Actually I was picking at random from bits of things I've read over many years. I get regular science bulletins reporting on research form various disciplines every day.

If I remember correctly, the info on Kalahari and Greenland is from different time pools, two contemporary, but one of the Bushmen from paleontology, back in their earliest times.

Can't give a typical example of numbers for when a new species arises because it varies depending on environment and species, but from what I've read, it can vary from many thousands to millions and billions. Nature often throws up similar variants during periods of high diversification, and then selection eliminates the ones that don't work.

If it matters a lot to you, I can probably retrace the sources and get back to you with it.

@hartfire I can search, thanks; I thought perhaps you were in the field.

I would be surprised if there is actual, hard data behind the numbers question, and I doubt that you are claiming that there are "millions" or "billions" of individuals *all of the same new species* which suddenly arise for macroscopic creatures...and certainly not for humans.

It sounds as though this is conjecture not supported by the fossil record, because, if it WERE, this highly salient information would be widely publicized, well-known, and mentioned in all kinds of discussions, esp. because this is precisely one of the Creationist arguments (ok, the one I heard from a guy at Berkeley was the lack of intermediate forms in, say, fish, which are very plentiful in the fossil record, but it boils down to the same essentials).

@SomeMichGuy Not of macro species, I agree. Millions and billions applies to creatures like diatoms. But thousands are possible with ape and human forebears. Yes, I'm hypothesising, and should have made that clear from the start - guesses based on loose evidence.
I agree that major finds would be and are splashed across the media.
But on the other hand, minor finds are not, yet collectively they add strong support to the argument for evolution, because they are so many, and because none of the finds has yet disproved evolution.
As for the creationists, their beliefs are so strong that any missing link, no matter how miniscule, will always count for them as lack of sufficient proof.

@hartfire Lol Then why bring up numbers a thousand & a million times larger than what you are arguing?

And let me make it, as RMN said, "perfectly clear", that I am not arguing evolution, but claims of vast genetic diversity of a pool of unknown size.

I am familiar with consilience, and agree with its power with regard to various big questions, including evolution, climate change, the age of the Universe.

However, your characterization of Creationism is based upon the weakest minds parroting what they do not understand. I went to a debate years ago, at my alma mater, where a guy from Berkeley gave some reasons to support Creationism which I'd never before heard, and which the other professor [sadly, from my own university!] never addressed, and the assembled students merely laughed at, derisively. I had gone for the chance of hearing a guy whom I'd figured would be simply foolish; I listened, and found he was anything but that.

Long ago, it was observed to me that Martin Luther would not now, in modern times, lead an attempt to reform the Roman church, as it had, over the years, mostly come into agreement with his major criticisms.

In a different--but not entirely other--fashion, the evolutionary theory confronting Creationists now is not the theory proposed by Darwin, but an updated form, modified as necessary by the realities of what had been discovered...or NOT discovered. The progression of forms stands as the salient observation when the historical method is applied to biological archaeology; and of course observations of otherwise seemingly serendipitous specific adaptations... But the theory of the working of the mechanism is completely different.

@SomeMichGuy I like the open-minded and rigorous way you think.

I acknowledge that evolutionary theory has evolved and modified since Darwin's day, but I don't see it as something fundamentally different from the original thesis. Now it's not merely competition that drives natural selection, but also cooperation, biomechanics, biochemistry, erratic phases or bursts, and interspecies symbiosis.

Do you remember the Creationist's ideas?
I wonder how people can argue Creation because, for me, the existence of a non-material but conscious entity (spirit) is not possible given the laws of physics as we now understand them.

I'm not sure about what you say about Martin Luther. From Jaques Barzun's analysis of what sparked the Protestant or Lutheran revolution, it seems that Luther struck the spark on a piled-high tinder of widespread resentment against the Catholic Church's financial corruption.