if there were only two of each kind of animal on board, how would they repopulate the earth? this means there would be a lot of inbred animals and people out there. Think about it, it's like a family, when the male & female have kids, who's gonna make the 3rd generation (the siblings)?... this just seems sick and I makes me question the whole story.
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It's just a story, adapted from much older myths of the region. In fact, the Noachian myth imitates the older Epic of Gilgamesh almost exactly.
There is no geological evidence for a global flood, and it is genetically impossible for all the species we see today to have originated from such a small gene pool in such a small space of time. The hilarious part is that the Noah myth would require a far greater rate of evolution than scientists would ever propose.
Plus, how would they climate control the whole thing? What about the fact that many animals only survive EATING OTHER ANIMALS? How did all the marsupials conveniently end up in Australia?
It's just a fable, like Aesop's. It was meant to be a cautionary tale with a moral, no more.
@teller of truths-
"Kind" isn't a scientific term, chief. There is no such thing as "kind"- even creationists won't define what that is. No matter HOW you try and define it, this would require evolution on a speed and scale that no scientist would propose to yield the diversity we see today, not to mention that the genome would not remain stable under that many genetic changes in that little time. There's also the little fact that "kinds" would require even MORE genetic diversity to yield the species we see today than just species- diversity not found in just two (or seven) breeding pairs. The species would have collapsed before five generations had passed.
I find it hilarious that the same people who claim "macroevolution" (another nonscientific term) doesn't happen are the same ones who claim that "kinds" were on the ark- when "kinds" into hundreds of species each would REQUIRE speciation (aka "macroevolution").
There's WAY too many problems with this little tall tale for anyone with even a high schooler's knowledge of biology.
Teller Of Truths
It is true that encyclopedias refer to over a million species of animals. But Noah was instructed to preserve only representatives of every “kind” of land animal and flying creature. Some investigators have said that just 43 “kinds” of mammals, 74 “kinds” of birds, and 10 “kinds” of reptiles could have produced the great variety of species of these creatures that are known today. The ark had about 40,000 cu m (1,400,000 cu ft) of usable space—ample for the passenger list
No Name
1st. the animals where infants, let keep that in mind.
2nd. the land they arrived to most likely had similar animals as the ones he was shipping and they breed and produced off spring. Though it is possible these animals interbreed and then soon, as they traveled and spread, breed with non-relative mates!
mandapandaa
doesn't matter, there's no DNA evidence that all animals came from single breeding pairs just a few thousand years ago