Creation Science

Young Earth Creation Science Argument Index

 

N411:  Aquatic organisms could have survived the Flood

 

Edited by Greg Neyman

 

Argument: 

Fish and other aquatic organisms could have survived the flood.  Many freshwater fish can survive in salt water, and vice versa.  The floodwaters could have been layered by salinity, allowing organisms to live in water of the right salinity for their species

Source:  Woodmorappe, John, 1996. Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study, Santee, CA: ICR, pp. 140-152.
 

 

Response: 

 

  1. Although many fish can tolerate varience in salinity, many cannot.  Also, the problem also applies to freshwater invertabrates, which are extremely sensitive to changes of environment

  2. Layering of salinity levels is contrary to the young earth model.  Water would have been well mixed by the 194 mile per hour ocean currents (see Baumgardner/Barnette)

  3. It's not just salinity that causes problems.  The heat released by a worldwide flood as proposed by YECs would boil the oceans, killing all the organisms.  The deposition of limestone would again release enough heat to boil them.  Volcanoes would release enough sulfuric acid to be fatal to almost all marine life

  4. Many invertabrates rely on the substrate (ocean floor/lake floor) to survive.  Ocean currents would eliminate this substrate.  Woodmorappe proposed a floating pumice as a substitute for the substrate, but this has problems as well

    1. The floating pumice would still have the problem of nutrients, which would not be provided to the organisms via the current

    2. How did the organisms get on the floating pumice in the first place?   Were they ripped from the ocean floor, and latch on as they were carried along by the currents with the pumice?

  5. Some creatures require certain water pressures.  Too deep for some, and they will die from the elevated pressure.  Too shallow for others, and they will die from the decreased pressure

  6. Woodmorappe's prediction of sudden extinction of fish in the flood is contrary to the fossil record (see the Talk Origins rebuttal below for more)

 

For more Reading:

Talk Origins Article

Baumgardner and Daniel Barnette, “Patterns of Ocean Circulation Over the Continents During Noah’s Flood,”

 

 

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Young Earth Creation Science Argument Index

 

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