Creation Science Rebuttals
Answers Magazine
'Two of Every Kind'
Volume 2, Issue 2 (April-June 2007)
Review by Greg Neyman
© Old Earth Ministries
For thousands of years, people have been trying to figure out what animals were on the ark. This is the topic of the article "Two of Every Kind" in Answers Magazine, by Dr. Todd Charles Wood.1 This article was also featured as an article for the day on 22 September 2008.
Dr. Wood tells an interesting tale of how thought has developed over the centuries concerning this topic. The article is very interesting, and I recommend it to all. Young earth creationists have always had a problem with fitting all the animals into the ark, and over the years they have come up with numerous ideas to solve this problem. They typical method of solving the problem is by using the "kind" argument. In this argument, wolves, coyotes, dogs, etc, would all have descended from a single pair of dog-like animals on the ark. Dr. Wood's solution takes the young earth position a step further, by identifying specie by specie which animal fits into which 'kind.'
From an old earth perspective, the exercise by Dr. Wood is an exercise in futility. Old earth creationists do not have to imagine fancy classifications for animals on the ark. Since old earth creationism holds to the theory of a localized flood event, there is no need to cram every single animal onto Noah's ark. Noah would simply have to take what was needed for that local area, and his livestock that he and his family would need. The other animal species would survive simply by not being in the local area of the flood.
Other problems arise from this young earth theory. As Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe points out, the animals that we have today would have evolved from those on the ark. Since we have millions of animal species, from the 15,000 or so some YECs claim were on the ark, then scientists today should be able to see many new species forming each year. (Dr. Wood proposes as little as 2,000 individual animals, or 1,000 pairs). While scientists believe new species are developing today, there is no evidence for this rapid speciation.2
Noah's Ark is a much better fit with old earth creationism. There is no requirement for limiting the entire animal population into 'kind' groups, and it still fits with an inerrant, literal translation of the flood account.
1 Two of Every Kind, by Todd Charles Wood, PhD. Answers Magazine, Vol. 2, Number 2. pp. 32-34.
2 The Genesis Question, by Dr. Hugh Ross. pp. 150-151.
If you are not a Christian, and you have been holding out on making a decision for Christ because the Church always preached a message that was contrary to what you saw in the scientific world, then rest assured that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and you can believe in Christ and receive salvation, while still believing in an old earth. Click here for more.
Are you a Christian who believes in young earth creationism? Now that we have shown the many difficulties of the young earth creation science model in this and many other articles, how does this impact your Christian life? If you are a young earth creationism believer, click here.
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