New photo resparks 'Noah's Ark mania'

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | March 10, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern | Joe Kovacs

[Tim Long]

Digital image of 'Ararat Anomaly' has researchers taking closer look

A new, high-resolution digital image of what has become known as the "Ararat Anomaly" is reigniting interest in the hunt for Noah's Ark.

Satellite image of 'Ararat Anomaly,' taken by DigitalGlobe's QuickBird Satellite in 2003 and now made public for the first time (courtesy: DigitalGlobe)

The location of the anomaly on the northwest corner of Mt. Ararat in eastern Turkey has been under investigation from afar by ark hunters for years, but it has remained unexplored, with the government of Turkey not granting any scientific expedition permission to explore on site.

But the detail revealed by the new photo from DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite has a man at the helm of the probe excited once again.

"I've got new found optimism ... as far as my continuing push to have the intelligence community declassify some of the more definitive-type imagery," Porcher Taylor, an associate professor in paralegal studies at the University of Richmond, told Space.com.

For more than three decades, Taylor has been a national security analyst, and has also served as a senior associate for five years at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.

"I'm calling this my satellite archaeology project," Taylor said.

Space.com reports the project has been combining the photographic resources of QuickBird with GeoEye's Ikonos spacecraft, Canada's Radarsat 1, as well as declassified aerial and satellite images snapped by U.S. intelligence agencies.

While it's quite possible the item of interest could simply be a natural ridge of rock, snow and ice, Taylor says there's also a chance it could be something manmade.

"I had no preconceived notions or agendas when I began this in 1993 as to what I was looking for," he said. "I maintain that if it is the remains of something manmade and potentially nautical, then it's potentially something of biblical proportions."

The anomaly remains ensconced in glacial ice at an altitude of 15,300 feet, and Taylor says the photos suggest it's length-to-width ratio is close to 6:1, as indicated in the Book of Genesis.

The U.S. Air Force took the first photographs of the Mt. Ararat site in 1949. The images allegedly revealed what seemed to be a structure covered by ice, but were held for years in a confidential file labeled "Ararat Anomaly."

The new image was actually taken in 2003, but has never been revealed to the public until now.

Arking up the wrong tree?

Meanwhile, there are others who believe Noah's Ark has already been found, and tourists can actually visit it on a mountain next to Ararat.

Some believe this is Noah's Ark, already found on a mountain next to Mt. Ararat (courtesy: wyattmuseum.com)

The late Ron Wyatt, whose Tennessee-based foundation, Wyatt Archaeological Research, purported the ark has already been found at Dogubayazit, Turkey, some 12-15 miles from Ararat, noting Genesis states the ark rested "upon the mountains of Ararat," not mountain.

Is this a hair from a large cat aboard Noah's Ark? (photo: Richard Rives, wyattmuseum.com)

Wyatt's website is filled with on-location photographs and charts promoting its case with physical evidence including radar scans of bulkheads on the alleged vessel, deck timber and iron rivets, large "drogue" stones which are thought to have acted as types of anchors, and even some animal hair inside, possibly from a large cat like a lion or tiger.

A flood of doubt

However, there's been no shortage of critics from both scientific and Christian circles who think the Dogubayazit site is erroneous.

Lorence Collins, a retired geology professor from California State University, Northridge, joined the late David Fasold, a one-time proponent of the Wyatt site, in writing a scientific summary claiming the location is "bogus."

"Evidence from microscopic studies and photo analyses demonstrates that the supposed Ark near Dogubayazit is a completely natural rock formation," said the 1996 paper published in the Journal of Geoscience Education. "It cannot have been Noah's Ark nor even a man-made model. It is understandable why early investigators falsely identified it."

The Answers in Genesis website provides an in-depth report attempting to debunk any validity the Dogubayazit site has, and concludes by stating:

"[A]s Christians we need to always exercise due care when claims are made, no matter who makes them, and any claims must always be subjected to the most rigorous scientific scrutiny. If that had happened here, and particularly if the scientific surveys conducted by highly qualified professionals using sophisticated instruments had been more widely publicized and their results taken note of, then these claims would never have received the widespread credence that they have."

Officials with Wyatt Archaeological Research remain unfazed in the face of such criticism.

"The site ... is actually something that you can look at. Not some made up story that no one is quite able to reach but something that is really there," said president Richard Rives. "It is a 'boat-shaped object' composed of material containing organic carbon, which is what is found in petrified wood. ...

"While there is more research that needs to be done at the site, there is a substantial amount of evidence that would indicate that the Wyatt site is not a natural object. ...

"Today, everyone wants to tell us how to think. We, at Wyatt Archaeological Research, do not do that. We just present the evidence that we have and let each individual make his own decision."

In both the Old and New Testaments, the Bible speaks of Noah and the ark, and Jesus Christ and the apostles Paul and Peter all make reference to Noah's flood as an actual historical event.

'Noah's Ark' by Pennsylvania artist Edward Hicks, 1846

According to Genesis, Noah was a righteous man who was instructed by God to construct a large vessel to hold his family and many species of animals, as a massive deluge was coming to purify the world which had become corrupt.

Genesis 6:5 states: "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

Noah was told by God to take aboard seven pairs of each of the "clean" animals – that is to say, those permissible to eat – and two each of the "unclean" variety. (Gen. 7:2)

Though the Bible says it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, it also mentions "the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days."

The ark then "rested" upon the mountains of Ararat, but it was still months before Noah and his family – his wife, his three sons and the sons' wives – were able to leave the ark and begin replenishing the world.

[Coyoteman]

301 placemarker

[Tanniker Smith]

Also, if you are refering to meaningless contrivances, add BC to it. "Before Christ"? So, since every known scholar has the birth of Jesus at 6-4 BCE, that would mean that BC means nothing other than that is the mistake of a 5th Century monk.

True enough that a mistake was made, but the fact remains that the calendar is centered on the birth and life of Jesus Christ. "BCE" is a contrivance that uses the same exact calendar, but removes Christ's name from the calendar that Little Dennis created about Him.

"Before Common Era" means absolutely nothing. What does 2006 have in "common" with A.D. 6? And how is A.D. 6 so uncommon to 6 B.C.?

If you want to divide history into "Eras", you might as well extrapolate the whole Stone Age/Bronze Age/ etc. But even the Ivory Tower Elites realize that they can't get through a new calendar with a new numbering system any more than they could replace time with a metric minute.

[VadeRetro]

You see, my region has at least three periods of being underwater, of which that in the Silurian ...

Mississipian.

[Recovering Hermit]

If that's a boat I can say that Noah was a pretty crappy boat builder.

[Thatcherite]

How many keepers does the Philadelphia Zoo need to look after the few-hundred resident species? Beats me, but they don't spend all day caring for them.

A lot more than 8 is the answer you were looking for. And that is for the tiny number of species in a zoo.

How many keepers would it need if *everything* had to be done by hand? Um, just about everything is done by hand.

No it isn't. They carry everything around in trucks or flatbeds. water and sewage are moved around with powered systems. THey have power hoses for cleaning. All they do by hand is throw the food to the animals.

No fresh water in pipes. No automatic removal of waste. Why not? It was raining, so the ark could have a plumbing system fed by rains to bring in fresh water and swab the decks.

Accepting the incredible plumbing ability you are proposing in a bronze-age culture, that only gets the water *in*. Every bit that comes in has to go out again. Including everything that went down to the lowest decks which is where the largest animals would need to be for stability. Tons of liquid and slurry sewage would need to be removed daily, from the single small hole in the ark. That means it both has to be moved inside the ark to the correct place, and lifted up to the hole before it can be removed. The bible describes the ark as "sealed" apart from the single small hole, so how did this water system you are proposing let the water in?

No trucks to drive food around. Dumb waiters to bring up straw and such from the hold would work, along with hand carts.

The walkways for these handcarts and dumb-waiter hoists are going to take up a huge proportion of your interior space. While we are about it don't forget that it would be completely dark inside, 100% humidity, the heat from all the creatures would be incredible, no way for fresh air to move around inside the ark (unless you are also proposing to fill it aluminium ducting for a bronze-age aircon system.

Just the 20,000,000 species aboard. Not every species in the world was aboard, only those that could not survive a temporarily aquatic environment - land animals and birds.

So all the insects just flew for a whole year without food, did they?

And your space figure doesn't allow for storage space for fresh food Would have been in the hold below the decks.

The lowest deck *is* the hold. It is just a matter of nomenclature. THe hold obviously has to be part of the internals of the ship. You don't think it just possible that the tons of urine and faeces slopping about continuously might mitigate a little against storing a year's supply of food in 100% humidity?

and water It was raining. All the water needed was readily available.

OK. But that doesn't remove the need to remove the urine.

And since you brought fish up did Noah carry the freshwater fish on the ark or the saltwater fish? The Bible does not include any fish upon the ark. It might be readily supposed that the freshwater fish at that time could live in either environment, as Salmon do today.

What do you mean, "the fresh water fish at that time". I thought you people didn't believe in evolution. Where has the huge variety of modern freshwater fish that cannot tolerate saltwater come from in the last 4500 years? (Indeed much faster than that, no-one has noticed an explosion of fresh-water fish varieties in recorded history, so they all appeared in the first 1000 years after the ark) We aren't talking about a few hours. we are talking about immersion in innappropriate salinity for a year.

but in that case how long would it have been until the land was fertile after the water receded The land was apparently fertile soon after, as the dove came back with an olive branch.

Indeed. How could this be? Not only fertility but grown olive trees apparently. Yet there would be no topsoil (which requires earthworms by the trillion per square mile) and the land would be poisoned by being thick with salt.

Why did God hide all the physical evidence that this event ever happened? The sedimentary rock layers around the world, which evolutionists say were laid down at high elevations by shallow seas, seem like pretty good evidence to me of widespread flooding. Similarly, the congregations of animal bones in caves at high elevations are pretty good evidence to me.

THey are pretty good evidence if you don't examine the detail of the finds. You are in disagreement with pretty much every geologist who has troubled to examine the evidence. The early geologists who examined the evidence, creationists to a man, found no evidence for a *global* flood. Read Sedgewick's retirement address. He was one of the last hold-outs.

Once the animals landed every predation event for the first few months would represent an extinction, and carnivores need lots of prey to eat. The fast breeding animals would have provided enough meat for the relatively few species of carnivores. However, perhaps what you say is a good explanation for why the carnivores like sabertooth tigers and the like went extinct at that time.

Fast breeding? Don't make me laugh. Predators need prey to outmass them thousands to one to avoid annihallating the prey population. Killing the young would be almost as bad as killing the parents if not worse. Each young killed would represent much less food, and be killing the future potential expansion. No way can you make the numbers on this stack up.

And all this so that God (an infinitely powerful being) could kill everyone-8 in the world in a moronic way that required millions of miracles, There is nothing moronic about it. The event was not only to wipe out a sinful world, but to teach a symbol of the salvation now available by Baptism (the flood) in the one Church (the ark), where humanity is guided by the Dove (the Holy Spirit).

That's what the whole story is. A symbol. God didn't need to kill everything in the world by mimicing a natural catastrophe using trillions of large and small miracles. God could just make every sinful *human* in the world drop dead in his tracks.

a way that just happens to match exactly the myths that you'd expect early hydraulic civilisations to tell. So what sort of civilization then predicts the final destruction of the world as a conflagaration by fire?

Probably one that lives in an earthquake or volcano zone.

How can people take this stuff seriously? Because every people all the way around the world tells the same story??? Did they all make it up and coordinate it via telepathy? No, they clearly all experienced the trauma of the event.

If you want to know why practically every early civilisation (most of which were coastal or lived near great rivers) has stories of a flood in which nearly everyone died then check it out with the citizens of S Louisiana, and then imagine Katrina hitting a community with no flood defence, no weather forecasting, no emergency services. What is interesting is that those cultures that didn't emerge by the sea or on great rivers *don't* have stories of nearly everyone being killed in a flood. Funny that.

[Thatcherite]

The Ark had a cubic space equal to 600 stock cars. Stock cars come with at least two decks to carry animals (unless they are small like chickens. Only two of every animal are needed. A typical stock car holds 240 sheep. If a sheep is the size of the average animal onboard, there was space for around 70,000 pairs of animals. Considering that there are only a few thousands species of birds, for example, and all are smaller than sheep, it seems as though all land animals could be readily accomodated, along with food.

Try keeping 240 sheep in a railroad car for a year and get back to me with the results.

[FreedomCalls]

But even the Ivory Tower Elites realize that they can't get through a new calendar with a new numbering system any more than they could replace time with a metric minute.

How long until they want us all to use A.H. (After the Hejira)?
2006 A.D. is the year 1427 A.H.

[Thatcherite]

"Naval Architecture, teach the controversy!"

I don't know the size of a slave ship, but it probably wasn't bigger than a galleon, and it may have been much smaller. This slave ship could hold 600 slaves. The ark could hold 2,400 of them if it were four times as long. That's really packing them in, like the African captives. I don't know how Noah could have done it.

This opens up another whole area where the Noah story falls flat on its face in numerous ways.

The largest wooden ships ever built were around 300ft long, but these weren't really wooden ships, they were heavily braced internally with steel beams. Even then they didn't really work, not being suitable for the open sea. They distorted visibly in light swell and in a wooden ship distortion is really bad news (the opposite of what people think intuitively of flexibility in swell reducing overall stress) because the distortion opens up gaps in the planks and lets water past the seal.

The largest purely wooden ships of conventional multi-decked design like the ark (as opposed to rafts) were much smaller than this, around 200 feet long. The decks are an important part of the structural strength of boats like this, and contrary to Hermann's ideas of decks the height of railroad stock cars they would typically be less than 6 feet tall to act as cross-bracing. Remove them or heighten them and the boat would quickly fall apart in moderate swell.

Remember here we are talking about sea conditions associated with a global flood, with no land-masses stopping swell build-up. The closest modern equivalent to the kind of sea-state that the ark could expect would be the Southern Ocean south of 45 degrees.

Since the believers get so tired of being scoffed at I don't know why they don't prove us all wrong. I'd contribute to a Kent Hovind style prize to any 8 volunteers who construct an Ark out of wood (Heck, I'll let them use help for that part), gather a representative portion of the world's species on it (lets say 10%, again they can have help for that part), and go adrift on the Southern Ocean for a year to see how well the whole thing works (As it won't be raining continuously I'll allow unlimited fresh-water replenishment through the 1 cubit hole in the side of the ark). Put me down for $100,000 if they can do it, and disembark with 95% of the species intact and healthy.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

The largest wooden ships ever built were around 300ft long, but these weren't really wooden ships, they were heavily braced internally with steel beams.

The largest purely wooden ships of conventional multi-decked design like the ark (as opposed to rafts)

Who said it was a wooden ship? And how do you know what its design was to say it was not a raft? Do you have the plans that God gave to Noah?

You seem obsessed with the vision of the Ark as a big wood box like shown in children's books, or perhaps as something like the last modern wood sailing ships.

It makes far more sense to see the Ark as a large version of something like the earliest ships in recorded civilization (if the flood were true, wouldn't Naval Architecture derive from the Ark, rather than attempting to extrapolate the Ark out of the final stage of Naval Architecture circa 1900?) - rafts made of reeds, logs, or similar, with a wooden superstructure on top, and guided and stabilized by drogue stones underneath and sails on a main mast. The wooden superstructure would then be relatively open like a large wooden building, since it would not be the primary load bearing source of bouyancy.

The decks are an important part of the structural strength of boats like this, and contrary to Hermann's ideas of decks the height of railroad stock cars they would typically be less than 6 feet tall to act as cross-bracing.

Well, the Bible speaks of 3 decks in the Ark, and the Ark being 30 cubits tall, so that would be 15+ ft. per deck, which is the height of an AAR Plate F rail car.

They wouldn't be cross bracing, because the Ark would be a superstructure on top of a large ocean-going wooden raft like this - a log raft form used in coast-wise movement of logs from the Pacific NW to southern California on the Pacfici Ocean:

Note the men to help you determine the scale of this wood vessel.

There is nothing "impractical" about constructing a very large ocean-going wood/reed raft (especially one covered in pitch to help with seaworthiness) upon which to build the ark.

gather a representative portion of the world's species on it (lets say 10%, again they can have help for that part

Again, there are relatively few species that would need to go on the Ark - a couple tens of thousands. You don't need to bring fish, whales, waterfowl, plants, fungi etc.

[Thatcherite]

Who said it was a wooden ship?

The bible. When you are advocating this stuff, you ought to make sure you are clear about what it says.

And how do you know what its design was to say it was not a raft? Do you have the plans that God gave to Noah?

No, but the biblical description is pretty clear. It sure doesn't sound like a raft to me, it sounds like a boat.

You seem obsessed with the vision of the Ark as a big wood box like shown in children's books, or perhaps as something like the last modern wood sailing ships.

That is because a wooden raft with a 45 foot wooden building sitting on it is not a seagoing vessel. I doubt that you could even build such a thing on a calm lake. They just don't work. A raft anything like that size would fall to pieces in a light swell. And Archimedes (Arkimedes :)) )needs air to displace the water to support a structure that size, or your base will just sink. Wood's relative density is too great, typically about 0.75 even when seasoned and dry, so you end up with an iceberg like situation unless you enclose air with a boat.

[Thatcherite]

Again, there are relatively few species that would need to go on the Ark - a couple tens of thousands. You don't need to bring fish, whales, waterfowl, plants, fungi etc.

Most waterfowl are not adapted for an ocean existence, and most birds (even those that are adapted for ocean life) would not tolerate being unable to land on dry land for a year. Freshwater fish would certainly need to be accomodated, as I've already pointed out. There are millions of insect species. All needing to eat and rest (and breed in many cases, since they don't live for a year) and all needing the predators to be kept away from the prey. Some of the birds and bats require insects to be present in giant numbers for food.

[Tanniker Smith]

We're an industrial nation, how about we honor Henry Ford and start using years A.F. (After Ford) for this brave new world of ours.

[Thatcherite]

Incidentally, take a more careful look at your "wooden raft" photograph.

It isn't really a wooden raft at all of the type that a bronze-age culture could build. All of its strength and all of its cohesion derives from the iron chains in tension holding the logs together. So this design only works with a round shape like that, with most of the logs under the surface. Even so, if you took that raft into the open ocean it wouldn't hold together for a day. The logs would shift, a chain would burst, end of raft.

[FreedomCalls]

Put me down for $100,000 if they can do it, and disembark with 95% of the species intact and healthy.

Noah did lose the unicorns, centaurs, hydras, harpies, dragons, and a few others. Maybe they were eaten by the lions or maybe Mrs Noah made unicorn stew or something.

[Thatcherite]

They were all eaten by the carnosaurs. Which then died of starvation (much to the relief of Ham, who had the job of mucking them out), and were then eaten by the predator mammals. Simple really.

[Thatcherite]

Even so, if you took that raft into the open ocean it wouldn't hold together for a day. The logs would shift, a chain would burst, end of raft.

I did some more research on the Pacific log rafts, because I couldn't understand how they could even manage a coastal journey. There is a lot more iron in them than is apparent on the picture that you posted. Lengthwise chains are bound together by radial chains that eventually meet the circumference chains that you see in the picture, all the chains being pulled as tight as possible. A principal somewhat akin to pre-stressed concrete where a medium that is comparatively weak in tension (concrete) is pre-compressed with steel cable to lend it much greater strength. The strength of the craft comes from the chains being held apart by the mass of the logs. Additionally the outer logs are nailed together with steel tree-nails to prevent them from shifting. Similarly it is possible to build rafts completely of concrete, but the strength in such craft comes from the steel in the concrete.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

The bible. When you are advocating this stuff, you ought to make sure you are clear about what it says.

Where does it say "wood ship"?

A raft anything like that size would fall to pieces in a light swell.

The Mesopotamians sailed to India is just such design of rafts.

And Archimedes (Arkimedes :)) )needs air to displace the water to support a structure that size, or your base will just sink. Wood's relative density is too great, typically about 0.75 even when seasoned and dry, so you end up with an iceberg like situation unless you enclose air with a boat.

Which is why God had Noah cover it in pitch within and without (Gen. 6.14), so it would be waterproof and hold in air for bouancy and storage space.

Most waterfowl are not adapted for an ocean existence, and most birds (even those that are adapted for ocean life) would not tolerate being unable to land on dry land for a year.

There are only a few thousand species of birds in total. Accomodation of all wouldn't be a problem if it were truly needed. However, waterfowl such as Storm Petrel's, Albatrosses, seaducks, etc. could probably survive quite a while at sea, and there would certainly be enough debris floating around to land on if needed.

The time with no land about was between 5 and 8 months (the Ark grounded in 5 months according to Gen. 8.4, and mountains were clearly visible after 7 1/2 months by Gen. 8.5)

Freshwater fish would certainly need to be accomodated, as I've already pointed out.

Its impossible to know if there was such a distinction then. Fish certainly seem adaptble in some regards - e.g. the Lake Sharks of Nicaragua.

There are millions of insect species. All needing to eat and rest (and breed in many cases, since they don't live for a year) and all needing the predators to be kept away from the prey.

Only insects which must have air to survive needed to be saved.

Some of the birds and bats require insects to be present in giant numbers for food.

How many chests full of grubs would you need to feed all the worm and insect eating birds (if there were such then)? Not that many.

Even so, if you took that raft into the open ocean it wouldn't hold together for a day. The logs would shift, a chain would burst, end of raft.

The Mesopotamians were able to use this general concept to sail to India. One wonders at how they did it since you say it is impossible.

[Thatcherite]

Where does it say "wood ship"?

The bible says it was made of wood, and describes a general design of a shed 450 feet long and 45 feet high. No wooden raft could have a shed that size on it, as I've already explained.

The Mesopotamians sailed to India is just such design of rafts.

Here is a picture of how Mesopotamian ocean-going craft are thought to have looked. Note that it is built of reeds, not wood as God instructed. Note that the cubic dimension of its deck-construction is approximately 500CuFt, 0.05% of the claimed capacity of the ark. Let me know when you've figured out how to build a shed of the Ark's dimensions on a wooden raft.

Which is why God had Noah cover it in pitch within and without (Gen. 6.14), so it would be waterproof and hold in air for bouancy and storage space.

A craft which holds in air for boayancy and storage space is called, ummm, oh yes, a boat. One the size of the ark that does that is called a ship. I'm glad we're reaching agreement on that.

There are only a few thousand species of birds in total. Accomodation of all wouldn't be a problem if it were truly needed. However, waterfowl such as Storm Petrel's, Albatrosses, seaducks, etc. could probably survive quite a while at sea, and there would certainly be enough debris floating around to land on if needed. The time with no land about was between 5 and 8 months (the Ark grounded in 5 months according to Gen. 8.4, and mountains were clearly visible after 7 1/2 months by Gen. 8.5)

I'll allow you a few birds that weren't on the ark, ocean dwellers, though I think the idea of most species flying for several months and occasionally landing on "debris" is risible, and contrary to God's instructions to take aboard "7:3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth." I guess you think that maybe Noah disobeyed God for practical reasons.

Its impossible to know if there was such a distinction then. Fish certainly seem adaptble in some regards - e.g. the Lake Sharks of Nicaragua.

What do you mean "if there was such a distinction then"? You are the guys who don't believe in evolution, remember. The diversity of freshwater fish is enormous, and most won't tolerate salinity for even a day. You cannot wriggle out of this one unless you are prepared to accept far greater evolution than (to pluck an example at random) the difference between gorillas and humans.

Only insects which must have air to survive needed to be saved.

That'll just be millions of species of insect then.

How many chests full of grubs would you need to feed all the worm and insect eating birds (if there were such then)? Not that many.

A huge number of many different varieties appropriate for the different species, and they all have to not spoil for a year in 100% humidity and an utterly fetid atmosphere.

The Mesopotamians were able to use this general concept to sail to India. One wonders at how they did it since you say it is impossible.

You are making me laugh again. Unless you can show me an ocean-going Mesopotamian boat of 20,000 times greater capacity than any I know of. Small boat designs don't scale because the stresses on a boat go up according to a power of its length while the strength of the materials remains constant.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Here is a picture of how Mesopotamian ocean-going craft are thought to have looked. Note that it is built of reeds, not wood as God instructed. Note that the cubic dimension of its deck-construction is approximately 500CuFt, 0.05% of the claimed capacity of the ark. Let me know when you've figured out how to build a shed of the Ark's dimensions on a wooden raft.

Reeds would make up the hull of the craft, wood the actual space for living quarters on top. There is clearly a wood structure on top of the reeds in your picture.

What do you mean "if there was such a distinction then"? You are the guys who don't believe in evolution, remember. The diversity of freshwater fish is enormous, and most won't tolerate salinity for even a day.

Evolution is the transmorgification of one species into another new one. Natural adaptability within species when confronted with new environments is clearly shown within our own, where all the different races of man, adapted as they are to their environment and diet ultimately still derive from one man and one woman, and in such famous examples as the Pepper Moth (do I have that name right?).

Small boat designs don't scale because the stresses on a boat go up according to a power of its length while the strength of the materials remains constant.

With this dicta, one must wonder if you ever studied fluid mechanics, and the manner of modeling large structures with scale models to test strength. Because that is how its done. Its not that you scale up a small boat. Its that the concepts of the large boat may be tested in an appropriately scaled small one, and new small ones can be derived from the principals used to make the large one.

[Thatcherite]

Reeds would make up the hull of the craft, wood the actual space for living quarters on top. There is clearly a wood structure on top of the reeds in your picture.

As I say, let me know when you've worked out how to make a craft with an enclosed cubic capacity 2000 times greater than the copied Mesopotamian design using bronze-age materials and technology. Hint: A reed raft (or any other kind of raft made out of chopped plantlife) won't cut it.

Evolution is the transmorgification of one species into another new one.

No, speciation is part of evolution, not all of it. But anyway, there are thousands of species of freshwater fish, which would have to have been preserved in aquaria on the Ark, fed, cleaned frequently, unless you accept that evolution can result in greater diversity than (for example) ape diversity.

Natural adaptability within species when confronted with new environments is clearly shown within our own, where all the different races of man, adapted as they are to their environment and diet ultimately still derive from one man and one woman, and in such famous examples as the Pepper Moth (do I have that name right?).

The human race does not derive from a single man and woman. Our most recent male universal ancestor didn't live at anything like the same time as our most recent female universal ancestor; and both of those people were part of much larger populations who also contribute to the modern gene-pool. The genetic evidence for that is quite clear, but I don't really want to get into a debate about that while discussing the engineering impracticality of the Noah myth (even though it is genetically quite clear that the human race does not derive from 3 brothers and their wives of around 4500ya, nor do other species show a genetic bottleneck at that date).

With this dicta, one must wonder if you ever studied fluid mechanics, and the manner of modeling large structures with scale models to test strength. Because that is how its done. Its not that you scale up a small boat. Its that the concepts of the large boat may be tested in an appropriately scaled small one, and new small ones can be derived from the principals used to make the large one.

My major was Civil Engineering. A large part of the course was fluid mechanics and hydraulics. It is painfully evident from your beliefs about Noah's Ark that you have no concept of those subjects. It is true that models can be used to test design concepts under controlled conditions, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that small boat designs don't scale. Typically the models used are solid and their strength is totally irrelevant. You can learn about what the stresses on the scaled up craft will be, and how it will behave, but you can't just take something that works in small scale and multiply all the dimensions up and expect it to work in large scale.