Discussing Creationism Part III

I asked these questions last week, regarding Noah's ark,
1. What was the size of the ark?
2. How many animals could have fit into the ark? Biblically, we are not told except that there were 7 pairs (male and female) of each clean animal and a male and female of each unclean animal as well as 7 pairs of each fowl.

To help answer these questions I featured as an example "Christian Answers" and was given another site to look at called "Talk Reason". This is some of what I found.

Showing my work:
As I was examining the data from two of the web pages regarding Creationism and Evolutionism, I was disappointed to discover that the calculations of the volume in the ark did not match.

Volume of a square or rectangular shape=length x width x height

According to Christian Answers, the volume of the ark was = 137.16m x 22.86 m x 13.72 m=462,686.4 cubic meters.

While Talk Reason calculated the ark's volume to be 150m x 25m x 15m =approximately 55,000 cubic meters.

Which one is right?
The simple calculations shows that with the correct answer is 55, 000 cubic meters.

It appears that the problem in Christian Answers may have been with the metric measurements as the calculations in cubic feet were correct. (450' x 75' x 45' =1,518,750 cubic feet.)
Now that makes it possible to look at their comparisons between the railroad stock car and ark.

First, the dimensions of a railroad stock car were found (42' x8' x 8'). From these, the volume was calculated to be approximately 2688 cubic feet. So, about 565 stock cars would fit into the ark. (1,518, 750cubic feet/ 2688 cubic feet= 565)

Look back at the reasoning in Christian Answers and it is necessary to know how many sheep would fit in one stock car?

Christian Answers, again disappointingly used inaccurate measurements. They gave a single railroad's dimensions but in the deduction, sheep were placed into double decker trains. The dimensions for a double decker train had to be found then the results recalculated.

Double decker dimensions which are in meters 26.4 x 2.78 x 4.606m. These must be recalculated into cubic feet. 86.6'x 9.1'x 15.1'= 11900 cubic feet. This is the volume of a double decker railroad stock car.

The ark's approximate volume is 1,518, 750 cubic feet. Only 128 (1,518, 750/ 11900)of these double decker railroad cars would fit into the ark.

Now that we know how many stock cars would approximately fit into the ark, we need to know how many sheep would fit into one stock car.

Here is a quote from a web page called Life on the Central Branch that did just that:

"The hard times continued here and the Bank of Downs failed in January of 1891, but Denton seemed to be doing all right with his sheep. As March arrived, it was time to ship his animals to market.

The Chief reported March 5th that he had shipped eight double-deck carloads of sheep to Chicago the previous Friday. Denton accompanied the shipment and took W. F. Henry and James Worley along to help care for the animals.

Returning from Chicago, Denton said he used the Chicago, St. Paul and Kansas City railroad. They made the run from St. Joseph, Mo., to Chicago in 26 hours and he said this was the quickest run he had made. Another 10 carloads of sheep went to market in early April over this same Maple Leaf route.

As April 1891 drew to a close, Denton still had 1,800 sheep at Downs and hired C. D. Brown and Chas. Oldson to shear them. The animals yielded six and a half pounds of wool to the head, which the Chief said would bring Denton "the neat little sum of $2,500."

The sheep shipments ended in late May when the final eight carloads went to Chicago by train. The Chief stated that Denton had shipped 14,000 head that spring. In early June, a carload of wool was shipped to Boston, Mass."

From this, we read that there were 8-10 double deck railroad cars/ train. For three of them, the number of cars were given and for the other three they weren't but I have taken the minimun 8 cars per train. This makes a total of 50 cars used to transport 14,000 sheep or 280 sheep/railroad car. This is a good match with Christian Answers.


So I have used the Christian Answer's original calculation of 240 sheep/double decker stock car (leaving out the possible 40 more so as to create more space for the little darlings). According to these calculations, 128 of these double decker railroad cars could fit into the ark carrying 30,720 sheep (128 x 240).

Because the size of the animals would vary from insects to a T.Rex, the average size of a sheep hopefully will suffice for this illustration.
There also has to be room for food and other supplies, so how many railroad cars should be left for this and Noah's family? What if we say that only 125 railroad cars were filled with the animals and leave 3 railroad cars open for these other necessities? That would make room for 30,000 animals in total. (125 stock cars x 240 sheep/stock car)

Then there is the question of how many clean animals vs unclean animals were there. (7 pairs of each clean and only 1 pair of each unclean)We would need this to give an exact number of each species or variations of animals. As no number was given in the Bible for how many of each there were, it is not possible to know for sure. For estimation purposes only, if 7 pairs were used for all of the different types of animals, this will make the number (30000/14=)2142 different types of animals. As this number is lower than it was, it probably would've been more like 2500 of different types of animals.

Check my math and the reasoning out as well.

There are more points that were made regarding the original questions from "Discussing Creationism II". They will be brought up next week.

For now, hopefully everyone can see that it is necessary to recheck the steps that were taken to come to a conclusion. If one step is out, then all conclusions are out too.

Before the Evolutionists out there start feeling smug about the errors in this one Creationist's web site, remember, critical thinking starts with the ability to look at one's own position first. In discussing any controversial subject, it is important to examine the facts and to understand the difference between the facts (evidences) and the conclusions that were made from them.

Are you blindly trusting the conclusions that others (even scientists) made without first checking the facts and conclusions out for yourself? It is easy to make mathematical errors and easier to make errors in perceptions.

A scientist is not allowed to include God in the analysis for there is no evidence that God exists. Thus, you get Evolution, a beginning without a Creator.

Creationists aim to include the physical data/facts with the belief that the Bible is a reliable source of fact as well. The combination of these should result in a better understanding of our beginning.

I hope in the course of these discussions, to become more knowledgeable of the evidences as well as of the debate between Evolutionists and Creationists. I ask for your help as I endeavor to achieve this by supplying the facts and evidences that you know or where to find them so I can have a look at them for myself.

Discussing Creationism Part I
Discussing Creationism II