Noah's Ark

Michael A. Thompson
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Noah's Ark

 I saw a Discovery Channel special on Noah's Arc pointing out that the amount of precipitation caused by the alleged flood would so increase the water level of the air that we breath that every creature with lungs would easily suffocate.  I brought this up in the Bible study that I frequent ("It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick"- Luke 5:30-32) and the idiotic reply was that the rain came in "large rain drops."  Though the stupidity of this argument is truly astounding I have stuck to the policy of always backing up my claims, unlike those in the class, with scientific evidence.  So, I was wondering if anyone knew of a place where I can show scientifically that the rain size (Especially in regard to rain fall of 11 ft per hour!) does not effect precipitation to the degree this person believes.  Thanks.

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Renee Obsidianwords
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I would be curious if that

I would be curious if that person could answer the .. "what weighs more, a pound of rocks or a pound of feathers"

Water is water, big drops, little drops, the kind of drops that come in sideways (think forrest gump)

Not sure of the 'science' of it but I would think the bigger the drops the more evaporation of the water causing more vapor in the air???

 

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This seems to be more of a

This seems to be more of a chemistry question.  Regardless of how big the drops are, the water would still produce water vapor.

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It's useless to argue with

It's useless to argue with them. It's like telling a child that believes he's getting a great toy for Xmas if only he believes in Santa Claus that his sleigh would burn up in the atmosphere if he tried to deliver to 1 Billion children.

 

Santa Claus : An Engineer's Perspective

I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second --- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them --- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance --- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. Happy Christmas.

 

 

 

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Rook_Hawkins wrote:This

Rook_Hawkins wrote:

This seems to be more of a chemistry question.  Regardless of how big the drops are, the water would still produce water vapor.

It's a matter of surface tension vs. terminal velocity. As the air resistance from fall speed increases the smaller the droplets have to be. It goes like this:

 

Reality -> High clouds = small drops -> Low clouds = big drops

 

Imagination -> Gods -> Magic clouds = drops that defy the laws of physics

 

 


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 They may be irrational but

 They may be irrational but if you show them evidence that falsifies one of their claims it does plant the seed of doubt.  It never changes their minds at that time (No one wants to accept that they are wrong.) but it does have an effect the next time the subject is raised.  No one questions the point.  If you water that seed with frequent doses of reality it does actually make a difference.  In time those ideas that they first consider as just "doubts" (i.e., Paul while in prison.) become the realization that the things they believe are ridiculous.  

I've already got the class to accept that there is no Hell in the Old Testament.  I have also got them to accept that the Titles of the Gospels were added later and I'm slowly opening their minds to the evidence that people would add things to the books as time goes on, i.e Mark 16: 9-20, Jesus and the adulteress, etc.  However, this progress only comes by having actual evidence that I can show them.  

In any event I did not find the formula I was looking for but I did find this link that not only points out all the scientific flaws but also comes with documentation.  I have already added it to my iPhone so that I can quickly show it to the deluded.  Smiling

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

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Yellow_Number_Five
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Renee Obsidianwords wrote:I

Renee Obsidianwords wrote:

I would be curious if that person could answer the .. "what weighs more, a pound of rocks or a pound of feathers"

Water is water, big drops, little drops, the kind of drops that come in sideways (think forrest gump)

Not sure of the 'science' of it but I would think the bigger the drops the more evaporation of the water causing more vapor in the air???

 

 

Actually, the opposite. The smaller the drops, the more evaporation. It has to do with surface area vs. volume. Smaller drops would have more surface area in relation to their volume and therefore a higher evaporation rate. Not that the flood theory makes a lick of sense, but on the subject of evaporation and volatilization, I can weigh in objectively.

If you want to confirm, simply put a glass of water on your counter and spill the same volume of water on your floor. Which is going to evaporate faster and why?

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins

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Yay, Mike!

Yay, Mike!


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Michael A. Thompson

Michael A. Thompson wrote:

 I saw a Discovery Channel special on Noah's Arc pointing out that the amount of precipitation caused by the alleged flood would so increase the water level of the air that we breath that every creature with lungs would easily suffocate.  I brought this up in the Bible study that I frequent ("It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick"- Luke 5:30-32) and the idiotic reply was that the rain came in "large rain drops."  Though the stupidity of this argument is truly astounding I have stuck to the policy of always backing up my claims, unlike those in the class, with scientific evidence.  So, I was wondering if anyone knew of a place where I can show scientifically that the rain size (Especially in regard to rain fall of 11 ft per hour!) does not effect precipitation to the degree this person believes.  Thanks.

Why do we have to continuously battle such absurdities?

Let's for example give the myth lovers their example. The bible explicitly accounts for dart frogs, scorpiens and cobras and the explanation for the two by two formation given by the jesus cheerleaders is, "God did it".

Thats it, I'm done, they win. I don't care that cockroaches will outlast humans. As long as a religious story ends with cotton candy and a smiley face, who cares if it is all just haroin for the ego.

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Michael A. Thompson
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The reason we must ALWAYS

 The reason we must ALWAYS battle absurdities, and not just those related to mythology, is because if we don't they quickly become accepted "fact".

 One can only postulate the many positive outcomes to the world if the standard reply to those professing mythology worship was "You're a fucking dumb ass".

"Those who have stepped into the arena shall forever cherish a feeling the protected will never know."