John Woodmorappe wrote Impact #273, an article called “A Resource for Answering the Critics of Noah’s Ark.” It is short article promoting a book he wrote demonstrating the “feasibility” of the Ark story from Genesis.
He writes:
To start out, I reviewed what Scripture actually teaches about what kinds of creatures were taken on the Ark in order to dispel the oft-repeated charge that the Ark needed to carry perhaps 50 million species of creatures. I then figured out how many animals were on the Ark, arriving at approximately 16,000. Since animals vary so much in size, a numerical figure itself is not too informative. Therefore, the 16,000 animals were assigned into body-weight categories. As a result, there were eight logarithmic categories spanning the hummingbird (a few grams each) and the largest dinosaur (nearly 100 tons when adult). Since most of the animals were small, the median animal on the Ark was about the size of a rat. Only 15% of the animals were sheep-sized or larger (neglecting the taking of juveniles on the Ark), but it was the larger animals which accounted for most of the food intake and production of excreta.
The take home message is that if one accepts Woodmorappe’s figures, the median-sized animal is a rat.
Now what does median mean? The median is a term from statistics that is calculated by sorting the values from smallest to largest and taking the middle value. For example the median weight for an one-ounce animal, a two-ounce animal, and 100-ton animal is two ounces. The mean (average) weight would be about 33 tons. (In case anyone is wondering, if there is an even number of numbers the middle two numbers are averaged.)
Okay the median-sized animal on the ark is a rat. From the previous paragraph it should be obvious that average-sized animal could very well not be the same size as the median-sized animal. Indeed, Mark Isaak took the data from Woodmorappe’s book and calculated the average animal on the Ark, if one accepts Woodmorappe’s numbers, is 763 pounds. The data and calculations can be found here. I have verified Isaak’s calculations.
Now here is why all this is important. Woodmorappe wrote:
Because there have been so many arguments which allege the impossibility of eight people caring for so many animals, I delved into actual manpower studies on the time required to care for a given number of animals under various conditions. It turns out that simple labor-saving techniques could have enabled eight people to care for 16,000 rat-sized animals assuming the availability of only rustic tools, along with a 10-hour day, 6-day week, with time to spare. [Note: since this essay was first posted the phrase "rat-sized" has been edited out.]
Woodmorappe has made an elementary statistical error. He used the median when the mean is the relevant number. Using Woodmorappe’ own numbers, Noah, his three sons, and the four wives had take care of the equivalent of sixteen thousand 763-lb animals and not the equivalent of sixteen thousand rat-sized animals. This is a huge blunder and it completely invalidates his entire thesis. I dare say that taking care of a rat-sized animal is far easier than a 763-lb animal. Clearly the latter will eat and drink far more the former, as well as taking more space, producing more waste, etc.
Woodmorappe also only included reptiles, birds, and mammals that lived on the land in his numbers. One can argue strongly that Noah would have to included far more types of animals. Furthermore, the numbers of the animals he did include are arguably small as well. Thus it is clear that this math error, not only destroys his argument, but it merely the start of his problems. Keep in mind that I have not picked on an obscure creationist. Both Woodmorappe and his “Feasibility Study” are very well regarded within the young-earth creationist community.
Also see:
“Problems
with a Global Flood”
A
creationist rebuttal by Jonathan D. Sarfati
A rebuttal of the rebuttal
A former creationist reviews Woodmorappe’s
book
A rebuttal by
Woodmorappe
Web site for
Woodmorappe’s “Feasibility
Study”
“Creation Science is Garbage” — Shows
out-of-context quoting from the previous site
Web site for
another Woodmorappe book on the flood