On occasion we receive some pretty great emails. This one from "Shawn T" does a pretty thorough job of debunking the fable of Noah's Ark using just some basic math. Enjoy!
Can you hear me ok? Sorry, I just figured that every conversation with you must start this way.
Anyways……I had a random ‘Atheist Experience’ episode pop up as a YouTube suggestion about 6 months ago, and as a lifelong atheist with very religious parents and sister, I’ve been listening to at least 2 or 3 hours of old clips every day since.
I had a major stoner thought last night when in one YouTube clip, a theist said he believed in the Noah's Ark story. My mind instantly went to food, and since my sister is a panda bear fanatic, I used them as my example, and just had to share the results.
This is going to be long, but I’ll keep it as brief as I can. All citations will be at the bottom, and I’ll be wording this as if it was a real event just for clarity purposes.
Please bear with the pile of stats up front since it will make sense in the back half. Lastly, I will only list and use the ‘MV' (mean value) for calculations, meaning that the "real number" would likely be as much as 51% HIGHER than the numbers I listed below. Here we go........
Map of historical panda bear habitat[1]
The ark launched from Kufa Iraq[2]
The ark landed at the ‘mountains of Ararat[3]
The distance from Kufa Iraq to the closest place on the panda habitat map (Bhamo, Burma) is 3,211 miles.[4]
The distance from the ‘mountains of Ararat’ to the closest place on the panda habitat map (Myitkyina, Burma) is 3,196 miles.[5]
Distance a person can travel per day with horses & carriage = 10 to 30 miles, or a 'MV' of 20 miles per day.[6]
Number of days taken to transport nothing but a mating pair of pandas the 3,211 miles to the ark before the flood is 160 ½ days.
Now comes the fun part – Panda bears eat nothing but bamboo, and eat 26 to 84 lbs ('MV' of 55lbs) of bamboo per day, each.[7]
Using the 'MV' of 55lbs per day each, the mating pair would require:
17,655 lbs for the 3,211 mile trip to the Ark
4,400 lbs for the ‘40 days & 40 nights’ of rain.[8]
16,500 lbs for the ‘150 days of floodwaters.[9]
Sub-total of bamboo needed so far = 38,555 lbs. Remember, this is just the mean value!
Now one of the last two factors: Bamboo would have to have been re-planted by hand by whichever of the 'surviving 8’ (Noahs family) after the flood, and it takes 4 to 5 years before it would be a sustainable food source.[10]
This would add the requirement of a whopping 220,750 lbs of bamboo to be stockpiles BEFORE the flood onto the Ark for the adults to survive on while they wait for the bamboo to grow back.
Assuming for best case scenario (least amount of food needed), the baby, born after a 135 day gestation and 9 months before it starts eating bamboo at a rate of 30 ¼ lbs per day[11], and would be full grown within 4 years would need another 60,271 lbs!
Just this bamboo needed while they’re waiting for the natural bamboo to grow back would need whichever of the 8 survivors takes them back to their habitat would be 281,021 lbs of bamboo alone, not counting the weight of the panda bears. Oh, and with all of the worlds horses, oxen, llamas, etc all being dead (thanks for nothing God), they must be moved those 3,196 miles by hand, and there’s only eight pairs of living hands in the entire world.
Just for lolz, lets say they were able to move the 281,021 lbs by hand…..10 miles per day, which is ludicrous since the minimum that a horse and carriage can do in a day from [6] above.
That would add ANOTHER 320 days to the trip, adding ANOTHER 35,200 lbs of bamboo, increasing their 'move by hand load' to 316,221 lbs!
This weight moved by hand does not include their own food, or the weight of whatever sled/wagon they put the 158 TONS on to pull it by hand. Again, this is the mean value, and it would be as high as 238 tons if using the higher number of food they'd eat per day.
So…..grand total of the amount of bamboo that they would need to leave Burma with BEFORE the flood would be: 354,776 lbs, and since only 17,655 lbs is consumed on the way TO the Ark, they have to store the other 337,121 ( 168.56 tons) of bamboo ON THE ARK. Just this stored bamboo, at an average weight of about 51.5 lbs per cubic foot[12] would take up 6,546 cubic feet of space on the ark.
In summary: I think I found out why there was no space for the dinosaurs!!!
I’m sure you bailed on this a long time ago, but I had to see this stoner thought to fruition.
Love the work you folks all do on the religion thing, and thank you for putting up with my ‘War and Peace’ like ramblings.
Shawn
References:
[1] https://www.pandasinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/10-range.jpg
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah%27s_Ark#:~:text=The%20water%20which%20was%20not,as%20its%20final%20resting%20place
[3] https://www.bible.com/bible/116/gen.8.4
[4]https://www.distance.to/Kufa,Najaf,IRQ/25.3946%C2%B0N,97.3841%C2%B0E
[5] https://www.distance.to/Mount-Ararat/25.3946%C2%B0N,97.3841%C2%B0E
[6] https://horserookie.com/how-far-can-a-horse-travel/#:~:text=Q%3A%20How%20far%20can%20a%20horse%20carriage%20travel%20in%20a,weight%2C%20terrain%2C%20and%20weather.
[7] https://wwf.panda.org/discover/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/giant_panda/panda/what_do_pandas_they_eat/
[8] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%207%3A12&version=NIV
[9] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+7%3A24&version=NIV
[10] https://lewisbamboo.com/pages/how-bamboo-grows
[11] https://www.wyzant.com/resources/answers/249907/at_a_zoo_3_pandas_eat_a_total_of_181_1_2_pounds_of_bamboo_shots_the_female_eats_twice_as_much_as_baby_how_many_pounds_does_the_female_eat#:~:text=I'll%20help%20you%20understand%20math!&text=The%20baby%20panda%20eats%2030,3%2F4%20pounds%20per%20day.
[12] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Unit-weight-of-bamboo-and-steel_tbl4_256293236
