Lying with stats


I guess it was almost ten years ago that I first saw this astonishing gem of creationist dishonesty on talk.origins: now Good Math, Bad Math has put it on a weblog. Read all about John Woodmorappe’s median/mean mangling in defense of Noah’s Ark.

Comments

  1. allastair says

    How could anyone of even the most minimal intelligence come to the conclusion that you could fit all the species of animals on earth on a single boat. A 10 year old with even the most rudimentary appreciation of space and size would realize the absurdity of this if they thought about it for a second. Of all the biblical stories that people accept as literal truth, this has to be the most ridiculous of all.

  2. says

    The answer is quite simple. All the water that flooded the earth had to come from somewhere, right? Well I believe that God squeezed it out of animals. Noah was able to fit the animals on the ark because they were all in dehydrated form.

  3. KeithB says

    Not every species. Every kind. A very different animal. (hah!) This led to an explosive evolutionary growth of species post-flood that boggles the mind.

    Given the recent post linked by panda’s thumb, only one pair of cats needed to be on the ark, since it appears that Lions and Tigers are one kind.

  4. Deb says

    I’d like to know how Noah traveled the globe collecting all of the different animals! How much time did he have? (rof!)

  5. says

    No no no. Noah didn’t travel around the world collecting animals. The animals just turned up and sat around peacfully waiting for Noah to finish the ark. Although if God had such great control over animals I don’t know why he just didn’t have them ride on the backs of whales and save Noah a heck of a lot of carpentary work.

  6. djlactin says

    hey it’s easy! god suspended the dimensional limitations of geometry! simply warped space within the ark. (extended its volume into another universe?)

    does anybody remember “dr. who”? his “tardis”? it was a time-travel machine that was supposed to camouflage itself to fit in with the local surroundings, but had malfunctioned and was stuck in the form of a british police call-box. from the outside it looked kind of like a blue telephone booth, but inside it was the size of an apartment. you could have got waaaay more people (critters) inside than the outer dimensions would suggest!

    the only problem these YEC apologists have it that they don’t experience enough sci-fi! (or matbe they don’t realise that they’re proposing some!)