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Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson: We're a Christian ministry. Our goal is to teach people the scripture. We want to see people embrace what we believe, so it's a way to teach them that alongside evidence supporting it. People say, "How can you fit all of the animals on the ark?" and I want to explain to them, Hey, this is how big it was. [These were] the dimensions. Suddenly, it changes their perspective. Just by having people walk up to it communicates something that words and pictures could never do. Just to stand inside and say, "Wow. This is an incredibly large structure."
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Can you explain exactly what happened on Noah's Ark and how that led to the evolution of the species we see today?Read: The Religious Consumerism of Megachurch Pastor Joel Osteen
On the biological side, some of the questions we have been trying to answer is what exactly did Noah bring onboard the ark? In our framework from our young-Earth perspective, we'd say: God didn't create species, per se. He created "kinds" that seem to be as a general approximation around the level of family. As a practical example, there [are] 35-36 cat species today, from lions to tigers to house cats. We'd say those all came from two individuals onboard the ark. Same thing with the dog family; wolves to coyotes to foxes to Chihuahuas from two individuals onboard the ark. [This applies to] virtually all the land-dwelling vertebrate species. Anything that is small and aquatic survived outside of the ark.Can you elaborate about the science used to support the educational aspects of Ark Encounter?
Part of my research is to say, Can we precisely identify what those creatures [on the ark] were? One of the key sources that we're using is genetics, but the tools to evaluate genetics are only recent. The human genome wasn't sequenced until 2001 so nearly 150 years after Darwin. We know the rate at which DNA changes for a few species, such as humans. One of the subsets of the human sequence is the mitochondrial DNA, about 16,000 DNA letters long. We know the rate at which it changes: one every six generations. So you dial a clock back between non-African humans and there are 30-40 differences on average. Among Africans, there are about 78. You can explain that within 6,000 years. You can say 78 differences today, one difference every six generations. Dial the clock back 6,000 years, you get back to two people basically.
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I think there are a couple of different answers to that. One is, his goal was slightly different and his timescale was slightly different in the sense that here we're trying to build the structure within a couple of years. Noah had, like, 120 years. Plus, he could have hired help. Even though it was only he, his wife, his sons, and their wives that survived the flood, there were probably millions of people who were alive on Earth at that time who he could've hired to easily help him out. So in terms of manpower, that was available. There was an enormous amount of time that was available—he put something like this together in 120 years for the purpose of surviving for a year with his family and the animals. Then they could chuck the ark, essentially.
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He lived for I think nearly a thousand years. He was 500-600 years old when the flood happened. How could those people have lived for hundreds of years? From our perspective, God creates things perfect from the beginning and things have been degenerating ever since then. Even to this day, we can measure 60 DNA mutations per generation. Things are getting worse. There was probably more pristine genetic information, fewer mutations, and fewer diseases back then. They could've lived longer and been stronger longer. Noah would've lived much longer than 120 years and the people around him would've lived much longer. They would've had plenty of time and manpower to put this all together.
How do you explain this to someone who can't wrap his or her head around this concept?Noah was 500-600 years old when the flood happened. How could those people have lived for hundreds of years? From our perspective, God creates things perfect from the beginning and things have been degenerating ever since then — Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson of Answers in Genesis
We'd have to say what are the reasons for our shorter lifespan today. You think maybe a couple of centuries ago people didn't have as long of a life expectancy. Technology has improved our lifespan but, by and large, what causes death today even in Western, first world countries is aging and cancer. Things degenerate—break down. I think a lot of that is due to genetics. We have a corrupt gene pool. A lot of that is masked because we are heterozygous [and] diploid.
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I can speak on only having been here a few months. In general, the creation movement has plenty of critics. I've run into them myself. I welcome criticism. Science is based on peer review. It's a process of elimination. If I've made an error, I want to know it. I'll be speaking opposite an evolutionist in under a week and my request has been please peer-review my literature. Please evaluate what we're doing so if there are scientific errors, we can correct them.That being said, in my interaction with evolutionists, my impression has been they are not aware of my position and the scientific details of what I've said. What I'd love to see is more interactions where they're hearing out what I'm saying. I do my best to read all their literature. I queue up major journals… If there would be more knowledge of both sides, I think it would lead to more productive interactions between the two. But obviously, this is an extremely emotionally-charged issue.Follow Belinda on Twitter.