Thursday 25 August 2011

Noah's aquaria?

Continuing the mini-series on the myth of the flood . . . 

Did Noah rescue the fish?

This might seem like a silly question.  Fish can swim can't they?  Why would they be affected by the flood?

Very few fish can survive in both fresh water and salt water.  Salmon and sea trout are examples of the minority that can tolerate a variety of conditions.  But put a shark in a lake and it will die.  Put a pike in the sea and it will not last long either.

The question is, 'was the flood water salty or not'?  Obviously if all the water came from rain it was pure and and 'fresh'.  At least it would have diluted the saltiness of the sea.  Possibly (in this ridiculous thought experiment) all the water ended up 'brackish' and therefore not suiting either the fish of the seas or of the rivers and lakes.


So in the best case Noah should have rescued either the fish that like salt water or those that like fresh water.  In the case of brackishness he should have rescued both, storing them in some absurd aquaria inside the ark to protect them from the water outside.

As an aside, speaking of ridiculous aquaria . . .


Back to Noah . . .

Maybe Islam is right after all.  It would solve the problem if, as taught  by Islamic scholars, fresh water and salt water do not mix.  Then the fish could choose to stay in water of the type that suited them.  More on Islam in the next post of the series.

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