Chris McGowan

Many modern creationists not only expect the creation stories of the Bible to be accurate descriptions of the origin of life, they also expect the story of Noah's flood to be an accurate description of the destruction of species now known to be extinct. Taken literally, the story of Noah's flood offers many specific facts that could potentially be verified (or falsified) by calculations based on current knowledge.

Chris McGowan is a vertebrate zoologist at the University of Toronto. His primary research interest is the extinct group of marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs, and he has written a book, The Dragon Seekers, about the early fossil hunters who first discovered ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and other Mesozoic marine reptiles.

In this selection McGowan calculates the capacity of the Ark and concludes, based...