Noah's Ark's Occurence

I will begin this round by stating that it has not been my intention to undermine the Bible, but rather, it has been my intention to state that a Literal interpretation of the Bible is impossible with our current understanding of Science. My opponent asserted at the beginning of the debate that "I hold the Bible to be completely factual, and will regard it as so", yet in his last argument, he acknowledges that portions of the Bible (such as Psalms) are indeed not fact. Furthermore, his interpretation of Samuel and Job is also an Allegorical one, not a literal one as I illustrated in Round 2. In essence, my opponent is choosing to interpret the Bible Allegorically or Literally in a variable manner that is convenient to his argument. This is inconsistent with his first assertion that the Bible is fact and undermines the credibility of his claim that the story of Noah's Ark can be treated as literal fact. As someone who has taken University courses in Geography and Glaciology, I will state that the articles you referenced in "answers in genesis" are quite frankly appalling junk science. The only way the author is able to account for the volume of water I discussed in my earlier round is by stating that "The Bible suggests a source of the extra water. In Genesis 7:11 we read that at the initiation of the Flood all the fountains of the great deep were broken up.". Again he is using the fantasy tale of water coming form some magical un-explained source deep within the Earth. This author also makes the claim that because the early continents only had mountains developed only to 3,500 feet a global flood was possible (a comical statement in itself) Again, I debunked this in Round one. Anyone with a basic knowledge of plate tectonics, erosion and the functioning of continental ice sheets knows that a flood is not required for fossils to end up on the world's highest mountains. The following credible scientific organizations have issued statements speaking out against the junk science propagated by "answers in Genesis" specifically: National Academy of Sciences, Paleontological Society, Geological Society of America, Australian Academy of Science, and the Royal Society of Canada. They consider creation science to be pseudoscience which "shares none of the essential characteristics of scientific theorizing". I will reference the following books: Dawkins, Richard. Climbing Mount Improbable (1996 Viking Press). Ferris, Timothy. The Whole Shebang : A State-Of-The-Universe's Report (Touchstone, 1998). Gardner, Martin, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1957), ch. 11. Haught, John F. Science and Religion : From Conflict to Conversation (Paulist Press, 1996). Kitcher, Phillip. Abusing Science: the Case Against Creationism (MIT Press, 1983). Pennock, Robert T. Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism (M.I.T. Press, 1999). Plimer, Ian. Telling Lies for God: Reason vs. Creationism (Random House, New South Wales, Australia: 1994). Prothero, Donald R. Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. (Columbia University Press, 2007). Scott, Eugenie C. 2004. Evolution vs. Creationism : An Introduction. Greenwood Press. Schadewald, Robert. "Creationist Pseudoscience," in Science Confronts the Paranormal, edited by Kendrick Frazier. (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books,1986). Shermer, Michael. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, chs. 9-11, (W H Freeman & Co.: 1997). In summary, the scientific community considers the drivel concocted by pseudoscience Christian Websites such as "Answers and Genesis" and "Conservapedia" to be a comedy of errors and an abhorrence. The reason these Christian websites are such an abomination is because unlike legitimate science that starts with a hypothesis and works towards a conclusion (the Scientific method), the Fundamentalist Christian approach is to start with a conclusion, then work backwards to try to make the hypothesis fit. Such a faulty approach cannot and will not ever be real or credible science.