Noah's flood, as described in Genesis, was a real historical event.

It is sad to see a great debate that ended with a forfeit. Dropped Points Before I proceed to defend my opening arguments, I want to note that pro has dropped two important points: (1) Issue of loss of genetic diversity that results in a species becoming de facto extinct long before the last surviving member dies (2) Issue of harmful recessive alleles when close relatives breed (such as what we see in Cheetahs and Ashkenazi Jewish populations today). GeneticsThe main issue with pro's rebuttal is that it does not address non-human species. Should a Global Flood occured, we should expect to find evidence of bottlenecking in all species, not just humans. We simply don't find this. Furthermore, pro argues that humans share 99.5 percent similar DNA. While this is true, this is quite a remarkable difference. The human genome consists of about 3 billion base pairs. A difference of 0.5 per cent works out to about a difference of 15 million bases. (1) In fact, researchers were actually quite surprised at the genetic variation within humans. As Samuel Levy et al. writes:"Inclusion of insertion and deletion genetic variation into our estimates of interchromosomal difference reveals that only 99.5% similarity exists between the two chromosomal copies of an individual and that genetic variation between two individuals is as much as five times higher than previously estimated. " (2) This debate is not about the Out of Africa theory and so I won't respond to pro's issues with the theory. I cited Amos and Hoffman's article as their article detailed strong evidence of bottlenecking in early human history. Pro did not respond to that evidence. Species SurvivalDiseasesPro argues that diseases could have survived. Pro argues that diseases could have survived as different pathogens evolved post Flood, horizontal gene transfer, carriage by a symptomless host, and survival outside living organisms. The main issue with this hypothesis is that pro does not provide any supporting information to defend these theories. Furthermore, smallpox, which I mentioned is a host-specific pathogen, is certainly much older than the Flood. There is strong evidence to suggest that smallpox originated more than 10,000 years ago (3). Furthermore, Dr. Stefan Riedel notes:"The earliest evidence of skin lesions resembling those of smallpox is found on faces of mummies from the time of the 18th and 20th Egyptian Dynasties (1570–1085 bc). The mummified head of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses V (died 1156 bc) bears evidence of the disease. At the same time, smallpox has been reported in ancient Asian cultures: smallpox was described as early as 1122 bc in China and is mentioned in ancient Sanskrit texts of India. " (4) AnimalsPro argues that carnivorous animals did not occur sometime until after the Flood, allowing time for the populations to rebound. However, this does not seem to agree with the plain meaning of the text. Furthermore, Creation Ministry International argues that meat eating for animals began after the Fall, and it was meat eating that became permitted to man after the Flood. (5) Conclusion I believe that I have conclusively shown that a Global Flood, as described in the Book of Genesis, simply could not have happened. The resolution is soundly rejected! Vote con! _______ Sources1. International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium (2004). "Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome". Nature 431 (7011): 931–45. . http://tinyurl.com...;2. Levy, S. The Diploid Genome Sequence of an Individual Human. PLOSONE Biology. . http://tinyurl.com...;3. Hopkins DR. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1983. Princes and Peasants: Smallpox in History 4. Riedel S. Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination. Proceedings (Baylor University Medical Center). 2005;18(1):21-25.5. . http://creation.com...;