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Bible, Theology & Philosophy
Noah's Flood
Genesis

“If the pre-flood humans were biologically superior, then it is likely to assume that their cognitive functions were superior as well. They had higher I.Q.’s, which means that they had better problem-solving skills than we have today.” - P&D

Discussion

Mon, 04/21/25

There are quite a lot of “ifs,” “maybes,” “probablys,” and the like here.

To me, it’s one of things that can be fun to engage the imagination and wonder about. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, as long as it doesn’t distract from what we are told. So—what we need to know about those days is revealed in Scripture and what we need to learn from those events doesn’t depend on how many people there were or how advanced their tech was.

I’ve occasionally heard some speculate that their tech was as advanced as ours today. There are a lot of problems with that idea. There would be artifacts buried all over the world, with a high density of them in the middle east. Advanced tech comes with a lot of durable materials, especially plastics and metals.

If there were 2 billion people, I’m inclined to think we’d see a lot of artifacts, even at a relatively low tech level.

But I’m not really very curious about it.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Mon, 04/21/25

It reminds me of a joke where humans and dolphins were arguing about which species was smarter, and the humans argued that humans were superior because they had created New York City. The dolphins laughed and said "you know, we were going to make the argument that we were smarter because you had created New York City."

Seriously, regarding alleged huge populations and great technology, getting to billions in the ~14 generations after Adam, you've got to have a generation over generation growth ratio of about five, which seems a bit excessive. So count me skeptical of that.

When we're talking about alleged technological advances, what I know of economic history is that these advances proceed far more from wisdom and sound economic systems than they do from raw intellect. For example, a lot of the best engineers I've ever had the privilege of working with grew up in the former Soviet Union, but due to the pervasive lack of wisdom imposed by the KGB, they weren't able to do much with that. Freedom and self-restraint do a LOT for technology, to put it mildly.

So whatever the raw intellect of the antedeluvians, it was undone by their lack of faith and immorality, IMO. The same (human sacrifice, etc..) might also have suppressed human population to a great degree and reduced evidence of antedeluvian civilization.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Tue, 04/22/25

This is a strong point, I think…

So whatever the raw intellect of the antedeluvians, it was undone by their lack of faith and immorality, IMO. The same (human sacrifice, etc..) might also have suppressed human population to a great degree and reduced evidence of antedeluvian civilization.

Scripture describes them as “only evil continually,” so we’re talking about an extremely decadent society, and that has consequences across all the aspects of human flourishing, including population and technology. To put it another way, population growth is mitigated when you don’t have strong families and you have lots of murder, for example. And if your social fabric is twisted enough, so to speak, you also have weak property rights and little incentive to develop technologies (because there is nothing in that for you and the people you care about… it will just be taken from you, anyway).

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.