About 40 or so years ago an aerial photo was printed in Life magazine
showing the outline of a boat shaped structure exposed by a landslide
in an area of Turkey known both now and in antiquity as the mountains
of Ararat. Archaeological investigation revealed that it was a
monument constructed in the 5th century AD, associated with the ruins
of a monastery -- sort of an ancient tourist/pilgrim attraction. Some
fundamentalists pointedly ignore this and claim the photo as proof of
the historicity of the Bible story of Noah and the Ark.

While it's possible that these "researchers" obtained wood from these
excavations, I'd be surprised if what they have is any more authentic
than the tons of true cross wood sold as relics in medieval times.
Indeed, if the wood is really from Quercus virginiana, that would be
excellent evidence that it's a fake.

If these guys were real researchers, the first thing they'd do would be
to get a good carbon date from such excellent candidate material as
wood. If the University of North Texas is a legitimate accredited
university and not just a Bible school, I'm sure it wouldn't want to be
associated with such gullible or fraudulent "researchers".

In some ways these fundamentalists who despise science while longing
for the trappings of scientific proof resemble medieval philosophers,
who believed, as in many systems of magic, that names have an intrinsic
reality and power. So if a tortoise is called a gopher, and there are
trees where this tortoise lives, those trees must be gopherwood trees,
and since the ark was built of gopherwood, it must have been built
where gopherwood trees grow, i.e. the range of this tortoise. I am,
alas, not exaggerating the sort of thinking that passes for seeking of
proof among these people. After all, they know the Truth, so all they
have to do in aim in the right direction and they will, they believe,
get there, and their proof will be as good as any scientist's.

Good grief, it was only John's first semester.

http://www.unt.edu

Verification that Noah's ark gopher wood is Southern live oak (Quercus
virginiana) by independent laboratories is expected soon. Should the
University of North Texas student's 1999 classification be disproven,
these notebooks will be pitched.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ta...q=Noah%27s+ark

Thanks.