No, Noah's Ark Was Not Just Found in Turkey

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan. And

Dan Beecher I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. And boy, has the misinformation been burning the candle at both ends lately.

Dan Beecher It feels like the whole world has been flooded with misinformation. Doesn't it?

Dan McClellan A deluge. A deluge, if you will.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Yeah, we are, we are... You know, there's post-diluvian, there's antediluvian, and then there's right in the middle of the diluve.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And that's, that's where we are. Uh, in-

Dan McClellan We, we've got some diluvian, uh, skull fragments that we've been, uh- ... that we've been looking at for a bit now, and we've got some findings to report. Yeah,

Dan Beecher yeah. No. We're gonna, we're gonna be doing an Artifacts and Fiction today, and if you haven't figured out why we're joking about floods, it's because there's a boat on a mountain. Uh, and there, and that is the final word on it. It's 100%. There's a- Yeah ... there's a, there's a boat on a mountain, um, unless you look at, you know, any of the evidence. So we're going to explore whether or not, uh, the, the, the Daily Mail is correct- ... in its reporting of there being, of people being 100% sure that Noah's Ark is in Turkey somewhere. Yeah. So that's exciting. I think we should dive straight into Artifacts and Fiction. And okay. So let us hie ourselves to the mountains of Turkey.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher S- specifically now, here's, here's the thing. You sent me a bunch of videos t- from a TikTok channel called, oh, what's it called? It's called something. Uh, you c- it-

Dan McClellan The, oh, Ark Scans.

Dan Beecher Ark Scan, which I thought it was, it said Ark Scam, and I was pretty excited about that. Noah's Ark Scans is the name-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah ...

Dan Beecher of the channel. Uh, and I was like, "Oh, Noah's Ark Scams," and then I realized that it was an M and not an N, or a, a Swiss A.

Dan McClellan The other way around. Yeah.

Dan Beecher And, uh, I was like, "Okay, that's interesting." And I gotta say, okay, I, I'm gonna open with this. This is the same site that people have been talking about for a minute. Uh, right? Is that, this-

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah, yeah. This was discovered in, I think, 1959 is when, uh, we first had people go there, and since Ron Wyatt, uh, declared definitively- ... for, uh, all time and eternity that this was Noah's Ark, uh, there have been a number of expeditions in, uh, out there and attempts to demonstrate that this is, in fact, Noah's Ark, because if you squint at it hard enough and ignore everything around it, it kinda reminds you of a boat shape. Yeah.

Dan Beecher Oh, totally. And- Like- Yeah ... from above, you look down on it, and if you trace it, this, this little thing that's poking up from the ground, you could totally say that's a boat. Or a

Dan McClellan vulva. Um-

Dan Beecher Or a, yes, yes, if you wa- 'Cause

Dan McClellan that's, I mean, again-

Dan Beecher If you wanna get, uh, uh, Georgia O'Keeffe about it, sure.

Dan McClellan Particularly with the other ridges that are around it. Yes. Um, but, uh-

Dan Beecher Can we start calling the different parts of this, uh, archaeological site- ... the labia minora and labia majora of Noah's Ark?

Dan McClellan Oh, gosh.

Dan Beecher 'Cause that makes me very happy.

Dan McClellan Thou sayest it, uh, or, or sest it, if we're gonna pronounce things correctly around here. But, uh, yeah, we have had, there are announcements all over social media. If you haven't seen these things, then you either are not on social media or you do a much better job of curating your algorithm- Yeah ... than I do. Um-

Dan Beecher Let's just be clear. Dan, your algorithm is-

Dan McClellan Oh, it's totally screwed ... is

Dan Beecher totally screwed.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Like-

Dan Beecher Uh, I was gonna use other words. We try not to use those words on this show unless necessary. Um, yeah, and, uh, my algorithm ain't great either, but- Yeah ... I, I think yours is completely off the rails.

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah. All, all I do is respond to wackadoos- ... on, uh, on social media, and so my, my algorithm is like, "This is what you like? All right, weirdo."

Dan Beecher "This guy like, this guy's super into wackadoos."

Dan McClellan Yeah. Sick freak. Um, so yeah, I get, I get a lot of that kinda stuff. But- Right ... the, the announcement, uh, from the Daily Mail was, well, b- well, first thing is, is there's this crew that's there. They were there in 2019, where they used some ground-penetrating radar to conduct some scans of the area. Uh-

Dan Beecher That sounds science-y.

Dan McClellan Uh, it's, it's science-adjacent.

Dan Beecher It's near.

Dan McClellan But, um, yeah, and-

Dan Beecher It can be used for science.

Dan McClellan And it's headed up by this guy named Andrew Jones, who from everything I've been able to discover, is a software engineer. But has, uh, has a knack for raising money, asking people for money.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Uh, and so he's, um, I think he's been going to this site for, like, 20, more than 20 years. He, no, he-

Dan Beecher Wasn't Ron Wyatt a nurse? Is that, is it, like-

Dan McClellan He was a, he was an anesthesiologist, a nurse, uh, anesthesiologist, I think.

Dan Beecher Yeah. We, we, boy, this, this kinda work really attracts the, the pros, doesn't it?

Dan McClellan Well, well, yeah, these are non-specialists, and that's- Yeah ... not at all a knock on any of their a- their professions.

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan Uh, but they're not archaeologists. They're not scientists. Uh, and so it says here he first visited in 1997, so it's been almost 30 years since Andrew Jones has been going to this site in Turkey that you only go to if you think that's Noah's Ark. So he's, he's been on one side of this issue for nigh on to 30 years, but- Right ... 2019, he went there, uh, did these scans, put together a slide deck- for raising more money, um, that basically said, "Look, we found right angles," and then said, "We sent this information to a lady, and the lady said, 'I see a tunnel.'" So there's a tunnel there as well, although we've, we've seen no data that indicate there's a tunnel. But-

Dan Beecher Yeah. A la- And, and the lady that he sent it to is unnamed and, um-

Dan McClellan Unnamed

Dan Beecher ... and, and no credentials listed, right?

Dan McClellan Ob- obviously, yeah. And so the idea was, okay, we're gonna come back, and we're gonna drill core samples. And that's where you take a cylindrical drill, and you go down and pull up a big core sample. Like, kinda if you stick a straw into a very thick slushie or something and then plug the top, and you pull out the slushie, and maybe if you got layers in there, you can see the layers through the straw. Like, that's what-

Dan Beecher Core sampling, I usually have heard of it in terms of ice, because when they go-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... to, like, uh, the Arctic or the Antarctic, they can actually get a lot of information about what was in the air hundreds to thousands of years ago-

Dan McClellan Yep

Dan Beecher ... just by taking a core sample, drilling down, and yeah, getting a cylinder of what was underneath.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher It's harder to do on land.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher It's harder to do when there's rocks involved.

Dan McClellan Yeah, you need much more specialized equipment and all that kind of stuff. But they're-- So they've been promoting the fact, oh, we're drilling, we're drilling, we're drilling. And, uh, and so now, like yesterday, the Daily Mail came out with this headline, "Noah's Ark Resting Place," quote, "100% Confirmed," unquote, "After 4,300 Years As Astonishing," quote, "Man-Made," unquote, "Structure Is Detected Buried Deep Underground." And when they say deep underground, they mean, like, 15 to 20 feet. But- ... that is-

Dan Beecher Yeah, deep. Yeah, that's not deep. That's, uh-

Dan McClellan That is-- Yeah, and that is also a ridiculous headline, because when you read the article, what they say is, "We can't confirm this is Noah's Ark. We can't confirm yet that this is, uh, man-made. We, we did the scans. We found anomalies that have right angles, and so we're going in to check, and, and we're gonna see." But the Daily Mail decided they wanted to say, "100% confirmed." And it's in quotation marks even though no such quotation is found anywhere in the actual reportage.

Dan Beecher Okay, right.

Dan McClellan But then Andrew Jones's, uh, I believe, Facebook account or some account, Noah's Ark Scans, po- reposted it yesterday, and they added the following: "We are 100% sure that the Daily Mail will come under fire for this headline. But knowing what we know now, we are also 100% sure that they are not going to have to issue a retraction." "We will be releasing more information soon. Help us make the evidence of Noah's Ark irrefutable, and share it with the world. No..." And then we got a hyperlink, noahscarkscans.com/donate.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So this is-

Dan Beecher Exactly

Dan McClellan ... this is a, a request for money.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, even though ostensibly, if they have the data to 100% confirm things, they don't need to continue to fundraise. Um-

Dan Beecher Yeah, publish

Dan McClellan ... they just need to publish. Uh, and n- I have been going back and forth with, uh, somebody who I don't know, is their promotional person or something like that-

Dan Beecher Oh

Dan McClellan ... um, on Twitter. Uh, I've-- And, and I forgot the name of the person, but she is-- she presents herself as their social media guru or something like that. I don't know.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan But, uh, and, and the thing that I have been pointing out online is that this is not the first time people have gone in and done core drilling here. It has happened before.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan It happened back in 1987 and 1988. In 1987, an actual geophysicist named John Baumgardner went and conducted scans using ground-penetrating radar, found anomalies that were suggestive to him of a human-made object, and very excited because he fully believed this to be Noah's Ark, began core drilling in 1988. And you can go find the report that he released, uh, in 1987, where the conclusion says, you know, um, "Exhort the, the, uh, the Turkish government to allow us to, uh, conduct core drilling." And then the very next ye- They got that permission, and then they went, and they conducted the core drilling, and they found bedrock.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And they, they conducted four, uh, they drilled four holes, three along the, the center ridge, the midline of this, uh, Noah's vulva- ... and, uh, one a little off to the side, and they found bedrock. In fact, on the, on one end of the, the ship, they found bedrock exposed to the surface. Like, it was bedrock and then air.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Like, it was just sitting there, bedrock. And so they basically said, "We're done here." And, uh, and Baumgardner had to-- He, he didn't publish this because it w- basically, the expedition was a failure. He didn't get what he wanted out of it. He had no reason to write this up, submit it to a journal somewhere for peer review, and get published. But we have emails from him saying, "Here's what happened. Here's what I found. We dug these four holes to 10 meters and, and five meters and four meters and blah, blah, blah, and this is what we found. And so yeah, it's a big nothing burger."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So I, I've been pointing that out. When people are like, "Oh, they just go where they are," I've been pointing out, no, this has happened before.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And we're in the period between the initial report and then the later- dejected emails, uh, from-

Dan Beecher The, no, yeah, the later silence where they will just skulk away with their tail between their legs and try not to make any hay anymore.

Dan McClellan Yes. And-

Dan Beecher Or try to get more money. The... What they'll do is they'll pretend like there's still hope-

Dan McClellan Yeah, and-

Dan Beecher ... and, and try to get more money.

Dan McClellan And they'll fundraise on precisely the same stuff. "We have the data. We know for sure. It is irrefutable."

Dan Beecher Right. "We just haven't-

Dan McClellan "We can't share it with you."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Or if they do share it, what they'll do is they'll leak, or not, probably not leak, but they'll publicize selective data that has been interpreted already for you.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because a lot of the images that you see of, uh, like the, the reds and the blue globules that are, you know, supposed to be imagery from the scans, those are manipulated. Like, those are the... That's not just the results you get back from the computer. That is where they have gone in and said, "Okay, interpret this this way, interpret this this way-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... and, and punch up an image based on those guidelines." And so that's interpreted data. And so I imagine that what they'll end up doing is there will be a slow trickle of interpreted data that are suggestive of something.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Where they don't have to, they don't make any firm claims that they can later, uh, be shown to have fabricated, but they also will not share anything that will convince anyone who has an inkling of a capacity for critical thought.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It'll convince a lot of people who are really eager to be convinced. You know what I mean? There's a whole group of people who are motivated to believe this.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And I understand that. Uh, and as a matter of fact, I, uh, you know, it's... Because so, so often, especially here in the United States, but elsewhere also, uh, pastors and priests, you know, they build their theology around the idea of an inerrant, absolutely 100% true Bible, and then you have to go back and make everything work. And, you know, as, as this show has sort of made it a point to point out every week, you can't.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It just, it just doesn't work that way. And if they would just say, "These are stories that are an important part," uh, like, the stories are an important part of our history, but the history is not... The, the, the stories that they tell are not history themselves.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And that would make things a lot easier. But I do wanna take this back to the Bible.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Because one of the first things that I noticed when I watched one of the, uh, videos from Noah's Ark scams- ... was that they, uh, you know, the, the woman's standing there, and she's like, "I'm here at the site, and behind me is Mount Ararat, and here I am." And so, and that got me thinking, like, "What?" I n- first of all, that mountain was not called Mount Ararat back anciently, right?

Dan McClellan Right. Yeah. No, this is, uh-

Dan Beecher So talk about that a little bit

Dan McClellan ... uh, medieval period, I think, is when, um, when that specific peak becomes identified as, as Mount Ararat. But when we go look in the Bible, it doesn't actually say Mount Ararat. It says the Mountains of Ararat.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And anciently, the name Ararat was a designation for an entire region-

Dan Beecher Okay

Dan McClellan ... that covered, uh, that swept across, uh, eastern Turkey and northern Syria, and that region was named that, uh, in, at the beginning of the first millennium BCE. So there was, there wasn't even such a place as Ararat anywhere near, anywhere within 2,000 years of an ostensible historical Noah. It-

Dan Beecher Meaning a singular peak.

Dan McClellan Well, even just a region.

Dan Beecher Oh, wow, okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. So, and, and the, the region was named after a people group that didn't exist even within 2,000 years of, uh, an ostensible historical Noah. So what happens is the name Ararat is based on the region occupied for, uh, occupied by a people that had only been occupied by that people for a few centuries by the time of the, its designation as Ararat.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And the story uses that designation, which is a pretty good chronological indicator of when the story was written.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It was written when there was a region called Ararat named after the people that occupied that region in a given time period. And- Okay,

Dan Beecher but, uh, devil's advocate here.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher First of all, question. The mountain that is now known as Ar- Ararat in Turkey, would that have been considered, would that have been part of the zone that would've been part of Ararat at the time that the book was written?

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So it-

Dan Beecher That's the first thing

Dan McClellan ... yeah, we're in, we're in the, a r- related area. That's-

Dan Beecher So it... And also, even if this was written, you know, y- it could, you could very easily say, "Okay, well, this was written well after the fact of Noah's time-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... but I'm just going to use the current designation of this area to indicate that area, even though I don't know what it was called back then. But it was, but we know that it was in this area of Ararat." You know, like, like, if I say that the ancient Pueblo Indians were in the, the, you know, the Arizona or whatever, they wouldn't have called it Arizona, but that's what we would call it, so that's-

Dan McClellan Right

Dan Beecher ... so that's the designation that you give it.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh- So, so, like, all of that isn't that big of a problem for me. The problem, what-- but there are really big problems, uh, one of which being that when the lady says, uh, you know, "Behind me is Mount Ararat, and here we are," and Mount Ararat is risen s- significantly higher than the area where they are.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher I went back and read the story, and this boat stopped on top, on the very tippity-top of the, what, what must have been one of the tallest mountains, because it rests there for a while, and the water still doesn't go down, and still doesn't go down, and still doesn't go down. And, you know, the bird can't find an, an olive leaf-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... for, for weeks.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So to me, that says this boat was on the tippity-top of a mountain.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Does that make sense? Am I, am I off on that?

Dan McClellan No, that, that makes perfect sense, and the, and the argument is that over the thousands of years, it has slid down.

Dan Beecher It sailed. It-

Dan McClellan The, the only problem is, and, and I'd have to pull up that video again, but I think there's a valley in between where the person is standing filming that video and the peak of Mount Ararat.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan 'Cause it did not slide back up-

Dan Beecher Right, yeah

Dan McClellan ... another, uh, another hillside.

Dan Beecher Right, yeah.

Dan McClellan Um-

Dan Beecher It went down one and up another and whatever.

Dan McClellan But, uh-

Dan Beecher It,

Dan McClellan uh,

Dan Beecher it does seem a little weird. I, I guess if it fell off of the thing or whatever and then landed perfectly upright on its, in its- ... in its current resting spot, I don't know.

Dan McClellan Yeah, it, uh-

Dan Beecher The other, the other biblical thing that I, like, was ... I, I suddenly had to, like, do back of the envelope calculations on-

Dan McClellan Uh-huh

Dan Beecher ... because they, one of the claims that they make is that the length is perfect.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher It's exactly right for the boat.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Now, I looked it up and, you know, the, the, the boat as it's described... And I, by the way, can we just start calling it boat? 'Cause nobody says ark.

Dan McClellan Instead of

Dan Beecher ark. Ark doesn't mean- Yeah,

Dan McClellan ark just means box-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... um, in, in Hebrew.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So I, so yes, I, let's, I'm gonna call it a boat or a ship.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Ship is fine too.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Anyway-

Dan McClellan You got bulva too. Bulva is an option

Dan Beecher ... well, well, sure.

Dan McClellan It's on the table.

Dan Beecher All, all are acceptable-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... n- just not ark. Um, so this, uh, so this boat was, uh, cubits. It was measured in cubits.

Dan McClellan Yes, yes.

Dan Beecher Uh, and we don't actually know what they meant by a cubit, but generally speaking... Well, we know, like, you know, the elbow to tip of the finger, right? That's the basic idea.

Dan McClellan So it, it, it depended on what kind of cubit you're talking about. Um, but yeah, it could be. That was one of the measurements, but it varied by region, and so-

Dan Beecher Well, yeah. Some, I mean, even it varies by human. Like- ... my cubit may measure very differently to your cubit.

Dan McClellan Yes, just like a foot is, uh, you know, your foot may not be exactly one foot.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, so there's, you have the short cubit, which is around 18 inches, and that would give us a length of about 450 feet. Uh, there's the l- the longer royal cubit, which, uh, The Ark Encounter says 20.4 inches is what they-

Dan Beecher Okay

Dan McClellan ... um, provide, which gives you 510 feet. 515 feet is, I think, what the, uh, what they say our Durupinar, um, formation measures.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And, you know, w- where are you measuring to?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Because, like, these are pretty thick ridges. It's like, is it the inside of the ridge, the outside of the ridge, the center of the ridge? Do you have some kind of high point that you're measuring to?

Dan Beecher Do you, do you go from the clit to the-

Dan McClellan Can we use that word on here? We just

Dan Beecher did, baby

Dan McClellan We just, all right.

Dan Beecher So we're, we're diving. Um-

Dan McClellan Oh, gosh. Um, and so yeah, they, they say it's exactly the, the right dimensions, which is, again, okay, but you've got a pretty big-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... uh, window of, of measurements.

Dan Beecher It's pretty funny to say exactly the right dimensions when we have no way of getting exact about this.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher There's just no chance of exactness.

Dan McClellan So it's like as long as you make all these decisions the way I think you should make them-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... then we get close.

Dan Beecher Right. But the, the other thing is that we know the width of our boat, our biblical boat also, and that doesn't work at all- ... for their, for, for the, uh, the, the Durupinar-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... uh, uh, formation.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher It does, like, literally the width of the biblical ark, I think if we're using the, the, the royal cubit-

Dan McClellan The royal cubit, mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... it's, like, 86 feet-

Dan McClellan Right

Dan Beecher ... wide, and the Durupinar formation is 100 and, almost 140 feet.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So we-

Dan Beecher That's a pretty big discrepancy. Yeah, yeah,

Dan McClellan yeah. So it expanded without e- losing any length-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... and also without compromising the, uh, its periphery. Like, none of the edges were broken off or anything like that.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So how did it do that?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Um, and also the, you know, when, when you look at some of the scans that, uh, that Jones provided, they're like, "Look, we got the, all these right angles." And it's like, okay, these right angles and the, the lines that you're, that you're identifying are not parallel or perpendicular to the center line of this thing. They're at, they're at a bit of an angle, but you wanna-

Dan Beecher Hey, Dan, Noah's never made a boat before. Give him, cut him a break. If his angles are off-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... you gotta cut him a break on that.

Dan McClellan Look, they didn't, they didn't have the laser lines that we use today. They didn't even have a chalk line.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, it was, uh, it was kind of eyeballing it. But they want us to believe that all of these features of its dimensions were compromised. Like it slid out and, you know, fell apart and disintegrated and degrad- dated. And when it was sliding down the glacier and up the other side of the hill- ... um, you know, it all got all skiwampus. However, it stayed exactly 515 feet long. That's the only thing that did not change- Right ... by a single inch. So-

Dan Beecher Yeah. I, I, you know, I, I, I saw that they were talking about the width and, like, they have this idea that it splayed or that it, you know, it sort of disintegrated and fell apart and, and that's how it... And it does, you know, I, I looked into this too, and there is enough verticality to Noah's boat that, you know, if you, if you cut a middle section and then dropped it wide, you could get the width that they, uh, that, that, that, that formation has. But that's not how boats do. Like, boats are joined, boat joining, the joinery of a boat is super important to how- Yeah ... boats work.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And also, c- can we just get into a little bit about how the preservation of wood happens or doesn't happen? Because we're talking, what, they're claiming 6,000-plus years ago.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh-

Dan McClellan Pretty damp territory, uh, by, by all accounts- Yeah ... given that the entire earth just flooded.

Dan Beecher Yeah. I just, I, it, like, if it were... Well, dampness is interesting because if it, in order for wood to be preserved, one of the best things to do is have it submerged completely- Mm-hmm ... which then blocks all oxygen from getting to it, or, or, you know, all airborne oxygen, and then that can actually be helpful in preserving. That's why, that, you know, for example, that's why, um, what, uh, Venice, which is all, which, which is on pillars of wood that are- Mm-hmm ... still there hundreds of years later, and the wood's fine because it's on, it's submerged.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher But the second you pull it out of water, it rots instantly. It goes away. It's just, it's just so weird that, and, you know, it doesn't petrify. The, the, the, the, the things that have to happen for wood to petrify and turn into rock are, uh, definitely not present at the- ... because, because it, they- Yeah.

Dan McClellan What is it, 6,000-ish years, 5,000-ish years? Uh, when it should take hundreds to mil- hundreds of thousands to millions of years for, for it to petrify.

Dan Beecher Well, not only that, but, like, y- you have to be, it has to have, like, very specific mineralization in the water that's flowing over it, and it has to be covered in mud, and it has to be, like, there's all of these things that have to happen. This is, and we, and also, it's very easy-

Dan McClellan Well, it can't decay. It's, it's like the, it's a entirely distinct process from, uh, decaying.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It is a- It's- ... non-decayed-

Dan Beecher It's, it's- ...

Dan McClellan wood.

Dan Beecher And it, and it's, so it's, it's a gradual replacement of the wood with minerals. But s- you can test for that. That's easy to test for. If it were petrified wood, somebody would have done r- they've, I guarantee you, they've run tests to say, "Hey, is this petrified wood?" It ain't. So all they have going for them are these scans, these radar scans, and these, and they're testing these, uh, core samples.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm. D- do

Dan Beecher they have anything else?

Dan McClellan Right now, the, no, just the- ... the core samples.

Dan Beecher It-

Dan McClellan And, and they're arguing that, uh, the, well, well, one, they, the claim the radars are able to mute or eliminate any responses from geologic features. Which, which I d- I don't know how-

Dan Beecher I don't know what that means. I don't know enough about radar to know what that means. Yeah.

Dan McClellan Well, it, the idea is, oh, if we're getting any re- uh, responses here, if we're getting any feedback that indicate these anomalies, the anomalies cannot be associated with rock or bedrock- Yeah ... I think is the claim. Now, I, I looked up the, the guy who's, who's been saying all this, and he does run a company that has been working with the US military to try to develop ground-penetrating radar, uh, image- imaging systems that can do that. And there's a report from, like, 2002 where the military was like, "Yeah, they got it wrong a bunch." Um, and, you know, who knows what is... He's still working with them, so obviously he's made progress. So who knows what they're capable of doing. But I don't think they're at a point, and people who are, who are f- at all familiar with geophysics, uh, will know far more than, than you and I put together. But I, I, I'm not aware, based on what research I was able to cobble together, of technology where you can say, "Ignore rocks"- Right ... and it can just do that. I think you still have to, uh, fiddle with it and impose interpretive frameworks upon it- Right ... uh, upon the results after you've received them in order to try to get rid of any noise that might be the result of, uh, rocks and bedrock and things like that. But they, they are also claiming that their drill can't go through rock. But they just said that their drill broke on something hard. And they're like, "It's gotta be harder than limestone 'cause it can go through limestone." Uh,

Dan Beecher okay.

Dan McClellan It's like, limestone's a rock.

Dan Beecher Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's-

Dan McClellan Um, and they're like, "Maybe it's petrified wood." And it's like, so I'm, I'm a little confused by the claim that it must be petrified wood because the drill can't go through rock. Um- But it can go through other kinds of rocks. Um, I'm, I'm not sure exactly what that's supposed to indicate. Um-

Dan Beecher And here's the thing. You- we're not gonna be inviting a geologist onto the show to refute this because even if they got some of the results back that they are hoping to get, they still have a whole problem of the Earth never flooded. There's no- Like, we, we know that that didn't happen. We have so many more sciences that they have to surmount before-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... we can-

Dan McClellan Oh, this, they, they could discover a boat.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan They could discover a boat. And all this means is that there's a boat there.

Dan Beecher There's a boat.

Dan McClellan Because-

Dan Beecher You have discovered a boat

Dan McClellan ... for, for all we know, the story of Noah's Ark was inspired by people being like, "Yeah, there's a boat up on that hill- ... that's old and rotting away, and we don't know where it came from," and they came up with that story.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Like, just discovering wood there, just- ... even discovering some kind of human-made structure doesn't prove anything. Discovering a freaking boat that's 515 feet long doesn't prove anything. Now, it does change the algebra a little bit. It does become a lot more fascinating. I would be, and, and this is where a lot of people on social media are like, "Ooh, you're so scared." No, I would be ecstatic-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... if we discovered a giant boat on this hillside. I would-

Dan Beecher That'd be really cool.

Dan McClellan It would be really cool. If it had Noah carved in the side of it- ... I would be ecstatic.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I can't explain how ecstatic I would be, but I live in the world that is outside of my brain- ... not only the world that is inside of my brain, and I just, that is just not a plausibility-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... for me right now. If that changes based on some data, great, but we've seen this before. We've been here before. This kind of rhetorical, uh, presentation of the data where we're selectively giving you only the data that we wanna give you, and we're framing it in a way so you have to accept our interpretation-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... and we're not experts, um, like we've seen this before. It has never borne fruit. It has always, absolutely always ended up in slinking away in silence and shame, or as we saw with Baumgardner, just being like, "I wanted it to be a boat. Not a boat." Not a boat. It sucks. Um, like that- that's at least a scientist with integrity. Uh, what we have is someone who's not a scientist, who is spreading a lot of misinformation, who is allowing a lot of sensationalist claims out there, and is even stoking the fires of the sensationalism, being like, "Ooh, they're not gonna have to retract their statement."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "I got this special secret, and we're gonna let you know."

Dan Beecher Does the Daily Mail even retract anything? I mean-

Dan McClellan No, they-

Dan Beecher ... it's kind of a rag anyway. They don't need to re-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... they won't retract it. Even-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... if it comes out that it was wrong, they wouldn't retract.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So-

Dan Beecher All right

Dan McClellan ... it's, it's a mess. But, uh, there's a, there's a great paper by Lawrence Collins and David Fassold from 1996 in a journal called Journal of Geoscience Education. It is entitled Bogus Noah's Ark from Turkey Exposed as a Common Geologic Structure. Um, this is a good discussion of, of, uh, what the scientists did with the, the data they got from these, uh, what was conducted in 1987 and '88. And until something is published in a peer-reviewed academic venue, I think that is the, that is standing law, is, is the conclusions of that, uh, paper. And the, the very first sentence of the conclusion is, "Evidence from microscopic studies and photo analyses demonstrates that the supposed ark is a completely natural rock formation. It cannot have been Noah's Ark, nor even a man-made model." So I, I think that's where we are.

Dan Beecher Boo, boring. Science l- science is lame.

Dan McClellan And, and Jones is, is, whatever he finds is not gonna get published in a legitimate peer-reviewed academic publication because it would be utterly eviscerated. Uh, he-

Dan Beecher Because they're too afraid of the truth, man.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's, and, and that just shows that this is not an academic venture. This is not a scientific investigation. This is somebody who thinks he's Indiana Jones.

Dan Beecher So you're saying that I was dumb to give them my money then?

Dan McClellan Well, it depends on how much money you gave them. I think there's a, I think you get a little grace period for a few bucks. But, uh-

Dan Beecher Well, okay. There you go.

Dan McClellan As long as it didn't come from the show. Um-

Dan Beecher Oh, no. That's-

Dan McClellan ... uh, we have-

Dan Beecher All, every-

Dan McClellan Our LLC has an, uh, has an image to maintain, so.

Dan Beecher Well, all, all of my donations come from the show, so that's- You should not have given me access to the bank account. That's all there is to it. Uh, hey, you know, uh, that's it for that. But if folks want to give us a donation-

Dan McClellan Ooh

Dan Beecher ... because we, uh, like to stay data-oriented and not try to, uh, scam people-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... uh, they can do that. One of the ways that you can do that is here on YouTube. You can become a, a member, and you c- you, there's a little join button somewhere around that's different than the subscribe button. We, hopefully you've already subscribed. That's free. Subscribe. It doesn't hurt you. Uh, but then you can join and become a member. By the time this comes out, Dan, you and I will have done our first members-only, uh, live-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... for the people. So hopefully a bunch of you members were there and, uh, got to experience that. Um, we haven't experienced it yet, so wow, you're in the future. Uh, but yeah, please feel free, uh, to join up there, or you can become a patron over on patreon.com/dataoverdogma, where you can get early ad-free versions of the, of every episode of the show. And, uh, and yeah, this kind of goodie, uh, our patrons will also get to do the lives as well. Lots of fun for all of the people who give us their money. Um, and it keeps the show going, and we're just so appreciative of that. So, uh, please consider becoming one of those. And if y- and otherwise, like, comment, subscribe, and we will chat with you again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.