Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Saturday fun: Is this fish the origin of the sea serpent legend?

Denyse O'Leary
October 19, 2013
Intelligent Design, Just For Fun, Mind, News
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File:Giant Oarfish.jpg
giant oarfish, washed up at San Diego in 1996, 23 ft (7.0 m) long and weighed 300 lb (140 kg), held by navy hands

Twice, giant oarfish washed up on beaches in Southern California recently. A denizen of the deep, it is not often seen, and seldom alive.

According to the Catalina Island Marine Institute, oarfish can grow to more than 50 feet, making them the longest bony fish in the world.

They are likely responsible for sea serpent legends throughout history.

Good thesis. It’s unwise to simply discount legends; they are usually based on something, if only because few human beings have the imagination to invent a durable icon without any materials from nature at all.

Live oarfish.

Oarfish live, at one min:

Comments
lifepsy Its implied. its not just critters on dry land but all life, save for remnants, was destroyed. why otherwise allow the difference. god was just pointing out to Noah why the strange need to fill the ark. by the way i think the bible teaches, in revelation,that it was satan who destroyed the earth with a flood etc etc. god for his own motives just takes the responsibility for it. Yet as in the book of Job god didn't kill anybody or anything himself. its a equation of physics motivation Robert Byers
Robert, the Bible says only all life on dry land was destroyed by the flood. So it is expected to find sea creatures that date back to the original creation. Genesis 7:21-22 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. The argument can also be made that this does not include plants and insects, since neither breathe through nostrils. It makes sense that some insects would have been able to survive floating on mats of debris and vegetation. lifepsy
Probably just regular things BUT from YEC creationist models there is no reason not to have had since the great flood surviving great sea creatures as now found in fossil forms. The sea life was destroyed by the flood and God just kept samples of everything as on the ark, So all creatures survived and perhaps well into recorded history. Today they could still be alive somewhere in the vast seas. Robert Byers

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