Creation Research Database

To the Ark, and Back Again? Using the Marsupial Fossil Record to Investigate the Post-Flood Boundary—Comment 1

Mogk, Nathan W. (2025) To the Ark, and Back Again? Using the Marsupial Fossil Record to Investigate the Post-Flood Boundary—Comment 1. Answers Research Journal, 18: 1. pp. 1-3. ISSN 1937-9056

Abstract

Arment's paper on the marsupial fossil record and the post-Flood boundary contains a major statistical error, which impacts the ability to quantitatively consider the implications of the fossil data in context of the various Flood boundary proposals he considers. Specifically, he considers arrivals of each boundary crossing taxon to be statistically independent. This assumption alone is responsible for the eyebrow-raising magnitude of the final probabilities (for all boundary positions). The Law of Total Probability should have been used to produce much more realistic probability estimates. An updated estimate of the probabilities for Australian marsupials is equivalent to calling 22 coin flips, rather than Arment's 68 dice rolls.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Q Science (General) > QA Mathematics > QA75 Computer Science > QA76 Computer Software > QA273 Probabilities and Statistics
Q Science (General) > QE Geology > QE760 Paleontology
Q Science (General) > QS Creation Science (General) > QS7 The Genesis Flood
Depositing User: Admin
Date Deposited: 04 Sep 2026 23:41
Last Modified: 04 Sep 2026 23:41
URI: https://crsq.creationresearch.org/id/eprint/1516

Actions (login required)

View Item
View Item