AlanB
One theory could be that they were other pockets of people who survived the flood, living in mountainous areas or having sea faring abilities. These groups not living in the fertile crescent expanded slower than the Noah families and remained isolated until contacted by the rest of the human family.
Er... that theory would be wrong. There were trees growing before during and any 'Flood' in the time period given in Bible. If the Biblical Flood IS a historical occurance, it wasn't worldwide. There is so much evidence to support this assertion and NONE to back up a glovbal flood to refuse to accept it is unreasonbale.
The tree evidence is based on counting tree rings, not some highly technical scientific method. Check up on dendrochronology.
And re. Giants; (great quote from Stephen J Gould by the way!)
That's raised a very good point; you know the film 'Them' with the giant ants caused by radiation?
Couldn't happen; ants would have to evolve a completely different respiration system to grow that big, as the standard insect one simply wouldn't work beyond a certain size.
It's like dragons; lovely idea, but any lizard that big couldn't fly without the parallel develpment of a super-charged respiration system... let alone the breathing fire bit.
Someone quotes a reputable scientist pointing out correctly the human body only works in a certain size range; any significant excursion beyond this would reuire extreme skeletal modifications to work. As the reports of finding enormous human boines always describe them as essentailly bigger versions of normal bones, they can essentially be regarded as self-falsifying, as they are describing what a layman would expect to find if he found giant human bones... not what a scientist would describe if he was describing the bones of a giant race of hominids.
Despite this reasonable argument, we still have people hoping to see the 'giant skeletons' in the baement. Well, when you see them be sure to get me some dragoin teeth; apparently they turn into skeletal worriors if you throw them on the ground...
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an announcement; just because you want it, doesn't make it real... please download the current version of reality and restart your system.