At a glance
The quantity of biologically derived material is a legitimate challenge to a recent-history model. It cannot be resolved by an unsupported claim about enormous pre-Flood biomass. Ross’s calculation also requires stated inventory and production assumptions. The linked FAO rate is an annual estimate; Table 17.1’s totals are not assessed here because its cells were missing from the extracted book text.
What Ross argues
Chapter 17 compares Earth’s biologically derived deposits with the production possible within a recent history. Ross treats the scale of the inventory as evidence against assigning it to a short pre-Flood period and a single Flood. The cited sections introduce quantities, Table 17.1 and a biological-production challenge. [1]
The available book text included the table’s surrounding discussion but omitted the cells of Table 17.1. This page therefore does not quote its rows, assess the totals, or present a recalculation of the whole table. That is a specific source-access limit, rather than a claim that the entire book was unavailable.
The biblical claim is narrower than the inventory model
Genesis 1:11–13 attributes vegetation to God’s creation. Genesis 7:17–8:19 describes the Flood and its recession. Neither passage assigns every modern fossil-fuel deposit or organic-bearing rock to that one event, or specifies its carbon inventory.
A YEC scientific account must explain which materials it assigns to creation, the pre-Flood world, the Flood and later processes, and why. It cannot simply exclude difficult deposits from its budget by calling them created. Conversely, a criticism of one Flood-burial model does not itself establish the timescale of every possible recent-history account.
What the FAO source actually supports
The FAO chapter cited in the book reports approximately 3 × 10²¹ joules per year converted through photosynthesis. Section 2.1.1 presents that as an annual estimate; section 2.2.1 separately discusses conversion-efficiency limits. It does not label the annual figure an absolute maximum for every possible past environment. [2] Treating an annual estimate as a universal production ceiling needs an additional argument. That distinction does not show that the necessary ancient biomass existed.
What a defensible calculation needs
An inventory is a stock; photosynthetic production is a flow over time. Comparing them requires compatible units, a stated duration, and treatment of burial, decomposition, recycling and preservation. Carbon mass, total dry biomass and energy-equivalent fuel quantities are not interchangeable without conversions. Counting the same material in multiple categories would also need to be excluded.
The YEC response must supply evidence for any proposed production or preservation rate. More sunlight, favorable climate or rapid burial cannot be assumed to provide whatever factor the arithmetic requires. Ross’s account must similarly show how the cited rate and inventory support its accumulation-time conclusion.
The quantitative question remains open
A full quantitative comparison requires the missing table data and a demonstrated budget for any proposed pre-Flood productivity. The biblical scope and the FAO source’s qualification do not, by themselves, establish either model’s accumulation timescale.
References below identify sections of the 2025 RTB Press first edition; they do not supply printed page numbers.