lpetrich

In the Adam and Eve creation story, we learn that that wicked snake was ordered to crawl on its belly as punishment for the mischief it had done.

Which raises the question of how that snake had traveled before that. In the Scopes Monkey Trial, one possibility mentioned was that that snake had hopped on its tail like a pogo stick.

Buckster

Perhaps it curled up in a ball and rolled, though I tend to believe it probably just hitched a ride on passing talking donkeys.

Hubzilla

I always pictured him coiled like a spring and bouncing around, like the old Q-Bert video game.

RyanS2

The bouncing snake image is kind of funny to think about. I think the "original snake" was probably assumed to have four legs like a lizard. How it talked though is what confuses me....

Pandora

As the proud owner of the world’s most spoilt python, here are a few snake bytes:

Snakes don’t have ears, so it would be hard for one to hear or to talk.

There are remnants of pelvic bones and hind legs that can be seen on x-rays in pythons (one of the more primitive snakes) – I’m not an expert on other species so I don’t know if this goes for all snakes. The spurs that you find beside the cloacae are the external remnants of legs and are functional in breeding.

Obviously this does not show that it was evolution that caused an originally four legged animal to become legless, but is in fact proof that Goddiditt.

Some scientists believe that his magic zapper stick wasn’t working too well that day and left behind a few bits.

Others are more convinced that Satan stuck them on later so as to help propagate that most foul of religions: Evilution.

Oolon Colluphid

Sorry, not strictly true. See <a href="http://www.anapsid.org/torrey.html" target="_blank">http://www.anapsid.org/torrey.html</a>
No doubt about the talking bit though. No larynx, you see. Though I imagine if they could talk, they would have a lissssp.

Nope, only the boidae (pythons and boas) have these vestiges. They also have two fairly well developed lungs, unlike most, in which the left lung is reduced or absent.

And before any creationist says that means their not vestigial, let me point out that vestigial doesn’t mean ‘without use’, simply that it is a heavily downgraded version of something. If designed, why use the form of a reduced something else?

(The other usual example is the human coccyx. "Not vestigial!" cry the cretinists, "it's got muscle attachments!" Yeah? So why is it made up of several bones of the same design and in the same place as the ones that usually form a tail, and why do they fuse into a single piece? Why not a single bone? If it looks like a diminutive duck, quacks like a duck...)

The best snake book I know of is Harry Greene’s completely wonderful <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520200144/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature</a>. Glorious photos, and all the snake info you can eat. No mention of talking and pogo-ing ones though.

Cheers, Oolon

[ February 22, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Pandora

Thanks for that link Oolon,

I shall now feel less of a wally talking away to Portius.

Major Billy

Why, it had <a href="http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/5001/5001_01.asp" target="_blank"> arms and legs</a> before that. Didn't you know that?

David Bowden

I think the look on that guy's face says it all.

Malik Taus

yeah! and EYELIDS!