Duvenoy

No, God had nothing to do with it. Ed was/is here and it sort of took off with a life of it's own.

But, if you've the patience (or are masoshistic enough) to go through the entire thing, you'll find some excellent information, all thanks to Ed. :banghead:

Ed, we owe ya one, bro!

doov

Jack the Bodiless

The serious problems of atheism as a worldview?, also featuring the inimitable Ed, was actually a few pages bigger (though not as old): 881 posts, 36 pages.

I expect this one will catch up, though.

Ed

"Closely resemble" is pretty close to the same thing after 100my.
I closely resemble my father and yet we are both humans.

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duv: This might turn out to be a daunting task. Most ancient snakes are known from fossil vertebra, skull fragments, and teeth. Due to their delicatcy, snakes just don't fossilize well. Serpents, like every other form of life on this bruised and battered planet have indeed evolved over the last 16m years. I wonder at what point they developed duvernoy's organ and the incredable fangs, many of them, the very longist, folding back and swinging out like switch-blades, to inject it's venom.

What was the transition from non-folding back fangs to folding back fangs? Any intermediate form would be useless.

Quote:

duv: Damn. How long ago did I post that article, anyway? Ed, you're gettin' slow, bro. Hmm. My 1,000th post. Have I now officially qualified for the No Life Club? doov

I have a real life in addition to this board. Congratulations!

lpetrich

I wonder what makes His Eddianness such an expert on snake anatomy.

Duvenoy

The tired, old 'half a wing' argument. Ed, I'd thought better of ya!

I don't know. As stated, decent snake fossils are hard to come by. Howsomever, perhaps modern species can help us out a little. Pull up a chair, get comfortable, and smoke 'em if ya got 'em.

All modern snakes have duvernoy's organ. All Elapids have fixed fangs. Some Colubrids also have fixedfangs located toward the rear of the mouth. Only a few of these last are medically significant, notably, the Boomslang (forgive me for not adding all of the Latin. I can't memorize it all, and am too lazy to look it up).

Ok, these are called: "rear-fanged". Some have their fans so far back that they must all but swallow the prey to inject venom. However, our friend, the 'Slang has it's fangs almost in the middle of the mouth, not so far to the rear at all. While all of these Colubrids chew to inject, This snake almost doesn't have too. They have one more thing in common: Their fangs are merely long, grooved teeth, rather than the hypodermic needles found in Elapids and Viperids.

On to Elapids: All of these serpents are front fanged. Perhaps the most notable, speaking fang-wise, is the Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis). These have fangs so far forward that they nearly out of the mouth. Some Cobra fangs have modified orfices so that they can actually spit venom a considerable distance as a defensive tactic. They 'aim' for the face of a threat, and my right eye can tell you that they are pretty, damned accurate. These fangs are, of course, hollow rather than grooved.

Now, my personal favorites, the Viperids. All of these not only have hollow fangs, but the fangs are so long that they can't fit in the mouth erect. Thus, they fold back. The length of the fangs on some of these is all but grotesque. An Adult Gaboon Viper (Bitis gabonica} might have stickers nearly 2 inches long, Yikes! This is coupled with the fastest striking system of all snakes.

It is very easy to see which has the most efficent envenomation system. The deeper the venom is injected, the quicker the prey is subdued. The rush and grab method of the Colubrids and, to a large extent, the elapids, is effective, but not all that efficent. Viperids are rarely bitten or otherwise injured by their prey, as they can let it go, to track down in due course.

Three types of fangs. It is not so outrageous to speculate that ancient grooves closed into tubes and, over time, the fangs moved forward in the mouth, as they seem to be doing with the Boomer.

But wait! I almost forgot the Heloderma!

The Gila monster and the related Beaded Lizard are the only venomous lizards in the world and they have no fangs! The venom flows around the base of the teeth.

Are you sitting down? The Heloderma are the only venomous reptiles that do not use venom to capture prey. It is strictly defensive, and a bite from one is truly nasty. I haven't been Gila-bit, but I know someone who has. It'll make you change your mind in a hurry, he sez.

So, evolution marches on. Speculation: What if serpents venom originally was used for defense, like today's Gilas, but eventually became a feeding aid? As mentioned before, the longer the fang, the better to envenomate. It is not difficult to imagine modified teeth developing a muscular structure to fold them away when not needed. All it would take is time.

But, as I said at the get-go, "I don't know." Perhaps, if the fossils turn up, someday I will.

doov

Doubting Didymus

Can god make a thread so big that he can't be bothered reading the whole thing?

pz

If he can, we moderators are greater than god because we've suffered through this whole dreadful thing.

Doubting Didymus

It's starting to grow on me. It's a familar face, having been here longer than I have.

Ed

They passed over the fact that this was written in phenomenlogical language.

Quote:

lp: Ed clearly interprets away any part of the Bible he dislikes, like the flat-earth and geocentric parts.

There are no such parts as I demonstrated.

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lp: (Kepler on astrology, Newton on alchemy and the Trinity...) Ed: These men were just great theistic scientists not infallible gods. They made their share of mistakes. lp: But these are supposed to be superior beings.

Huh? I never said such a thing.

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lp: I note also that Ed rejects Galileo's view that the Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go.

Actually I agree with him. I said that the bible is not a science textbook but just that it is accurate on the areas that it covers.

Quote:

(Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran) Ed: All of those denominations accepted the core teachings of Christianity which were essential for the development of experimental science. lp: That's beside the point. Why aren't you converting to any of these?

Why should I? As I stated, at their core they are the same.

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lp: Also, what Ed calls "Christianity" might best be called Eddianity. Which he projects onto anyone he likes.

Evidence?

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lp: And Ed fails to address the question of why science got restarted in northwestern Europe centuries after Constantine made Xtianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. If Xtianity is such a superscientific religion, then the Byzantine Empire would have developed modern science long ago.

Because of the limited access to the scriptures. Once the scriptures were widely diseminated after the Reformation science flourished.

lpetrich

Ed:
They passed over the fact that this was written in phenomenlogical language.

Where in the Bible does it warn of that?

There is some indirect evidence that the Bible was written only for its immediate audience, and not for all of humanity over all places and all times.

There is a fair amount of less-than-clear vocabulary, like the terms for all the different kinds of animals in Leviticus 11. The authors must have taken them for granted, otherwise they would have done what they did in the rest of the book and offered some exacting guide for identifying them.

That book specifies the details of animal sacrifice and other offerings in rather exacting detail, and one of its few ancedotes is the story of how Nadab and Abihu got zapped for burning incorrect incense.

lp: Ed clearly interprets away any part of the Bible he dislikes, like the flat-earth and geocentric parts.

There are no such parts as I demonstrated.

With totally vacuous "demonstrations".

lp: I note also that Ed rejects Galileo's view that the Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go.

Actually I agree with him. I said that the bible is not a science textbook but just that it is accurate on the areas that it covers.

His Eddianness thus claims that the Bible is accurate about how the heavens go, thus asserting what he had denied half a sentence before.

(converting to other Xtian denominations...)

Why should I? As I stated, at their core they are the same.

His Eddianness projects Eddianity on Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Lutheranism once again. I call it "Eddianity" because it reflects His Eddianness's personal beliefs more than anything else. His Eddianness's curious rationalism is remarkably exceptional, for starters.

And Ed fails to address the question of why science got restarted in northwestern Europe centuries after Constantine made Xtianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. If Xtianity is such a superscientific religion, then the Byzantine Empire would have developed modern science long ago.

Because of the limited access to the scriptures. Once the scriptures were widely diseminated after the Reformation science flourished.

Except that the Bible was available to anyone educated for most centuries after Constantine.

The practice and results of science have MUCH more in common with various schools of ancient Greek philosophy than anything in the Bible. All that those philosophers needed was some good idea of how to construct an experiment.

Why do doctors recite the Hippocratic Oath instead of some possible Christic Oath?

Could it be that present-day medicine has MUCH more in common with the approaches of Hippocrates than those of Jesus Christ?

If you don't believe me, when is the last time you went to see an exorcist? Or a spit therapist?

Admittedly, if exorcism or spit therapy could be demonstrated to outperform other therapies, one would have to accept that they work. But has anyone ever done so?