Tuesday, December 25, 2007

On Snake Evolution

The following is from:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v5/i4/snake.asp


"No observed mutation can do anything like produce the special equipment in a snake, even if you started with a ‘soundly functional lizard’. Snakes have not evolved either slowly or rapidly from any other creatures we call reptiles. Not only is there no trace of transitional forms in the fossil record, but no one has ever seen a mutated lizard or snake which would give a clue as to how it could have evolved to become so legless, and yet so perfectly adapted to being a snake."

The second comment is just begging for photos of legless lizards and the long, snake-like lizards.
Now, as far as snake fossils go, there aren't many. But I managed to dig up a few anyhow:
http://www.livescience.com/animals/060419_snake_hips.html
http://www.livescience.com/animals/070326_lizard_limbs.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/287/5460/2010

A 95-million-year-old fossil snake from the Middle East documents the most extreme hindlimb development of any known member of that group, as it preserves the tibia, fibula, tarsals, metatarsals, and phalanges. It is more complete than Pachyrhachis, a second fossil snake with hindlimbs that was recently portrayed to be basal to all other snakes. Phylogenetic analysis of the relationships of the new taxon, as well as reanalysis of Pachyrhachis, shows both to be related to macrostomatans, a group that includes relatively advanced snakes such as pythons, boas, and colubroids to the exclusion of more primitive snakes such as blindsnakes and pipesnakes.

5 comments:

  1. The pics of the legless lizards are not visible.
    But I've seen enough to know that Creationists like those in Answers in Genesis are pathological liars.

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. CircleH, if you visit one of the links you should be able to see the legless lizard.

    Or google the word and you should pull up something.

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  4. Answers in Genesis is also wrong because Genesis clearly states that snakes originally had legs.

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  5. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6187320/Snake-with-foot-found-in-China.html

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