Bunny Evolution and Intelligent Design
Published by Greg March 14th, 2007 in Science Essays, Evolution, Creationism, Commentary
By the way, the evolution of rabbits plays an interesting role in the recently released film “Flock of Dodos,” reviewed on this site (“Flock of Dodos Rocks”)
Here’s the deal. Since most nutrients are absorbed (in mammals) in the small intestines, indigestible material such as much plant matter would ideally be pre-processed by gut flora in a foregut. But rabbits forgot to evolve a foregut, so this floral processing happens in the hind gut. So in order for rabbits to eat this coarse plant matter (and that is their main diet) they must partially digest their food, pass it to their hind gut, where the floral processing happens, then defecate it, then eat their own poop.
This is obviously a royal screwup in design. The only way an intelligent design sympathizer can “explain” this is as a “mystery.” It is possible from an ID point of view to explain rabbits as a first draft, or a screw up. Biologists explains it as mosaic evolution.
I find it interesting that Intelligent Design Creationism, as an outgrowth of 18th and 19th century natural philosophy in which an examination of nature leads to a better understanding of the mind of god, would demonstrate that god is a poor designer, or at least that he let a lot of first drafts out the door.
23 Responses to “Bunny Evolution and Intelligent Design”
- 1 Pingback on Mar 15th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
- 2 Pingback on Apr 18th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
- 3 Pingback on Apr 23rd, 2009 at 9:06 am
Or that he has a sick sense of humor.
I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours…
Its obvious: “Like a dog returns to [eat] his vomit, so returns a fool to his folly”
So we can infer that the rabbit probably evolved from a dog, just like fools did, and thus it eats its own poop, because it has obviously taken evolutionary cues from dogs AND fools…..
Philogenesis 26:11
DAWGS
/\
/ \
Foo’s –>Wabbits
Here are some tips “from G-d” on when and when not to rebuke a fool–just in case anyone knows one of those…..nearby, in this debate;-)http://www.ibelieve.com/m_1695398/mpage_1/key_/tm.htm#1723111
Any “mistake” in evolution is due to the Fall of Man, of course. So this one must be because Satan came to Eve in the form of a rabbit.
Oh, wait a sec…
I didn’t know rabbits ate their own poop. . . that’s rather interesting.
Or that he HATES BUNNIES and is therefore the sort of god that I don’t want around my theoretical children.
I’d put my vote on the intelligent creator being pro-”eating poop”.
The real problem is the modern closed-mindedness.
Actually, my money is more on the intelligent creator being a programmer.
No one submitted a bug report.
With only 7 days until shipping your release, you know a few bugs slipped in.
EngTech: heheheheeeeeheeee….and i bet he din’t know about the “spambots” either that leave all of those genetic mutations like five legged frogs swimming around in the ponds in the fundie homeschoolers backyards down there in Burnsville et.al.;-)
Termites also have to eat their own poop, for a very similar reason, but only once. I think it’s the same with rabbits.
And why is this a proof against God? He most definitely has one crazy sense of humor: look at the duck-billed-platypus. And over 80,000 varieties of beetles? And what the heck is with the crocodile? The thing can survive off of one meal a year.
No, God is not what we would call reasonable or rational. If we made a world, I don’t think we would have put so much dirt everywhere. It’s too messy.
Hrm, Ive had rabbits for over 20 years and have never heard this, nor do my rabbits have the ability to eat their own poop since it falls through slots…
links?
@Randy, Rabbits have two different forms of poop. One form, called cecotropes, is consumed directly from the butt, so it wouldn’t fall through the slots. The second form is a harder pellet that you are probably more familiar with.
Source: http://myhouserabbit.com/tip_diet.php
The only thing more ridiculous than some of the proponents of ID are some of the proponents of Neo-Darwinism. They seem completely unaware that they are projecting their own humanness on the unknown and using it to rate what a design in nature should or should not be according to their standards.
The only way your argument holds any mustard would be if you could actually design a better rabbit. And by design I mean a full complete design, not some theory you copy and paste from the Richard Dawkins forum.
If you are going to argue with science, do so - but please stop confusing a poorly thought through philosophy as science itself.
It’s a shame that the fundamentalists of both sides of this wonderful argument have obtained the dominant footing in debating it - the fact that nature could operate as a collective intelligence should be able to be studied without the knee jerk reactions from the academic left, just as the fundamentalist right. Many biologists and philosophers of keen intellect and sound science have postualed the role of intelligence or information in nature - and all of those theories could also be understood as an intelligence in nature.
Of course nature produces organizing intelligence - we are experiencing it on a grand scale with the internet. To assume we are the only collective intelligence at the party with what little we know at this stage is juvenile philosophy, not science.
At least the rabbit was designed to like the taste of its own shite.
@RV:
The whole point behind science is that it does not deal with that for which there is no evidence.
In order for science to explain a “collective intelligence” acting as a mechanism of evolution, there needs to be a falsifiable hypothesis presented as to how this intelligence can be measured and then data has to be collected that supports this hypothesis. Then a mechanism can be proposed which would be evaluated by the rigor of the scientific method.
If there is no reasonable and objective way to measure this intelligence, then it falls solidly in the realm of philosophy, not science.
@Pattoye - agreed - and although you make up one component of my point, I believe you are missing another. There is evidence of collective intelligence in nature - read lovelock and although sheldrake certainly has his critics - he offers it up to the scientific method as well.
The point of my comment was to show how the author’s intention of using what he projected as ‘flawed design’ as an argument against ID was not a scientific argument, it was a philosophical one that DISGUISED itself as scientific.
That irks me, obviously as much as it irks you
If life on Earth was created through intelligent design, there must have been thousands of intelligent designers, all competing against each other, selfishly exploiting weaknesses in their competitor’s creations, and caring only whether or not their own creation would survive.
That is a lovely story, but I think it is, pardon the expression, bull shit. My father raised rabbits for several years on his little farm, and I never saw a rabbit eat it’s shit. We kept them in pens with wire bottoms so the shit would fall right through so they couldn’t eat it if they wanted to. I’ve hunted rabbits numerous times. Rabbit shit all over the place where they warren up. If they eat it why would it be lying undisturbed all over the place? And I noticed that you did not link to any so-called proof of your main assertion.
@ John Doe - haha - why would a Neo Darwinist need proof? The philosophy of a Neo Darwinist cannot be questioned and therefore the need for proof is irrelevant.
I have a rabbit, and he does in fact eat some of his own turds. He quite likes them. He also likes to sneak into the trash can and eat garbage. But I must say he seems to be quite fine with his design, spending his days excitedly eating turds, trash, and licking any carbon based matter that he can find smudged on the floor. And were he not domesticated I suppose he would also be content living in a hole in the ground. I guess if the designer intended to create a civilized gentleman, then he failed. But if the designer had in mind a grass eating, pooping, seed spreading, fast reproducing, hopping land rodent in mind then I’d say he did quite a good job.