Carnivores, when?

[shernren]

YECs tend to think that a perfect creation would not have animal death, and therefore carnivores. Furthermore, they generally believe that carnivorism is a consequence of the Fall, and that it was only incepted into the animal kingdom either after the Fall or after the Flood, depending on one's personal preferences.

Let's zoom in on the consequences of this. In particular: were there carnivores on the Ark?

If no (and AFAIK this is the more generally accepted position) then the variation problem of how divergence happened so fast is made far worse. Basically, the entire order Carnivora is uprooted, from sea lions to land lions, and one has to account for the evolution of that entire order from scratch in far less than 4,500 years, and that's just the mammalian segment. But far worse, if carnivores were not alive before the Flood, then any stratum containing carnivores must be de facto laid down after the Flood. Fossil sharks come to mind, but to give creationists the benefit of the doubt: are T-Rex, Deinonychus, and Velociraptor carnivores? If yes, then at least the Cretaceous strata are post-flood. But if they are, so are every Holocene strata. I think it's quite clear that strata simply aren't laid down that fast, especially since one cannot now say "the Flood did it!"

If yes, the obvious question is how Noah survived staying a few months with alligators and raptors and carnivorous theropods. (To be fair, if humans can survive living with cats and dogs now, who's to say they couldn't do it 4,500 years ago?) Let's say we accept the creationist argument that carnivores can occasionally survive on a veggie diet for a while, and therefore Noah was in no danger. Yes, certainly, but for how long? Note the ecological consequences of the Flood: the food chain is completely wiped out. Let's not forget that the population of the prey organisms has also been cut to two per family (on average). Imagine what would happen if the moment it stepped off the ark, the male cat(-kind-ancestor) bit off the head of the female rabbit(-kind-ancestor). The herbivores themselves need to feed off a land which has been waterlogged by salt-water for at least 6 months.

Effectively, the carnivores have to wait at least two (herbivore) generations before they can safely feed on herbivore prey without the herbivore prey dying out (or losing too much genetic diversity), and that's already pushing it. Can any carnivores survive that long? This applies to insectivores too, and AFAIK insectivores have extremely active metabolisms.

Not forgetting that they have to hyperspeciate right after that horrendous start.

Flood science has a lot of homework left to do.

 

[Poke]

There is one essential nutrient that humans need to consume, but can only be found in animal products, Vitamin B-12. Ironically, the human body produces B-12 in the lower intestine but the body can't use any of it. I would hardly argue that this means humans "were not alive before the Flood" (now, that is ignorant), or even before the Fall.

More reasonably, a slight degenerative change has caused humans to need to consume B-12.

 

[steen]

YECs tend to think that a perfect creation would not have animal death, and therefore carnivores.

I thought even that argument was that there was no death at all. As such, eating plants wouldn't have occured eiter. Certainly, plants are alive.

And the claim about no death before the flood would be contradicted by the Bible itself. What was Cain's sacrifice to God?

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Shemren,

You're assuming that every detail of what God does must be written down in the bible. God has outlined major events, but just hasn't filled in all the details of how He did it.

 

[shernren]

There is one essential nutrient that humans need to consume, but can only be found in animal products, Vitamin B-12. Ironically, the human body produces B-12 in the lower intestine but the body can't use any of it. I would hardly argue that this means humans "were not alive before the Flood" (now, that is ignorant), or even before the Fall.

More reasonably, a slight degenerative change has caused humans to need to consume B-12.

AFAIK, B-12 is produced by bacteria living in the gut, not by human metabolic processes, and the reason the human body cannot absorb it is because the fermentation process only happens in feces, from which the body is not designed to retrieve nutrients. I don't know if there was ever a B-12-producing gene in humans. If there wasn't, would this mean that we weren't created perfect? Hmm.

But anyways, I'm not talking about metabolic difficulties here. I'm talking about gross physiological changes which obviously facilitate carnivorism and impede herbivorism. I used the example of the order Carnivora - there isn't a single herbivore in the whole lot of them, the closest you get today is the skunks which are omnivorous on record but mostly insectivorous. Every member has clear adaptations towards carnivorism, even a cursory glance at a cat's teeth tells you that kitty wasn't really made for eating veggies. AFAIK they also have short intestines which causes them to be physically incapable of digesting fibrous vegetables (though not starch-based and protein based vegetable food). I think there aren't any fossil records of non-carnivorous Carnivora either, though I'd need someone more knowledgeable to verify this.

If they were already carnivores when they got onto the Ark, how did they survive the massive prey depletion after the Flood?
And if they weren't already carnivores when they got onto the Ark, how did an entire order as diverse as sea lions from land lions speciate from a single kind-ancestor within 4,500 years? It's precisely the sort of "new features production" which creationism predicts can't happen.

There's the problem.

I thought even that argument was that there was no death at all. As such, eating plants wouldn't have occured eiter. Certainly, plants are alive.

Within creationist thought the Bible makes a demarcation between "living spirits" and presumably animals which don't count as having "life". God told Adam that the fruits of the trees were acceptable food for him, although his eating them would surely have resulted in cellular death for the cells making up that fruit. Within the creationist scheme of things, therefore, there is an acceptable level of "death" - as we moderns would call it - which was not in fact considered damaging in a perfect world, such as cellular death and the "death" of vegetables.

And the claim about no death before the flood would be contradicted by the Bible itself. What was Cain's sacrifice to God?

Actually, it was Abel who sacrificed animals. But looking back even further, God Himself skinned animals for Adam and Eve's dressing, which implies some level of condoning animal death. While this is a good argument against the idea that animal death somehow doesn't belong in a perfect world, I don't think it raises too much inconsistency for the creationist position which normally tends to be restricted to discussing carnivorism.

Shemren,

You're assuming that every detail of what God does must be written down in the bible. God has outlined major events, but just hasn't filled in all the details of how He did it.

I'm perfectly fine with someone saying "Goddidit, who cares how". But when someone starts bringing scientific confirmations of the Flood to the table, he or she had better be prepared for scientific refutations. It's one thing to believe the Flood as a subjective, personal opinion assuming that one does not need evidence to believe it - but when the Flood is raised to the level of an objective event with objective proof which should be recognized by anyone regardless of spiritual leanings, that is a whole new level of thought.

 

[Mallon]

Best article I've seen thus far on the topic of pre-Fall animal death and carnivory:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2004/PSCF6-04Snoke.pdf

 

[Poke]

AFAIK, B-12 is produced by bacteria living in the gut, not by human metabolic processes, and the reason the human body cannot absorb it is because the fermentation process only happens in feces, from which the body is not designed to retrieve nutrients.

The body is designed to retrieve nutrients with "the gut." B12 is just produced too low. And, a symbiotic relationship with bacteria is sufficient enough for me to say Adam was made good and whole. The point was that even a slight degineration can produce carnivious behavior, let alone the profound changes of the curse at the time of the Fall.

 

[shernren]

The body is designed to retrieve nutrients with "the gut." B12 is just produced too low. And, a symbiotic relationship with bacteria is sufficient enough for me to say Adam was made good and whole.

I should have been more specific, you're right about that. But specifically, it is the microbial community in the large intestine which produces B-12 from fecal waste (AFAIK, bacteria forming a live community anywhere else along the gastro-enteric tract is considered an abnormal infection). Nutrient absorption doesn't happen in the large intestine. This isn't a symbiotic relationship, the human body doesn't really derive any benefit from those microbes - big AFAIK note.

The point was that even a slight degineration can produce carnivious behavior, let alone the profound changes of the curse at the time of the Fall.

Slight? A carnivore has a completely different dental system, digestive system, and claws instead of hooves or nails, and that's before going into binocular vision, binaural hearing, and metabolic patterns. If you're going to say that all these changes took place after the Flood, I think you really need to re-assess whether or not mutation is a viable source of genetic information.

On the other hand, you can place the source of carnivorism at the Fall (as I think you are doing). No problem, but then one has to deal with how carnivores can survive on a herbivorous diet for two full herbivore generations (or else the herbivore community would be destabilized). The way I see it, either all carnivores would have starved to death, all herbivores would have been eaten to extinction, or you have to claim a miracle and forget about scientific validity.

 

[Poke]

This isn't a symbiotic relationship, the human body doesn't really derive any benefit from those microbes - big AFAIK note.

Silly me. And, all this time I thought I was putting forth the possibility that the human body did benefit at one time by being able to access that B12. BTW, simbiotic relationships don't require that the human benefits. Technically, even today humans have a symbiotic relationship.

Slight? A carnivore has a completely different dental system, digestive system, and claws instead of hooves or nails, and that's before going into binocular vision, binaural hearing, and metabolic patterns. If you're going to say that all these changes took place after the Flood, I think you really need to re-assess whether or not mutation is a viable source of genetic information.

I thought the first time you asserted that the Creationist position was that carnivorism started after the Flood was a slip. But, now it appears that your view of Creationism really is so very flawed.

 

[shernren]

I thought the first time you asserted that the Creationist position was that carnivorism started after the Flood was a slip. But, now it appears that your view of Creationism really is so very flawed.

I'm not a leading evolutionary scientist, so please don't quote-mine me. Re-read the OP: I clearly said that there were two possible creationst positions being held currently, one in which carnivorism began at the Fall and one in which carnivorism began after the Flood. Now, you might not consider the latter creationists, but they certainly consider themselves creationists, and I believe they deserve to be recognized as such. In any case, the carnivorism-began-at-the-Fall position has its own difficulties, to which you haven't replied.

I've just been alerted by USIncognito to the fact that giant pandas are very much herbivorous (Wikipedia says that in fact they're a smidgen omnivorous) and yet belong to the Carnivora. Well, scratch this: I used the example of the order Carnivora - there isn't a single herbivore in the whole lot of them, the closest you get today is the skunks which are omnivorous on record but mostly insectivorous. In the giant panda, however, one clearly sees both traces of a carnivorous ancestry and a herbivorous present. For the post-Flood position: It's not a case of a herbivorous trait staying true throughout the diversification process, but a side group (the bears) becoming omnivorous/carnivorous and then becoming almost completely herbivorous again within 4,500 years. Give me "molecules-to-man evolution" any day.

 

[billwald]

God poofed a miracle and solved all your biochemical problems.

 

[Willtor]

w00t! Deus ex Deus!