Studying how snakes got legless

BBC ^ | 8 February 2011 | Jonathan Amos

[Natufian]

A 95-million-year-old fossil is helping scientists understand how snakes lost their legs through evolutionary time.

Found in Lebanon, the specimen is one of only three examples of an ancient snake with preserved leg bones.

One rear leg is clearly visible but researchers had to use a novel X-ray technique to examine another leg hidden inside the fossil rock.

Writing in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the team says the snake records an early stage in limb loss.

[SunkenCiv]

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[1010RD]

“My inalienable rights come by virtue of me being a sentient human being.”

That’s exactly what Oliver Wendell Holmes thought. The obvious fault in that thinking, and I don’t have a dog in this fight, is that other human beings have to agree.

Holmes was a bad jurist.

[ZULU]

Bingo.

The snake in the Garden of Eden was symbolic of Satan, and used because in Hebrew society snakes were feared and hated, in part because neighboring Pagan societies worshiped them.

This is a great article about a great animal.

[LiteKeeper]

Valid only if you are an advocate of the pseudo-science theory called evolution.

[kosta50]

You and Lurker (along with most other libs)... So, not sharing your supersititon makes me and Lurker 'libs'? Some thinking you have.

[Condor51]

Not all snakes are legless.

I know. I worked with a few.

[RoadGumby]

Your ridicule, disrespect for those beliefs is hand in hand with the methods of liberals.

If it looks, walks and sounds like a duck.....

Your methods sound like a duck.

[chesley]

Found in the MidEast.

Hmmm?

[Lurker]

The obvious fault in that thinking, and I don’t have a dog in this fight, is that other human beings have to agree.

That situation attains whether or not there is a God.

[1010RD]

That situation attains whether or not there is a God.

It cannot attain without a God, at least not a Christian God.

Follow the thread of history. Where a Christian God is absent you don't have a movement toward liberty, but away from it. You may argue survivorship bias, but the reality is that you're only able to have this conversation because Christians have a religion that developed into tolerance, scientific thinking, and restraint.

Atheistic societies go to totalitarianism quickly, most start there.

(I hope this doesn't sound like an attack. I don't see you in Hell or anything like that ;-] )

[BJClinton]

So snakes had legs before ForbiddenFruitGate™?

[Above My Pay Grade]

That seems to be what the Bible teaches.

[Lurker]

Atheistic societies go to totalitarianism quickly,

Please explain the Inquisition then, or the English Monarchy's slaughter of Catholics, or the French under Napoleon.....

[angryoldfatman]

So, if there’s no God we have no inalienable Rights?

Nope, you sure don't Lurker. You really have no rights at all. You only have the self-restraint of those who have power over you.

Whether those people are a gang of thugs roaming the streets looking for easy prey, or agents of a government that has realized there is no God, no evil, and no good, and can do to you whatever they wish without consequences, you have no rights. Rights are like God - invisible, imagined, and ultimately nonexistent.

This is why it's easy to mistake all atheists for Leftists: their philosophies have congruent conclusions. The only reason some atheists are not Leftists is because they haven't devoted enough thought to the matter to reach the proper conclusion.

[Lurker]

You only have the self-restraint of those who have power over you.

That's pretty much all we have now. Truth be told it's all we've ever had.

[angryoldfatman]

Please explain the Inquisition then, or the English Monarchy’s slaughter of Catholics, or the French under Napoleon.....

---

He said quickly, like within one person’s lifetime.

Also, your third example is one of atheistic government. It is the very template that has been followed (not on purpose, probably, but followed nonetheless) for every atheist (mainly Marxist) government founded since the French Revolution. Crises culminate in a revolt and overthrow of the current leaders, followed by a seemingly toughtful government that is quickly overturned by more radical groups, finally leading to a dictator, mass death and war.

[angryoldfatman]

That's pretty much all we have now. Truth be told it's all we've ever had.

So you do not believe in unalienable rights, correct? In that case, you might as well be a Leftist. You only have what "rights" are granted to you by the few men who make the rules and the agents who enforce them.

This makes everything they do to you legal and right. You have no say-so over what they do to you, because you are inferior and they are superior.

I hope you haven't complained about what any government's done to you, because they're always right. The fact that they have power over you means they cannot possibly be wrong, otherwise they could not have gained such power.

The fit dominate, because domination is how they become fit.

[1010RD]

Please explain the Inquisition then, or the English Monarchy's slaughter of Catholics, or the French under Napoleon...

None of your above examples could be called totalitarian. Napoleon would be the closest. For both the Inquisition (more correctly Inquisitions) the activity was more political than religious. The punishments reflected the culture of their time and were not unusual, though obviously cruel to modern readers. That is not to defend, but to explain.

Out of each of the above results, committed Christians established new codes of conduct including religious tolerance and concluding with the Founding of America.

Can you name an atheistic society or government that did the same?

[bmwcyle]

Genesis 3:14

14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.

[whattajoke]

No idea that snakes may have perhaps changed from legged ancestors. Why would Moses, undethe guidance of the Holy Spirit, pen something that suggests that snakes may have had legs? God told Moses what had happened.

Points for creativity I suppose. Was this the same conversation God told Moses that bats were birds?