Big difference between partially regurgitating food to re-chew it and eating cecal pellets (they're completely different from fecal pellets, or "poop"). Yep, they missed a LOT.
"Big difference between partially regurgitating food to re-chew it and eating cecal pellets (they're completely different from fecal pellets, or "poop"). "
Poop is poop. If it exits the anus, it's poop, in my book.
Seriously, I do know the difference, but it's a pretty hard one to explain to a 5-year-old the first time she sees her guinea pig pulling pellets out of its butt and eating them. I quote: "Ewwwww! Porky's eating his poop!"
Actually, this discussion has some relevance. The typical museum visitor in a major natural history museum has a lot in common with the 5-year-old mentioned above. The docent's task is to help them make some sense of the exhibits by explaining what they represent.
While the retired biology teacher in this article might well have been able to answer the questions posed by this argumentative group of visitors, that was not her job at the time.
In the same way, it was not my job to explain the bunny or guinea pig's cecal pellet ingestion to the 5-year-old. To her, the guinea pig was eating it's poop. The correct explanation for a 5-year-old is that it's doing that to get more nutrients out of its food, and that rabbits and guinea pigs do that, but people don't. More explanation is not needed for the audience and less is avoidance.
The kid goes away satisfied, and may (or may not) learn about the digestive process of lagomorphs later in life. The Bible's a lot like that, as I see it. It offers a simple explanation to a bunch of nomadic shepherds. It's OK for them to eat rabbits because rabbits are like the other animals it's OK to eat, since they "chew their cud." How'd we get here? God created us in his image.
Simple explanations, and adequate for the purpose.