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Discovery Magazine 06/01/1999


How the Snake Lost its Legs

 "On the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk." So begins Mr. Kipling's story of how the elephant got its long nose. You want to know how the camel got its hump? He'll spin another story for you, and say that "it was so—just so—a long time ago." None of these stories is true, of course, but they are fun to read.

So some people might wonder: How did the snake lose its legs? Mr. Kipling didn't write about that, but evolutionists have a just-so story of their own. It goes something like this. "On the High and Far-Off times the snake had legs. It was a lot like a lizard, but it spent all its time crawling around in tunnels and burrows. After a while, the legs and ears disappeared because they got in the way. And that's how the snake lost its legs—just so—a long time ago."

How did this happen? In the evolutionists' story, lots of little changes are supposed to become big changes over a long period of time. No one knows how this happens, but evolutionists think they have proof. They point out that some snakes, like boas and pythons, have tiny bones toward the back of their bodies. These are supposed to be "legs" left over from their lizard-like ancestors. Actually, we don't know why they're so important. We can make some good guesses, but scientists have learned that ignorance of a thing's use is not the same as that thing's being useless.

Evolutionists have other problems with their story. For instance, scientists have shown that the movement of a snake is very efficient. This means that when a snake is cruising along the ground in the normal way, it uses very little energy. But when a snake starts to crawl through tunnels, it uses a lot more energy. This is bad for the animal. If it is less efficient, then it must work harder for its food. If it has to work harder for its food, then it will produce fewer babies. And if it has fewer babies, it will die out.

Evolutionists will have to come up with another just-so story. But the problem does not stop at losing legs and ears. Some snakes have special fangs to inject venom. Some snakes can separate their jaws and swallow a meal whole. And some snakes have sensitive organs that can detect the warm bodies of their next victim.

All of this cannot be the result of nature because it works so well together. Nature cannot know whether something will be good, so it can't make just the right changes at just the right time. But God does know what is good, and God made the super slithering snake.



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