Cursed Snakes and Genetics

When some folks see a snake, they light a shuck out of there. That may be a good practice in the great outdoors if you are unskilled in recognizing reptiles. Most want to go about their business and be left alone. I think some might be on the prod because of the curse way back in Genesis 3:14.

Credit: Pixabay / Tahlia Stanton

One part of the curse is that snakes would "eat dust". Not that it was intended to be their primary diet by any means, but they do "eat" dust to some extent. Apparently the serpent in Genesis had limbs, but we are not told if the curse was instantaneous or it took a long time, but you don't see a snake taking a stroll nowadays.

Some genes are regulated according to where they are located in a body, so the gene can work in one place but is switched off in another. Those affecting limbs did not interfere with the ability of snakes to reproduce (obviously). Purveyors of particles-to-python evolution cannot explain why snakes didn't simply die out because of their loss of abilities. They also have to deal with the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record.

All snakes today are limbless, and from written historical records going back thousands of years, that is also how they are described. The fossil record of snakes is robust, and even baby snakes have been found in Cretaceous amber, conventionally dated at 99 MY.  . . . But one thing that can be stated with certainty is that snakes were cursed, and genetic insight is beginning to reveal just how extensively.

A recent study was published purporting to explain how snakes lost their limbs, and it revealed some surprising findings. The study mentioned above not only probed the question of snake limbs but also sightless subterranean mammals. In the latter case, there was a widespread loss of genes responsible for different components of sight, but in the case of snakes, there was only one gene lost (HoxD12), but hundreds of limb regulatory elements were substantially altered and non/miss-expressed.

To read the entire article, move on over to "Snakes Appear to Live a Cursed Life". The video below has some amazing camera work:





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