Snakes: designed to kill?
Snakes today not only move about in various ways, but they have diversified into numerous species over the several thousand years since the Great Flood. All are complex creatures with specialized bodies and mouths well-suited to their particular niches and diets—all are carnivores. Some of the different ways in which snakes catch and dispatch their prey include:
- The sophisticated infra-red heat sense of the pit viper, for detecting prey’s body heat—it can pick temperature differences of only 0.003°C!1,2
- A highly flexible skull in many snakes—adjacent skull bones can move in relation to one another—and jaw bones that come apart (held together by an elastic ligament), to swallow large prey,3 sometimes bigger than the snake itself!
- The complex venom of poisonous snakes—a nasty cocktail of up to dozens of different toxins (e.g. enzymes) that break down body tissues (proteins and cell membranes) and/or block nerve action. Interestingly, biologists found recently that different families of snakes have more toxin genes in common than was previously thought, some used in prey capture and some in defense.4
- The venom-injection system of vipers—an irreducibly complex system5 of long, hollow fangs, fed by large ducts from paired venom glands, that fold back along the upper jaw when the mouth is closed, but swing forward into striking position when the snake bites.6
A pre-Fall purpose?
What purpose did these structures have in the originally perfect creation?
Even snakes’ behaviours changed at the Fall—since that time, it seems that snakes have been ‘programmed’ (by their genetic makeup) to kill to eat. Several possibilities exist. Either these attack structures are Creation-week designs (but served a different function before the Fall), or they appeared as a consequence of the Curse.
The sophisticated hollow fangs and venom of certain snakes make it unlikely that they are Creation-week designs that have simply degenerated since the Fall—they seem well designed to do what they do, and they do it very efficiently! In fact, the discovery that non-venomous snakes also have active venom glands is fascinating from a creationist point of view.7 This research points to a sort of predator/prey arms race with toxins ending up as part of the venom which previously had other uses; e.g. a gene involved in digestion might, through a mutation (a degenerative, downhill change) have become expressed in the venom gland.8 Alternatively, since God foreknew the Fall of humankind (Genesis 3), perhaps the genetic information for these rather macabre features (including toxic venom) was created originally, but only switched on as part of the Curse—this idea fits well with the modern understanding of gene regulation.
Another possibility is that God fundamentally redesigned creatures like snakes (at the genetic level) after the Fall. At the very least, God apparently ‘redesigned’ the serpent, through which Satan spoke to Eve, so that it had to crawl on its belly.9 This does have God designing ‘bad things’ but, as with all things in a Fallen world, it is His sovereign right to judge sin—and we don’t read that God pronounced things “very good” (unlike in Genesis 1:31) after the Fall! Of course, one or more explanations might apply to the various different snake attack structures that we see today. This is informed speculation though, because the scriptural record is silent on these matters.
References and notes
- Shine, R., Snakes, in: Encyclopedia of Reptiles and Amphibians, 2nd edition, Weldon Owen Pty Limited, Fog City Press, California, USA, pp. 204–205, 2003. The author, Dr Richard Shine, is Professor of Evolutionary Biology, University of Sydney, Australia. Return to text.
- Wieland, C., Snakes do eat dust! Creation 10(4):38, 1988; <creation.com/snakedust>. Return to text.
- Ref. 1, p. 177. Return to text.
- Pahari, S., Mackessy, S.P. and Manjunatha Kini, R., The venom gland transcriptome of the Desert Massasauga Rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus edwardsii): towards an understanding of venom composition among advanced sna