Thank you, followers of Evolution. Maybe it's time you started defending your faith with more than this unsubstantiated article? God must be having a good time watching us trying to figure out [the duck-billed] platypus.
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It fulfils the same "role" as ducks... It eats small animals that are present in the water that it strains using its bill...
Its called convergent evolution. If a particular adaptation is efficient at what it does, evolution can come up with it more than once. For instance Echidnas (hedgehogs), Sugar Gliders (flying squirrel) and indeed Wallabies (Rabbits)
Attack is Super Effective... Fundie Faints...
Oh know!!! If we don't understand it, we just give up and state that 'goddidit'.
But on a more serious note, I believe that the so-called strangeness of the platypus has a lot to do with the fact that Australia is so isolated from the rest of the world geographically, there is an interesting tendency to evolve flora and fauna that is endemic to that particular geographic region.
Thus, it may seem strange compared to other 'ordinary' European species of the like, but then you would be including a bias.
However, not being a zoologist or biologist I may need to be corrected.
Well, we know that monotremes are unique to Australia, except for one species in South America (Argentina) which went extinct some 65 million years ago. Coincedentally, this is when geologists postulate that the Australian plate split away from South America. The remaining monotremes evolved, as did many Australian mammals, in isolation.
And how do creationists explain the platypus? It looks to me that God cut out his favourite parts of creatures from pictures and assembled it into his perfect animal. In which case, the platypus would be the pinnacle of creation, not humans. It would also make God slightly disturbed.
Scientist line of reasoning about something that does not fit how they assumed religious dogma worked:
'That does not fit my views, perhaps I should ask someone more well versed in theology when I get a chance.'
Creationist line of reasoning when confronted with a part of science that does not fit their limited worldview:
'I don't know how this worked, so science must not know. therefore God must of done it.'
Thank you, followers of Creation. Maybe it's time you started defending your faith with more than this unsubstantiated article? God must be having a good time watching you try to figure out who Cain boffed for his family, as incest is verboten. And how did Noah put all those animals on such a little boat? Where did all that water come from for the Flood, and where did it go? Beware of Occam's Razor, now!
Just like every bit of new knowledge, another opportunity for creationists to proclaim "nuh-uh". Heck! there are dozens of living transitional forms they proudly denounce along with the fossil record.
BTW, the egg laying of monotremes is less reptile like than their skeletal structure. The lizard like hip/shoulder joints are what really threw early naturalists for a loop. Ah, if only fundies could realize that a natural universe is far more precious than a mere god's toy set.
In the middle ages, people prayed to God and crawled to the church on their knees to beg being spared from the Plague. They died anyway. Then we discovered antibiotics and now we can cure it with a few dollars worth of streptomycin. It never seems to occur to fundies that maybe God wants us to figure stuff out ourselves instead of asking Him to fix everything for us by magic.
BTW, they just announced on May 7 that the platypus genome has been worked out. It's been found to be an interesting amalgam of mammal and reptile genetics that actually adds to our knowledge of mammalian evolution.
NY Times Story
I know God has a sense of humor. Just look at the duck-billed platypus.
God has a sense of humour that would have appalled Tommy DeVito. "I command you to kill your firstborn son to show your devotion to me. Ha, just kidding! I had him all the way! Seriously, though, you'd better have been about to fucking do it."
Why do these window lickers keep insisting that the platypus is evidence against evolution? Get it through your fucking head, scientists are not having difficulty "figuring out" the platypus. If anything, the platypus is evidence FOR evolution. Dumb-fuckin'-ass.
"Why do these window lickers keep insisting that the platypus is evidence against evolution?"
It's such a wierd animal they can't make sense of it and, in typical fundie cognition, assume nobody else can either.
Someone did once tell me that he believed Him Above made up platypuses in His Infinite Wisdom just to trip up scientists.
I should have responded that scientists would have just put it in its own category. Oh, yes, it's a monotreme. So there.
"God must be having a good time watching us trying to figure out [the duck-billed] platypus."
Or the Platypus is proof that (check one):
[ ] God is a hippy stoner, and was on major hallucinogenics when he created it
[ ] God doesn't exist.
Choose wisely.
Robin Williams went there.
"Someone said there's no Devil, just God when he drinks. So I thought that if God drinks, then he might get stoned. Look at the platypus. I think you think he might."
"Hey Darwin!"
“Thank you, followers of Evolution.”
“Maybe it's time you started defending your faith with more than this unsubstantiated article?”
"God must be having a good time watching us trying to figure out [the duck-billed] platypus.”
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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