Did Pandas evolve extremely large jaw muscles for crushing bamboo, or did god design them that way?

Question

The head and jaw of a panda is much larger than that of a grizzly or polar bear. The large jaw aids the panda in digesting bamboo, which makes up the majority of it's diet. Unfortunately, the panda can only digest about 20% of the massive quantities of bamboo it eats each day. In fact, the panda has to spend almost all its waking hours eating, just to stay alive.

The reason for this is that the panda bear has the same carnivores digestive system as its grizzly and polar bear cousins.

So if the panda bear was intelligently designed, why would god give it the jaws to chew and eat bamboo, but not the digestive system to digest it? Oversight? Intentionally cruelty?

Isn't it more likely that the panda was merely a species of carnivorous bear that found itself confined to a land with little animal prey, and over time, larger jawed pandas out competed smalled jawed pandas for the only source of food, resulting in large jawed pandas becoming dominant?

Answer 1

No matter how many example you show them, creationists will still deny that speciation happens. Alas.

Answer 2

I DO think it's more likely that the panda was merely a species of carnivorous bear that found itself confined to a land with little animal prey, and over time, larger jawed pandas out competed smalled jawed pandas for the only source of food, resulting in large jawed pandas becoming dominant.

Answer 3

each and every functionality of our physique is there for a reason. All muscle fibers are activated by way of nerves. whilst those deliver impulses to your muscle mass, the muscle mass respond with a twitch, or contraction. yet, no longer all muscle fiber in a given muscle contracts at as quickly as. quite, muscle fiber is prepared into motor contraptions. In a motor unit, a single nerve is linked to and controls many fibers. Goosebumps make us conscious that our physique is reacting to exterior stimuli, perhaps we are worried, or chilly. this is our physique's take-heed call. So what if animals have that potential too, it would not teach that our designer is non existent. Gods intelligence is considered in each and every residing creature or perhaps the rock wreak of problematic layout.

Answer 4

"The Panda's Thumb" is one of the first of Stephen J Gould's books I read. It has an elegant description of how the odd, the wrong and the bizarre in nature is really the proof of evolution.

The panda, like all bears doesn't actually have a thumb. Instead, what has happened is that a sesamoid bone, (small and relatively unimportant in other bears) has enlarged to serve the function of a thumb, making it easier for this once carnivorous animal to grasp the bamboo, which has become its evolutionary dead end

Answer 5

I think the bears needed to eat, and if bamboo was all there was, it was eat that or die. I think that most of them ate it, but the ones with the larger jaws were able to eat more, as you've said. The ones who ate more were more likely to survive and produce offspring that stood a similarly good chance of survival...add to that the parents teaching their young, and there's your nature, nurture, and survival of the fittest in a sweet package that ensures the survival of the species, if not each and every one of its members, and explains the problems that pandas still face as far as near-extinction goes...

ah, but what do I know? I'm just an atheist, unable to appreciate the wonders God's plan and His mysterious (really freaking mysterious) ways.

Answer 6

I can't imagine too many weak jawed Pandas roaming the bamboo forests.

Answer 7

But their is a lot of things a bear can eat in China. They don't live on a bamboo island.

Answer 8

i see what you mean. Of course evolution makes sense. But who put that first unevolved panda on Earth? I think God started everything and then everything evolved on it's own....

Answer 9

But God still could have created the first prototype, regardless.

Answer 10

I'd like to believe that I could grow whatever I needed. What good would it do me to grow something that only happens long after I no longer need it?

Answer 11

For me, it's a combination of both:
God gave the spark, then evolution and the big bang took place.