The lion isn't lying down with the lamb just yet

So, they have taken steps to make sure that boas don't eat rabbits anymore?

Cool trick! Perhaps they have found a way to reverse The Fall and there will be no more death.

Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUOFFN5k_Gg

Boas were vegetarian before The Fall, and God gave cobras venom to rapidly subdue carrots.

http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521686006

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Suffering-God-Clarendon-Paperbacks/dp/01…

I guess they'd better cancel the field trip to the abattoir. Let the kids think that burgers grow on trees...

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521430524

It's ok when cows grow up they go to "bovine university"

Props to Troy McClure for the heads up.

"When I grow up, I'm going to go to bovine university"

Ralph Wiggum

AKA Mystic Olly

There is a God - check these out :)

http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=98756lt4.jpg

Its rather ironic since according to the fundamentalists it was a non-carnivorous fruit loving snake that got mankind into a mess in the first place.

@Scotty #8

Why, because only God could swap Winona Ryder's hands for talons? Is she being fed of live rabbits now?

At the Catholic high school I attended, the biology teacher had a small boa named Basil at the school. He used to feed it mice, rats, etc., and students used to watch.

No one thought that much of it. I will admit, though, that this was in the late 1970s before PETA became so influential.

@MrkH

Dn't b slly - y hv mssd th pnt nly wndrfl bng cld vr b bhnd sch cmbntn f bty nd th mst ymmy jggs mgnbl. My d f hvn s t ply wth Wnn's fnbgs fr ll-tm. hmmmm....drmy - Mss Rydr mr thn mks p f ny 'ntrl' vl n th wrld.

G n vn crsty ld PZ wld lv t sck n ths prfct mlns gvn hlf chnc. 'm sr y wld t ;)

P.S. nd th lttl dvl nsd PZ (nd frnkly ll f s) wld jmp nd th chnc fr ttty fck frm Wnn MH

http://img81.imageshack.us/my.php?image=party10jg6.jpg

http://img204.imageshack.us/my.php?image=s072204017zo1.jpg

More of thwe lovely Ms Ryder.

So come on guys which one of you doesn't want go get her lovely milk wagons bouncing all over the place as you did her doggy stle?

Though I do like to masturbate to science textbooks, I wonder if Scotty has read the original post?

( )( ) - YMMY

Cm n gy's - yr fv pr f tts (lnk t pck wld b nc) nd r y n rs, tts r lgs knd gy?

Concerning the school's reactions, things like these makes me go completely Sam Harris. Concerning scotty and possible sock puppeter titty_lovers?: - please keep that rod in your pants, will you? At the very least, do not inform us. This is really not that kind of fora.

I suggest the principal catch the following video, where lions attack a baby buffalo, some crocodiles try to take it away from them, then the buffalo herd tries to take the baby back.

http://www.glumbert.com/media/battlespecies

I wonder what the principal would think of a Korean wokking his dog.

Coming from a country where bullfighting is a cultural thing, and also cockfighting, I have some issues regarding killing animals for entertainment value. I think in this case it's just inside the OK boundaries, since at least I bet some kids will be interested in science. I mean, even if the very same thing happens in the wild, don't intentions also count in ethical and moral considerations?

So I wonder what people here think about cockfighting, bullfighting and dog fighting? Is it bad just because they're bred to fight (in the case of dogs and roosters), or is it benign? I find bullfighting atrocious, but cockfighting just barely bad. Dog fighting, in between. But the same is being done, animals being killed (and they'll be eaten, except for dogs). So do intentions count or who does the killing, or what's made of them after killed, or all?

The old "Cuddly Bunny" syndrome. Many many years ago during the "Watership Down" popularity, a London butcher selling rabbits put up a sign:
WATERSHIP DOWN - you've read the book, you've seen the movie, now eat the cast!

There was a public outcry - he had to take it down.

lol, that Watership Down ad was really good. Btw, I've thought a bit about that mammalian chauvinism - the fact that most humans find mammals more appealing than reptiles or amphibians. Why did the snake get to play the part of the trickster role in the genesis myth, and not a cat or jackal? What precise qualities make us percieve mammals as more friendly and cuddly - soft fur, big eyes, domestication?

forsen: I can't remember if it was mentioned on a thread here at Pharyngula, but the answer may be deep in our genes.

I once saw a peregrine falcon take a coot. I don't think the coot knew what hit it. The surprising thing, for me, was that the falcon took the coot from below, flying up from the ground. I wouldn't have seen the entire action had I not had my glass already on the falcon on the ground. We usually think of a falcon's dive ability, but they also have amazing climb acceleration.

Last I heard, dogs and roosters don't kill and eat eachother in the wild. I don't see how it's related to the feeding of a boa at all.

Thx for the link, that was rly interesting. Makes me think of how some have speculated that the primate habit of sleeping in trees is reflected in the fact that most human homes have their bedrooms at the upper floor.

I have to admit that he teacher and other adults should have tried for a bit more calm from the kids. There's a lot of hootin' and hollerin', which is what I'm sure the administrator and others are offended about, moreso than the snake being fed. There's also the little comment towards the end where someone says, jokingly, that they'll collect a dollar at the door.

However, it was after school, and kids will be kids. I'm sure the teacher just wasn't thinking about YouTube and how it would make the event appear to the casual observer, let alone someone in charge.

Sailor: Even rabbits have claws... the males fight over mates, too.

Fishy: sniff, sniff... hmm.

I'd rate dogfighting worse than bullfighting, not just because of the intelligence, but essentially because it's "corrupting" the dogs both on the breeding and training levels. Yeah, so called "bullfighting" basically amounts to publically torturing the critter to death, but at least the bull gets a slim chance to strike at the matadors instead of some other abused animal. Cockfighting I'm generally less concerned with, not just because I have less sympathy for birds than dogs, but also because it's less of a public hazard than the other two.

Merely watching a natural predator eat in its usual fashion, on the other hand, is perfectly reasonable....

Why did the snake get to play the part of the trickster role in the genesis myth, and not a cat or jackal?

If it had been a cat, the whole story would have turned out very differently: "Eat the apple, don't eat the apple -- you think I give a shit?"

About dog-fighting/cock-fighting: those animals don't eat the other animal as a meal. It was just a meal for the snake. I'd say there's a big difference between watching something feed itself and forcing two animals into an unnecessary and deadly confrontation.

All of those fit the definition of animal cruelty. It's possible to kill animals for food humanely.

Last I heard, dogs and roosters don't kill and eat eachother in the wild. I don't see how it's related to the feeding of a boa at all.

That's what I was asking. So for you the difference is that one happens in the wild and the other doesn't. But some animals do fight in the wild. Would it be different if we set these animals to fight for our entertainment? Say, a croc and a tiger (or some non-endangered species)?

Note that I'm not talking anymore about this incident in particular. I happen to mostly agree that it was an OK thing. What I'm asking is how much do you think intentions make us accountable for animal cruelty.

Go to the Trinity Christian Academy website homepage.

Observe the girl "playing" the violin, and that she is holding the instrument completely ass backwards - holding the instrument under her chin with her right hand and bowing with the left.

That just about says all you need to know about Trinity Christian Academy.

Heresy!!!

Before the fall, burgers DID grow on trees!! This nonsense about T. Rex eating coconuts is pure heresy - T. Rex used to graze on steak trees. They were especially fond of the sirloin shrubs. God made all the meat trees die off as part of his celestial snit when Eve force-fed Adam the apple. I checked with my dogs (Miles and Jake) and they said that dogs still dream of the days when there were still rabbit bushes that they could lie under and harvest the fresh little bunnies as they fell.

Duh. You "scientists" are Sooooooo stupid.

The Garden of Eden was a very cool place in biblical times, before the fall. Herds of Holstein cows used to frolick with packs of wolves, and the Australian Shepherd dogs used to herd the sheep from place to place, randomly. All the animals just got along. After the flood, the sloths were able to hop a ride on the backs of the rhinos because the earth's plates were moving faster than they could shamble. All the animals were totally on the same side (Miles and Jake say they could talk, too!) until that bitch Eve ruined everything.

mjr.

I think you have completely misinterpreted the school administrator's reaction. I think he was referring not to the fact that boas eat rabbits but to presenting it as a public spectacle more for entertainment than for education. That is the "respect for [nature]" to which he referred. And as for "making sure something like this never happens again", again, he is not referring to the feeding itself, but to the public exhibiition.

Fishy, the snake was going to eat lunch and the rabbit was going to be lunch, audience or not. There really isn't that much audience entertainment value in feeding your pet, and the "oh, wow" is a reaction to novelty, most people don't get to watch snakes hunt or eat. After you've seen it a few times it isn't that interesting.

As for bullfighting.. If it involves killing/wounding the bull as part of it's appeal, then how can it not be cruelty or a bloodsport? I know there are bloodless (well, for the bulls) versions of bullfighting, and I would not consider them (the ones I know about) beyond the pale.

A "natural" dogfight (as a dog owner, I've seen a few) rarely involves any bloodshed, it's more of a wrestling match to see who is dominant. The loser either retreats or submits and it's over. Even gender aggressive dogs have to be trained to *want* to draw blood. This is gernerally true for all animals, most fights don't even reach physical contact in the wild, just posturing. Those fights that do occur are over when the loser acknowledges defeat, usually by running away, and rarely involves significant damage. There is no running away in the pit, the animals are trained/encouraged to do damage, and they are involved in more fights than they would be naturally. So, yes, pit fighting with animals is cruel and un-natural to the animal.

Doesn't say much about the people involved, either.

Its rather ironic since according to the fundamentalists it was a non-carnivorous fruit loving snake that got mankind into a mess in the first place.

Real science question: are there any noncarnivorous snakes? I can't think of any.

I think the administrator is just disturbed that the students at his "good, Christian school" aren't quite as saintly as he'd like to think. In all of this, their reactions are the only thing remotely in question, but are perfectly normal for teenagers nonetheless.

Not to be be anal, but based on the video, it's apparently a Burmese python, not a boa.

I can appreciate the value of showing students how predators are adapted to kill and consume prey, but I wish those students had been more quietly appreciative of the spectacle unfolding before them. But then again, they're kids, so I'm not surprised.

Gork, #17, thanks for the link to that great video.

Nature, red in tooth and claw (and pincers and claws and stingers and jaws and powerful forearms that can take your head clean off) is simply the larger reality within which we have built the stage upon which we live out our lives. It has very sharp edges indeed, as well as islands of calm and delight.

The insistence of some to see such episodes of survival as gruesome and violent is well understood by everyone. They are. That is what it takes to eat if you are a carnivore. Otherwise you just nibble on plants, causing them a debilitating and prolonged spiral down to death or fruitlessness.

The proclivity to create ISSs (Invisible Supernatural Spooks) that mirror the worst behavior amongst us has, as an unavoidable corollary, the idea that animals operate under a moral code similar to humans. This is called anthropomorphism and it isn't a valid point of view. Unless you routinely converse with rocks, hummus, clay, pigeons, that sort of thing.

But, hey, we're talking about an explosive mixture here: gummint school system, deep south religiosity, personal offense as a form of assault and Florida. Hypergolic!

Full disclosure: I once spent part of an otherwise wasted summer by capturing scorpions and grasshoppers and then putting them in small jars. Together.

As far as watching snakes eat, kids love it! So what's the problem?

Real science question: are there any noncarnivorous snakes?

If we define 'noncarnivorous' as many human vegetarians do: egg-eating snakes :)

I eat meat, my three cats eat meat, the dozens of cats and dogs my family and relations live and have lived with ate/eat meat. We know meat was originally alive, and that meat is prepared by killing live animals. Being in New York City, my wife and I even get to see peregrine falcons and hawks pick up dinner in the form of live squirrels and pigeons. That's life, and that's OK.

On the other hand, none of my relations hunt or condone hunting for entertainment. (One hunter/brotherinlaw is now divorced.) And I am sure none of us would condone that "spectacle" at the holy rollers school.

I am shocked that so many posters to this item don't see that what is a fact of nature was turned into an obscene display for a bunch of teenage yahoos who just wanted to see one animal eat another. They are one step removed from the kids who participate in the rattle-snake roundups and another small step removed from the kids who were/are brought to lynchings and public punishments.

Those students who are truly interested in nature will have enough time to observe the feeding habits of animals in an atmosphere which is conducive to observation and respectful of both prey and predator.

Which reminds me of two rules of thumb passed on to me by colleagues: First, that the difference between zoologists and botanists is that botanists really do like animals. And that people in the cities have greater respect for animals than people elsewhere.

walteufel @ #30:

http://www.violinslover.com/lefthandedviolins4_4.php

hephaistos #39 said, "I am shocked that so many posters to this item don't see that what is a fact of nature was turned into an obscene display for a bunch of teenage yahoos who just wanted to see one animal eat another."

Would you say the same about a classroom showing of a movie about army ants? How about a microscopic view of protozoa going about their daily business? Or a time lapse presentation of fly larva in a wound on the shoulder of a horse? Or a detailed explanation of how vaccines work?

In point of fact, almost nothing happens in the biosphere that does not involve the following: 1) Gruesome (though usually quick) death for a particular party, and, 2) Nourishment and the prospect of successful reproduction for another. This is how life happens. That's the way the old ball bounces. As one result of such small events our lives occur. Without this truism, their would be no critics.

I grew up with critters of all sorts. It was easy to understand dogs and horses and cows. A little tougher to understand biting insects. Instinctively I understood birds of prey and scavenging birds. An appreciation of cats came later in life but has been most rewarding. I was, of course, enamored of dinosaurs early on, mourning their extinction as all good children do.

If I have ever learned anything about all of my fellow travelers it is that they are not us. They are not each other. We are not them. Each is unique and separate, however intertwined in the warp and weave of making a living biologically. What is most proper and desirable to one specie may be deadly to another. Yet tall prosper to whatever degree they can in the same arena. What clouds our interpretation of biologic activity is this damnable facility to apply human standards to non-human systems. Shit, I talk to animals. I take it as given that I am in good company.

"True that, double true" to Crudely Wrott's comments. I have no objection to seeing nature raw. I think it should be taught that way. My objection is to the voyeuristic way - nay! the strip club way - in which nature was being presented to the students.

[We talk to our kitties, too. Sometimes they are the best company in the world. 8^) ]

Crudely Wrott:

I agree with all you say until you come to the part about our 'fellow travelers' being 'unique and separate', that 'we are not them' and 'they are not each other', etc.

Well, yeah, self has its functional boundaries, but without the - shall we say "sharing" - of each other's flesh and fiber nutrition-wise, WE would still be anaerobes feasting only on molecules and simple energy sources.

Who or what exactly is this much-vaunted "we" thing that so perniciously tends to separate "us" and "them" in our minds? One might as well regard one's head as not requiring one's body to support it. Specific genetic distinctions aside, the OTHER part of every individual is nothing less than the entire biosphere within which the whole has coevolved, a notion most humans are distressingly apt to forget (if they ever understood it to begin with).

WE are what WE eat (in all its glorious manifestations) All of Us, Incorporated.

Being that neither you, hephaistos, nor I was there in the classroom when the teacher first announced the event, nor while the politics thereunto attached were duly addressed, I couldn't agree with you more. Except the notion that the lesson-in-survival was presented in a "voyeuristic way - nay! the strip club way". While I may be ignorant of the behind-the-scenes mechanizations, the teacher's expressed warning that some may think watching a snake eat a rabbit may be unsettling seems to be sufficient. Anyone who, having been so warned, watches anyway has no one else but their own self to blame if some offense should be encountered.

Last time I walked (willingly, self-motivated) into a strip club I knew precisely what to expect. The only offense I can imagine taking would be if the show did not measure up to it's lurid advertisement.

Thank you, Arnosium Upinarum. I failed to state that I was referring not to our admittedly shared biology, but our species-unique behavior. For information's sake, I am today some beef, some bread, some fruit, some minerals, and some artificial flavorings. If I remember correctly what I've eaten lately.

My intent is to draw attention to the fact that their are many ways to make a living on planet Earth and each critter is talented it it's own way. Gross characteristics are shared, generally. Specific survival strategies are usually exploited by narrowly defined types. Fisher Cats are great stalkers. So are Wolf Spiders. One makes silk, the other loud noise. Both prosper.

Does the administration have a rubric so that science teachers can recognize what is and is not God's handiwork? I think they'll need one, since without one I'd have a hard time knowing that "Keep the virgins for yourself, slaughter everyone else" is God's gentle handiwork while "Snakes eat cute widdle wabbits" is a Darwinocommie lie.

You know the old saying, "The lion may lie down with the lamb but only one of them is going to get any sleep."

forsen: Most human homes would be a single floor, so I don't know how that works ...

"Boas were vegetarian before The Fall, and God gave cobras venom to rapidly subdue carrots."

Venus fly traps ate celery back then. Little known fact.

Keith: the effect (primates preferring to sleep above ground level) doesn't require houses with second floors (or even houses), or humans - it's seen in several non-human primates also:

Ramakrishnan U; Coss RG
A comparison of the sleeping behavior of three sympatric primates. A preliminary report.
FOLIA PRIMATOLOGICA. 2001. 72(1). Pgs: 51-53

Ramakrishnan U; Coss RG
Strategies used by bonnet macaques (Macaca radiata) to reduce predation risk while sleeping.
PRIMATES. 2001. 42(3). Pgs: 193-206

Coss has been doing research in this area and in more specific phobic behaviors in many species for some decades now. He's at U.C. Davis in their Psych Dept and has collaborated (formally or informally) with Lynne Isbell, researcher in the National Geographic story which dorkafork helpfully linked to.

First, that the difference between zoologists and botanists is that botanists really do like animals.

That only holds for the neontologists, though. :-)

Leave it to Christians to make the practitioners of voodoo look sane, balanced and realistic.

Bon, bon, Crudely Wrott! I entertained no doubt of YOUR understanding. Just wanted to poke a bit at the over-emphasis on the "self" thing, which we all have a tendency towards now and then.

WE on the same page.

Yours Truly,

Arnosium

Quality poking, Arnosium. And thank you for your consideration.

As luck would have it, right now there is a Nature program on PBS chronicling the raising of whooping cranes by non-whooping crane parents. That is, people. I'm sure you know of the technique of teaching these migrating birds the actual directions and distances to fly in order to be successful whooping cranes. Inherent in this endeavor is the notion of "self".

The young cranes, of course, are just exactly like young cranes wherever they may be. They need to be taught to grow up. Certain clever people, well disposed (one hopes) take on the task of teaching these lil' dinosaurs what they need to know in order to survive personally, and to have an opportunity to reproduce. In all of this there is certainly an issue about the nature of self. Clearly, the people involved and the young cranes will have distinct view of what is self and what is other.

What is interesting is the fact that the people involved can entertain two distinct modes of self; human and human-acting-birdlike and pull off both successfully. This is demonstrated by the fact that birds so trained (or, more aptly, shown) have migrated on their own and reproduced.

In terms of the human experience, I would think that the definition of self is expanded in some fashion. At least enough to include what it is that a crane experiences as self. At least to a functional level.

Now this is an interesting train of thought!

The truly sad thing about this nuts complaint is that someone from among the tofu eating nuts on *our* side would probably make the same idiot argument against showing people the real world, just without the biblical BS tacked on. Some vegan/vegetarian types are as bad, if not worse, when it comes to completely failing to see the real world, in which like 90% of the world doesn't have a convenient shopping center with 50 different types of just fracking potatoes on the shelf, if they are even lucky enough to have one type in some cases. Yet, those people would be right there with the right wing nuts trying to *teach* the boa to eat corn flakes, sort of like the first mega-nut Walter Kellog was supposed to have attempted...

I don't get the strip club thing. I don't want to watch a boa eat a bunny... I'd feel sorry for the bunny. But the boa is going to eat the bunny whether anyone watches or not. So where's the problem in saying "Boa's having lunch, anyone who is curious can come watch, but you'd better not if you're squeamish?"

No matter how disgusted or outraged anyone is, lunch isn't being cancelled.

And anyway, you can see animals eating animals every day of the week on the Discovery Channel or what have you.

If predation is not "God's creative handiwork", what the hell is God supposed to have done? Distribute canned food to the generic non-carnivorous snuggle-animals of Eden? Good job, O Omnipotent One.

If I designed snakes, I'd sure take credit for them.

Keith:

#48 forsen: Most human homes would be a single floor, so I don't know how that works ...

---

True. That would only be the case where choice of floor is an option, like in multi-floored houses. Funny this is, I live myself live on 36 m². Guess how my bed"room" looks? That's right. Loft bed. =)

gah, typo.

Jon:

Venus fly traps ate celery back then. Little known fact.

Definitely? There goes my Ph.D.

Ah yes, Crudely. Indeed, a most excellently fine program on cranes.

The notion of "self" is without a shadow of a doubt justified. No individual fertilized egg or anything else that must utilize a selective boundary laced with selectively prejudicial molecular up to more elaborate macroscale bouncers between itself and the turbulently violent and virulent environment should leave home without it. At least long enough for a given species to reproduce.

And there is no doubt that one of those macroscale bouncers is expressed in complex organisms in the form of nervous systems and brains to process information from "out there" to determine whether a condition or encounter is friend or foe, etc...

The tremendous capacity for imagination, empathy and subjective understanding via what it may be like to be something else displayed by human brains is (as far as known on this planet thus far) without parallel. If we are good at ANYTHING, we're good at dreaming things up and producing fantasy models of our experience to make some orderly sense of it all.

Well, at least SOME of us are capable of this, in this festering "ME-based" society...

We can remind ourselves then that our ancestors had every indication of having strongly identified with the animals they hunted, by FAR more conscientiously than we do today, and they left beautiful evidence of it. (I'm speaking of the cave paintings at Lasceaux and elsewhere).

A crane chick gets instruction from a proxy "crane" they've imprinted on in the form of a human who is good at grokking crane-ness. The behavioral instincts in concert with the physical apparatus at hand then allows the cranes to do their "natural thing", possibly every bit as effectively as if they had been trained by their natural parents. That's an amazing thing to witness.

You say: "In terms of the human experience, I would think that the definition of self is expanded in some fashion. At least enough to include what it is that a crane experiences as self. At least to a functional level. Now this is an interesting train of thought!"

Yes indeed it is! ;)

"WATERSHIP DOWN - you've read the book, you've seen the movie, now eat the cast!"

There was a public outcry - he had to take it down.

A public outcry against eating animated rabbits? I don't get it.

I think that snakes were originally given venom (pre-Fall) so that one day we'd have heart medicine. Or something.

Non-carnivorous snakes? I can't think of any, either, but as someone pointed out, some eat eggs, while others are insectivorous.

There is no way this obscenity can be compared to a natural predation event. The rabbit had no chance of escape, in fact the oaf who had centre stage made damn well sure of that. This was nothing more than an opportunity for the fuckwitted would-be jocks, with their two-inch foreheads and four-inch chins, and their fawning followers to indulge in some pathetic macho posturing for the benefit of the deadbrained cheerleader bimbii and their cardboard cutout acolytes. If this is an indication of the calibre of tomorrows leaders it is no wonder your country is going to hell in a handbasket. So bully for the school administrator, I might very well take issue with his religious beliefs but he has earned my respect in this case. Just for the record I despise fundamentalists and all they stand for, have no problems with, and would not interfere with, natural predation and am neither Christian nor a member of PETA.

First, that the difference between zoologists and botanists is that botanists really do like animals.

That only holds for the neontologists, though. :-)