The Panda's Thumb Is Not Evidence for Evolution

The panda's thumb is not evidence for evolution. It gives absolutely no evidence that pandas have evolved from non-pandas.

Pandas are classed as meat-eaters (carnivores) mainly because of their jaws, teeth and feet. And although some pandas will eat meat, they prefer bamboo, fruit and plants. Yet even if their ancestors ate meat, we find there is no evidence their ancestors were anything but pandas. In fact, zoologists still can't agree after more than a century on what pandas could have evolved from.

Not leftover evolutionary traits

The red panda's sharp claws and vicious bite are not leftover traits from a time when its ancestors attacked and defended themselves from other animals. Pandas have no enemies other than man. Their sharp claws help them climb trees easily. And their strong jaws and teeth are needed to snap and crunch their huge daily meals of bamboo.

The “sixth finger”, or pseudo-thumb, is merely an enlarged radial sesamoid, a wristbone that helps the panda grasp the bamboo stems it eats. This “thumb” is larger in the giant panda because it eats larger bamboo stems.

Red pandas are not only found in Asia. A few amazing red panda fossils have been found in North America, including the world's first complete, or almost complete, red panda fossil found at the Gray fossil site in Tennessee. And the unique “thumb” was already on that panda, giving no indication that it has evolved at all.

[text taken from link]

And Bravus says....?

As with all of these things, what you find to some extent depends on what you look for. This article basically just asserts a case without really providing evidence. But statements such as this, for example:

"The “sixth finger”, or pseudo-thumb, is merely an enlarged radial sesamoid, a wristbone that helps the panda grasp the bamboo stems it eats. This “thumb” is larger in the giant panda because it eats larger bamboo stems."

can be read either way. Was the panda created to eat bamboo? If so, this 'thumb' was presumably created to adapt them for that purpose. But if so, why were their jaws and teeth so well adapted for eating meat if they weren't designed for meat eating.

Alternatively, the thumb must have evolved the way it has in order to better adapt the panda to eat bamboo.

The assertion that 'there is no evidence their ancestors were anything but pandas' is simply wrong:

http://science.jrank.org/pages/5005/Pandas-Evolution-classification.html

I read the article at the link but do not see any evidence put forth that pandas evolved from non-pandas. Of course both pandas and raccoons may have a common ancestor that was on the ark.

In my mind, the panda's thumb may have helped in eating meat too. Human thumbs seem to help humans to eat meat.

Nope, sorry, there's no mechanism for evolution yielding creatures as different as the giant panda and the raccoon in 4500 years or so since the flood. If you're committed to a short age you're pretty much committed to all the species as they are now either being there at Creation or (somewhat controversially) being adapted to be carnivores in a second burst of creation at the Fall.

And if raccoons and pandas are descended from a common ancestor, then that ancestor is a non-panda, so of course there is evidence of pandas evolving from non-pandas.

I agree with your last two sentences, but they contradict the original article, which seems to claim the thumb is a specific adaptation for eating bamboo.

The mechanism is God programming the animals' DNA. Creationists believe that the common ancestors that went on the ark had all the DNA in them for the various species that would descend from them. Unlike evolution which is dependent upon random mutations, creationism teaches the DNA was preprogrammed. That allows for micro-evolution to occur at a much fast pace than evolution does.



What we need is the common ancestor and proof that it is the common ancestor. That doesn't exist. So it is than circular reasoning to conclude the possibility of a common ancestor is itself evidence. It is nothing more than a possibility.

Just for clarity, I am not the author of the original article, I just posted it here for discussion.

Well, I guess your system is internally self-consistent...

I'm not sure that the difference between a raccoon and a giant panda still fits under the heading of microevolution.

Respectfully, you would know more about the differences between a raccoon and a panda than I would.