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

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?

Did Pandas evolve extremely large jaw muscles for crushing bamboo, or did god design them that way?
No matter how many example you show them, creationists will still deny that speciation happens. Alas.
Reply:But God still could have created the first prototype, regardless.
Reply:So God had nothing to do with the evolving.
Reply: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.
Reply:For me, it's a combination of both:

God gave the spark, then evolution and the big bang took place.
Reply:I don't know the answer to your question, but I have one of my own. Why are they black and white? What protection does that provide them in the wilderness?
Reply:I can't imagine too many weak jawed Pandas roaming the bamboo forests.
Reply:But their is a lot of things a bear can eat in China. They don't live on a bamboo island.
Reply:I guess that really depends on your beliefs now, doesn't it?
Reply:"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
Reply:I agree with you. There are many examples of evolution... in fact every living thing is an example...
Reply: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.
Reply: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?
Reply: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....
Reply:Yer gonna burn in hell if you keep makin' sense.
Reply:And the evolutionary purpose of those oh so cute markings?