Piranhas, Pacus, and Creation

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In several adventure movies, piranhas are given startling dramatic parts where they make the water boil and people or animals scream while being consumed. The villain of You Only Live Twice used some for executions. Can that be real?

The famous narrative by President Theodore Roosevelt where they ate a cow was actually a set-up. In normal conditions in the wild, such things are highly unlikely. But they do have those big, nasty, pointy teeth. Creationists must explain the existence of such thing from the original very good creation.

The ravenous piranhas in movies are rare events in real life. Their cousins the pacus are vegetarians. We look at them from a creation perspective.
Freeimages / gregi
It is interesting that since piranhas and their cousins the pacus look so much alike, scientists disagree on their species. Some pacu species are more like some piranha species than other pacu species. Piranhas are primarily but not exclusively carnivorous with those bear trap-like teeth, and pacus have been known to indulge in carnivory when the need arises. It seems that pacus have double rows of teeth while piranhas only have one, which adds to the confusion.

Creationists have ideas on how piranha carnivory fits into the biblical creation paradigm. This includes genetics as well as some theological speculations.

One species of piranha, Pygocentrus cariba, is notorious for being in schools of 30 or more, waiting for baby birds to fall out of nests overhanging the water. Evolutionists would assert that the ‘terrible piranhas’ bear witness to a world of ‘nature red in tooth and claw’, the result of long periods of evolution, with death and struggle acting to remove the weak and preserve the strong. How can the piranha’s gruesome behaviour be consistent with the Bible’s claim of a ‘very good’ world (Genesis 1:21,31), created by a God of love?

The answer is that today’s feared piranha and its behaviour was not a part of the ‘very good’ world that God originally made. It is living in a world that God made but has changed because of man’s Fall into sin.

You can bite into the entire article at "Piranha." Also of interest is a book chapter, "How did bad things come about?"