Basically no. The chance of such a thing is perhaps not exactly zero, but it would be absurd to imagine that if there was a mutagen present, its action would be so very specific and reliable that it would cause animals to have stripey offspring, and no other effect.
You know… considering the depiction of Crawly and some of the other angels in shows such as Amazon’s version of Good Omens, I am positive that there were plenty of angels looking around during and after the creation kvetching in such a way as to be indistinguishable from us from the 'Dope. Lot’s of: “Actually…”, “He should have…”, “Technically…”, “I don’t want to nitpick, but…”, “This will all turn out in tears, mark my words!”, “Brilliant, but rubbish” (okay, I stole that one)…
Then some Mod-Angel came in and told them to stop creation-shitting and they all scurried off until they were proven correct.
What if it was gopher wood?
Now that I think about it, it would have to be a mutagen that not only affects the germ-line with very specific effect, but also immediate effect - since the animals are mating in front of the stripey sticks.
So, nope.
I imagine a carpet of low horsetails and clubmosses. Sometimes newly-disturbed soil can acquire a rich carpet of equisetum, even today.
Concerning a world of plants without animals; don’t forget that plants respire too, so oxygen levels could be maintained at a reasonable level even on a planet with plants but no animals. More important are decay organisms that recycle nutrients, but Genesis doesnt mention fungi.
Some substances can cause genetic changes, but they’re random changes. Most likely, a random change won’t do anything, if it’s in “junk DNA”, or changes a codon to a different codon for the same amino acid, or changes it to a similar-enough amino acid that the structure of the protein produced is similar enough to what it should be to do its job. If a change does do anything, it’s most likely to be something negative like causing cancer, because any living organism is fine-tuned by evolution to be very good at being itself. It’s possible that it could happen to change an animal’s coat pattern, but it could do absolutely anything else just as well, and even if it does change the coat, it could make variegated coats either more or less common.
There are quite a few plants that require specific animal pollinators, if we’re going for the day=age thing, then those plants die out sometime during ‘day’ 3
I always took that to be just magic.
But some of the rabbis believed in that kind of thing. One of my rabbis told me about a story in the Talmud where a very attractive scholar would hang out by the mikvah (ritual bath) because he knew the women would go there when they were fertile (women are unclean when they have their period, and after the end of their period plus 7 “clean” days, they abstain from sex, then bathe in the mikvah, and then can have sex again. Conveniently right around ovulation) and because they would see him right before they had sex with their husbands, they would have beautiful children.
That’s all well and fine - a lot of the things in the bible can only be explained as descriptions of something that only works by magic, and that’s OK, considering the context.
The problem is that some folks want to present it as consistent with science, which it just isn’t.
The problem isn’t that some people want to present it as consistent with science when it isn’t, the problem is some people want to force everyone else to have it presented as science without presenting any different view.
It’s kind of both. There is a certain small value in presenting ‘alternative’ theories in science education; for example phlogiston got a passing mention in science class when I went to school and it was a useful example of how empirical observation resulted in that hypothesis being discarded.
But beyond that, it’s a time-suck and the curriculum is already pretty crowded. We didn’t spend whole days or even whole lessons studying the putative properties of dephlogisticated air, because that would be useless.
That one, there’s a perfectly rational and scientific explanation for how it would work.
I just wanted to say that this thread brings to mind one of my favorite science fiction shorts, Omphalos by Ted Chiang.
It’s set in an alternate version of the world where creationism had been proven scientifically true…..the oldest trees have no rings in the center, the oldest humans had no navels, and it’s about a new discovery that challenges their deep faith.
Caution: this link has a full synopsis which contains a spoiler. It’s a great story, part of the Exhalation collection.
Thy kingdom cum?
My will be done. Now get out of bed and get out of here!