I think the snake talking was more of a symbol. As lukie Pointed out, a representaion of satan. The vestigal limb attachments are just something that hasn't evolved away yet, simply because of Darwinian evolution, and there is no particular advantage whether they have them or not. As it so happens, most species of whales have vestigal hips, but no legs attached to them.
As for animals ever being able to talk, it would logically follow that they would probably have organized social order, thus posing a threat to the dominace of early Man. It would logically follow that we removed the competition, if it ever existed, in the same way we wiped out the neanderthals. Also, the only other animals known to have simple communication are Lower Primates, Dolphins, certain species of ground hogs, and a few lesser ones. All of these are mammals. Reptiles simply do not have a complex enough brain to develop complex language. Thus re-enforcing that the snake was only a symbol. While I think it's a pretty good metaphor, I do not really believe that the bible or other religeous texts should be taken literally.
Also, just a thought, the Idea that it is unlikely that other species will evolove form each other is only partially correct. A species can only generally evolve into new species if it is successful in the biosphere, thus limiting the number of species able to diverge. Also, If splitting was always likely and happened anything less than extremely rarely, It probably would have taken a lot less time to develop a fully sentient species. However, The problem I find many non-evolutionists have is that they simply fail to grasp how long life has taken to get this far. Evolution is a slow process, otherwise it would not have taken four-and-a-half Billion years to make it this evolutionary level.
So yes, A species evolving from another is quite rare, but it does happen. After All, the species we've domesticated (cats, dogs, maize, wheat) are different species than they were when Humanity first encountered them. But through selectivity far more exclusive than what occurs in nature, Humanity has catalyzed the evolution process in certain species for our benefit. It is a form of Darwinian theory, only instead of species having to have a certain advantage for survival and reproduction, they had to have certain selective advantages for our benefit in order for us to breed them, and it was done with much more precision than could possibly have occured in nature. That's why it has only taken a few thousand years to make a new species of canine or plant, rather than the few million it would normally take.
And now, we're forcing species change through at an even faster rate than evolution or selective breeding could ever have brought us, by going straight to the source with genetic engineering. Once we perfect that, we could be creating a new species every day if we so desired.
This is CBT, Armchair Biologist of Sci vs Sci, ending my rant for Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
PS Just because it's a theory doesn't mean its highly contested among scientists. Gravity is also just a theory, but we don't all doubt it for it's status do we?
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