What is the relevance of your response referred to above (i.e., plants with protein) to the gene for detecting sweet?
It's not a direct route.... In fact, it is two separate points. The fact that cats refuse anything but meat may have to do with the fact that they have inoperative sweet receptors. If these were operative, there is the chance they would, like dogs and bears and such, enjoy berries, and even grasses (well, they do like catnip!) the way our dogs do. Our old Sheltie used to eat the tomatoes and grapes she could reach as well. They all have liked apple cores! So the first point is that cats may well have enjoyed a greater range of foods before the mutation. That is the first point.
The second point is that they obviously require high grade protein, which is found mainly in meat. However if, as the Bible tells us, they were vegetarian before the Flood, then there must have been these high grade proteins available in plant life. Considering the tearing ability of their teeth, I would think they would have either been going after nuts for that protein or stripping away some kind of bark or similar to get it from some plant or plants.
The types of organic compounds that we interpret as sweet are almost exclusively carbohydrates. Some amino acids do taste 'sweet', also, but what does that have to do with teeth that are adapted to tearing (i.e., carnivore teeth) as opposed to those that can grind plant matter, for example?
Think I responded to the first part of that above. As far as the teeth go, in addition to what I mentioned, we have been literally conned into thinking that only animals with grinding teeth eat plant matter. The fact is that MOST animals, regardless of actual preference of diet, include plant matter. Even animals like vultures depend on the stomach contents of herbivores to complete their food requirements. Granted that last has nothing to do with teeth, but as I mentioned the dogs and bears are totally omniverous but do not grind their food. We need, I think, to rethink some of the things we have been told to believe are true about the animal kingdom.
Not all mutations cause a loss of information because not all mutations cause a loss of function.
How do you measure information?
I did not say information was lost. I said function was lost. Every expressed mutation involved some loss of function genetically. Discussion about what information is belongs in a whole other thread, if you would like to start it.
As I can see no relevance to support for creation or a mark against evolution by the article you linked to, and the fact that I do not believe that there is such a thing as an evolutionist apologist, I don't see what you are getting at.
If cats were always carnivores, then the Bible is wrong and creation is a crock. It's that simple. The lack of a "sweet tooth" in felines is interesting to me because of what I have already said -- it may be a bit of evidence that they were not always carniverous. It's certainly not proof, but as little bits of evidence pile up in different areas, special creation is gaining more and more attention from those who are looking at the evidence itself. As far as what an evolution apologist is, it is the same thing as a creation apologist, which is certainly what I qualify as, only for evolution instead of creation.
Your 'straightforward explanation' that cats were different seems more like an evolutionary explanation.
Not really. Evolution declares that organisms become more and more complex with time, starting from ye olde proto-bacteria. But all the evidence shows us is that, like the cat article, functions and complexity seem to be going downhill, not up. Granted, evolution does not deny this can happen, but understand that not only does creation EXPECT it to happen, but evolution cannot come up with a way to explain the complexity which is being deleted with these and similar mutations. You have to climb Mt. Improbable from the bottom. You can't start at the top.