Fish do pushups! Film at eleven!

I think all the hoopla (which has now died down) about Tiktaalik was fun. Macro-evolutionists were hopping all over themselves about having found the missing link...until they realized that "Tik" was no more likely to have been able to walk than the coelacanth. "Tik" has bones in its fin lobes that are not attached to the main skeletal structure. No supportee-no walkee.

I got a kick out of this article and so I will share. Go to Doug TenNapel for the full effect.

"...wait a minute, you're telling me that scientists have been preaching Godless evolution all this time without a legit fish-to-tetrapod missing link?! Well what were you using all this time on the fossil tree, science fiction? Luckily, no gap is so great between species that can make some scientists lose their faith in a dogmatic fundamentalist allegience to Materialist Darwinism.

Here's the newly discovered fish, recategorized by science as a substantial missing link and organsmically reported by TheNewYorkTimes (HT:HH). It gets so much coverage you'd think it was a new photo release from Abu Gharib.

Scientists have discovered fossils of a 375 million-year-old fish, a large scaly creature not seen before, that they say is a long-sought "missing link" in the evolution of some fishes from water to a life walking on four limbs on land.

Long-sought missing link. Long sought. You're seeking missing links because you don't have any. Why are you pushing a scientific theory into public schools when this is your first missing link that connects fish to us? If you want better evidence, I'd go for Dolly Parton because she's starting to look like a trout (speaking of, don't go see The Hills Have Eyes)

A model of the 375 million-year-old fish, which exhibits changes that anticipate the emergence of land animals.

Sorry buddy, but you aren't allowed to use the term "anticipate" when referring to blind evolutionary principles. Anticipation is what happens when you have an Intelligent Agent. I know I'm going to Darwin-hell for speaking such blasphemy but I'm only repeating what the Times already printed. Please tell Pope Dawkins not to fire me from my college.

In addition to confirming elements of a major transition in evolution, the fossils are widely seen by scientists as a powerful rebuttal to religious creationists, who hold a literal biblical view on the origins and development of life.

1. You're admitting that major transitions in evolution were previously unconfirmed-but-taught-in-public-schools.
2. When you say "religious creationists" don't you mean, "psycho-fundamentalist, snake-handling-creationists"? Or are you calling those of us who support Intelligent Design some kind of religious creationists?
3. I wasn't even aware that religious creationists were in the race so it seems weird that you're wasting time rebutting them. If ID isn't science, why go so far out of your way to throw down a challenge? I mean, you're not announcing a challenge to flat-Earthers, but that's because you know flat-Earthers aren't in the race. You just accidentally strengthened our position. You should go back to ignoring ID like you did ten years ago.

But on closer examination, scientists found telling anatomical traits of a transitional creature, a fish that is still a fish but exhibiting changes that anticipate the emergence of land animals — a predecessor thus of amphibians, reptiles and dinosaurs, mammals and eventually humans.

A fish has a wrist so now he's my grandfather. That's some serious anticipation. I mean, here's a WALKING FISH with LUNGS! Is this going to evolve into a human too?

The scientists described evidence in the forward fins of limbs in the making. There are the beginnings of digits, proto-wrists, elbows and shoulders. The fish also had a flat skull resembling a crocodile's, a neck, ribs and other parts that were similar to four-legged land animals known as tetrapods.


Here's why this whole fish-thing is gay. You can't know that the fins are limbs in the making or if the fins are fully functional and perfectly complete as is. It's also really suspect that an entire arm system would be evolving at the same time. Does a fish fin that has 10% progress in the digits, wrists, elbows and shoulders really have an advantage over his peers to help him get his genes into the next generation? If I have 10% of a shark tail growing out of my butt have I gained a swimming advantage? How about 1% of a shark fin? I'm sorry but this kind of Darwinism is just self-evidently dumb.

Plus if any "scientist" would bother reading Hugh Ross they would see that most of us in Intelligent Design actually strongly believe that some form of evolution occurred. So again, I don't agree with the Times that this is some death nail in our position. How exactly do these researchers know by looking at the Candadian fish's bones that it doesn't have the ability the information in its DNA to already be able to change from fins to a proto-wrist? They just presuppose Philosophical Naturalism and file all data accordingly.

The discovering scientists called the fossils the most compelling examples yet of an animal that was at the cusp of the fish-tetrapod transition.


Wait, it's on the cusp or it's transforming? Make up your mind, this is supposed to be science.

In two reports in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, the science team led by Neil H. Shubin of the University of Chicago wrote, "The origin of limbs probably involved the elaboration and proliferation of features already present in the fins of fish such as Tiktaalik."

Probably. How probably?

Dr. Shubin, an evolutionary biologist, let himself go in an interview. "It's a really amazing remarkable intermediate fossil — it's like, holy cow," he enthused.


You'd think the guy was getting nervous at the lack of evidence they could press into use for their preferred conclusion. But nah, these guys are scientists. Or, as BIll Murray said in Ghostbusters, "Back off buddy. I'm a scientist."

But Tiktaalik is so clearly an intermediate "link between fishes and land vertebrates,"

Clearly an intermediate? What happened to probably?

they said, that it "might in time become as much an evolutionary icon as the proto-bird Archaeopteryx," which bridged the gap between reptiles, probably dinosaurs, and today's birds.

Probably dinosaurs?...or clearly? Clearly probably?

"Based on what we already know...


KNOW?! Probably clearly know.

...we have a very strong reason to think tetrapods evolved from lineages of fishes. This may be a critical phase in that transition that we haven't had before. A good fossil cuts through a lot of scientific argument."

Your faith in Darwinism cuts through a lot of scientific argument.

While Dr. Shubin's team played down the fossil's significance in the raging debate over Darwinian theory, which is opposed mainly by some conservative Christians in the United States

You mean, "conservative, fundamentalist, Bush-supporting, snake-handlin' Christians who used the Crusades and the Inquisition to take over the world and-

other scientists were not so reticent. They said this should undercut the creationists' argument that there is no evidence in the fossil record of one kind of creature becoming another kind.

Wait, before this Canadian fish weren't the "Creationists" correct? If there were so many fossils proving your theory why is this Canadian fish such big news?

Dr. Novacek responded in an interview: "We've got Archaeopteryx, an early whale that lived on land and now this animal showing the transition from fish to tetrapod. What more do we need from the fossil record to show that the creationists are flatly wrong?"

You don't need more from the fossil record to believe in evolution and you didn't need this Canadian fish...nor did you need the whale and Archaeopteryx transitional forms. It's not about evidence with Darwinists and it never was.

It was not until July 2004, Dr. Shubin said, that "we hit the jackpot." They found several of the fishes in a quarry, their skeletons largely intact and in three dimensions. The large skull had the sharp teeth of a predator. It was attached to a neck, which allowed the fish the unfishlike ability to swivel its head.

"Some people think there are two cervical vertebrae [making a fish neck], other people think they don’t have any." - Frietson Galis, biologist at the Institute of Biology of Leiden University in The Netherlands.

Embedded in the pectoral fins were bones that compare to the upper arm, forearm and primitive parts of the hand of land-living animals.


Wow! A fish with digits, wrist and shoulders just like us. You'd think we might have a similar Architect. No! The fish-wrist can only mean one thing! There is no God! Yayyyyy!"