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Fossil Called Missing Link From Sea to Land Animals
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: April 6, 2006
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.
In two reports today in the journal Nature, a team of scientists led by Neil H. Shubin of the University of Chicago say they have uncovered several well-preserved skeletons of the fossil fish in sediments of former streambeds in the Canadian Arctic, 600 miles from the North Pole.
The skeletons have the fins, scales and other attributes of a giant fish, four to nine feet long. But on closer examination, the scientists found telling anatomical traits of a transitional creature, a fish that is still a fish but has changes that anticipate the emergence of land animals — and is thus a predecessor of amphibians, reptiles and dinosaurs, mammals and eventually humans.
In the fishes' forward fins, the scientists found evidence 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.
Other scientists said that in addition to confirming elements of a major transition in evolution, the fossils were a powerful rebuttal to religious creationists, who have long argued that the absence of such transitional creatures are a serious weakness in Darwin's theory.
The discovery team called the fossils the most compelling examples yet of an animal that was at the cusp of the fish-tetrapod transition. The fish has been named Tiktaalik roseae, at the suggestion of elders of Canada's Nunavut Territory. Tiktaalik (pronounced tic-TAH-lick) means "large shallow water fish."
"The origin of limbs," Dr. Shubin's team wrote, "probably involved the elaboration and proliferation of features already present in the fins of fish such as Tiktaalik."
In an interview, Dr. Shubin, an evolutionary biologist, let himself go. "It's a really amazing, remarkable intermediate fossil," he said. "It's like, holy cow."
Two other paleontologists, commenting on the find in a separate article in the journal, said that a few other transitional fish had been previously discovered from approximately the same Late Devonian time period, 385 million to 359 million years ago. But Tiktaalik is so clearly an intermediate "link between fishes and land vertebrates," 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.
DAR
Creationists "scientists" were caught a little off guard:
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Ken Ham, creationist leader:
"I only saw the article briefly tonight, and, of course, none of us have seen a detailed analysis of what has been found—so until we do that, we obviously can’t make any detailed comments on this particular find. But take note of the comments above in the New York Times—it will be interesting to then compare these comments to what a creationist paleontologist actually states about this fossil (assuming we can get the data we need). Stay tuned—I assume we’ll have an article on our website soon, but we don’t want to rush into things, as it is important to get all the data we can first."
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A Fish with Fingers?
The 383-million-year-old "Fishapod" fossil provides a crucial link in the evolutionary chain
By MICHAEL LEMONICK
Posted Wednesday, Apr. 05, 2006
People who doubt the truth of Darwinian evolution love to claim that there are no transitional fossils—no remains of ancient creatures that have the characteristics of two different kinds of organism, mixed together. If evolution were true, you'd expect to see them.
Actually, you do: transitional forms like Archaeopteryx, a lizard-like bird, have been known for many decades, and more pop up all the time. But casts from a newly discovered fossil, slated to go on display at the London Science Museum tomorrow are, by all accounts, the most impressive example to date of a transitional form. They come from a remarkable creature, mostly fish-like but with some clear adaptations that let it operate on land. It fits perfectly with the conventional tale told by evolutionists the epochal moment when animals first began to emerge from their ancestral ocean.
The fossils of the approximately 9-ft. long creature, which are, described in two Nature articles released today, were dug out of rock formations on Ellesmere Island, in the Canadian Arctic, by paleontologists from the University of Chicago and several other institutions. Its nickame, for reasons that will become clear, is "fishapod"; it's more formally called Tiktaalik ("large fish in stream," in the local Inuit language). Fishapod dates from about 383 million years ago. It had the scales, teeth and gills of a fish, but also a big, curved rib cage that suggests the creature had lungs as well. The ribs interlock, moreover, unlike a fish's, implying they were able to bear fishapod's weight—an unnecessary trait in a fish. It had a neck—most unfishlike. And, most surprising of all, its pectoral fins included bones that look like nothing less than a primitive wrist and fingers.
In short, fishapod adds one more brick, and an especially important one, to the edifice of Darwinian evolution—and at the same time puts the so-called theory of intelligent design into even greater question than it already faces. That would be true if only because any designer who deliberately made such a queer fish would have been more of a practical joker than anything else. But it also demonstrates that while evolution has plenty of missing bits of evidence, they keep showing up all the time to strengthen it. Evolution is, as ID supporters love to say, "just" a theory. It also happens to be one of the most successful scientific theories in history, whose predictions of what should be found in the fossil record have been proven out… for the zillionth time.
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About a week ago, two prominent names in tetrapod evolution studies started a thread announcing the announcement of a great transitional fossil. The thread is here. It's a long thread, so you may want to skip to page 6 or 7, closer to the date of the actual announcement.
Along the lines of Darrel's second link, another thread on IIDB (warning: coarse language) makes some very good points about AiG's response to the NYTimes article. (One of these very good points is, of course, that AiG is responding to the newspaper article, not the information in Nature, including jumping on "tentative wording" such as "anticipate" that occur not in Nature but only in the Times article!)
I wrote this little ditty last night as I was giving a fundy a good dose of whoop-ass, and it applies pretty well to this case too:
The Creationist's Motto
Squirm, finagle, shift, retreat
Evade, play dumb, quote with deceit
When arguments fail, just try to repeat
Do all that you can to deny your defeat.
<Physt> If 2 billion people believed in FSM.. we would use ID as the joke.. "YEAH, an invisible man just created everything".."Har har"
DAR
For some time I have wanted a tract that explained some basic facts about evolution that would be pretty much irrefutable and yet so simple that the most uneducated creationist could grasp it. Someone like my dad, who is typical, and doesn't know diddly about evolution other than standard creationist fallacies and his own "gut feeling" that evolution doens't make any sense.
Someone posted the following to a list I am on and it comes close to what I have in mind. Perhaps we could convert it into a tract?
This was filled with typos and spelling errors, (the guy probably just quickly typed it in) so it probably has a few left (some of the latin I don't have handy).
D.
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An extended excerpt from "Atheist Universe" by David Mills:
Suppose you're the kind of person who, before accepting a scientific
claim, requires direct, clear, visible evidence.
Fortunately, evolution quite literally gave us rock-solid evidence to
attest its progress--from single-celled organisms all the way down to
human beings. This rock-solid evidence is known as the "geologic
column." The geologic column refers to our planet's accumulated layers
of sedimentary rock. The geologic column amassed its layers from
bottom to top, just as water collects in a pail from bottom to top. The oldest layers of the geologic column therefore lie at the bottom, whereas the newest layers are uppermost.
A freshly painted lawn chair provides a good analogy to the geologic
column. If you observe wet orange paint covering the entire surface of
a lawn chair, you may be confident that the orange layer was also the
"most recent" layer of paint applied. If you scrape off the outer layer of
orange, you may discover a weather-worn layer of green paint
underneath. You may safely conclude that the green layer is older than the orange layer. Likewise, a red layer found under the green would indicate that red paint was applied first, followed by green, and finally orange. New layers of paint may be applied "over" old layers, but never "under" old layers.
Similarly, sedimentary rocks which compose the geologic column are
layered on top of each other. This stacking of sediments, layer upon
layer, means that the oldest rocks are lowest on the column, while the
newest rocks are highest. Simple logic precludes any other conclusion.
In order for the lower-lying rock layers to be "younger" than the
higher rock layers, Nature would have to somehow: (1) lift up an entire
mountain, (2) remove the oldest, underlying layer of ancient rock, (3)
replace the ancient rock with modern rock, (4) place the ancient rock
on "top" of the modern rock, and (5) set the mountain back down on top of the newly-arranged stack. Such a scenario is beyond absurd.
More realistically, erosion may weather-away the geologic column's
top layer of rock, which may later be replaced by new sedimentary deposits. The result is that contiguous layers of the column do not always
represent uninterrupted time periods. But the point to remember is that
the column "always" amasses from bottom to top--from oldest to newest.
Radiometric dating techniques also confirm the chronological order of
the geologic column. Radioactive elements such as uranium, potassium,
and rubidium decay at precise and constant rates. Uranium decays to
lead; potassium decays to argon; and rubidium decays to strontium. By
measuring the ratio of parent-to-daughter isotopes, geologists can
establish the age of rocks containing these radioactive elements.
Without being told where a particular rock was discovered within the
geologic column, a scientist may "independently" ascertain the answer
using radiometric dating. The chronology of the column may therefore be
established both by logical and radiometric methods--both of which
confirm and reinforce each other.
Why is the geologic column important to evolutionary theory? Because
the oldest fossil-bearing layers of rock--3.5 billion years
old--contain fossils "only" of simple, one-cell organisms, which lived in the oceans. Layers slightly higher on the column hold the remains of tiny
multi-cellular organisms. Moving upward, these multi-cellular lifeforms
evolve into soft-bodied creatures, such as corals, sponges, and worms.
Continuing our ascent, we first encounter primitive fish in layers
dating back 600 million years.
A few species of fish then evolved into amphibians, capable of
surviving both in water and on land. Amphibians first appear in the
geologic column in layers 405 million years old. Climbing higher, we
discover that amphibious creatures evolved into reptiles approximately
310 million years ago. Reptiles, as all children know, grew in size and
became the mighty dinosaurs. The first dinosaurs appear in rock layers
dating back 225 million years. Small mammals also appear in these
layers.
Dinosaurs suddenly disappear from the column in layers younger than
65 million years. The small mammals, however, continue to develop, both in size and complexity. A very primitive form of ape first appears in rock layers dating 40 million years. Ape evolution progresses to
"Australopithecus" (southern ape) still higher on the column.
Australopithecus was our species' direct ancestor.
We're now approaching the uppermost sedimentary layers of the
geologic column. Australopithecus is followed by "homo hablis," then by "homo erectus." Finally, at the very top of the column--and "only" at the
top--homo erectus evolves into "homo sapiens," our own species. The
oldest known fossils of homo sapiens are found in rock layers only
275,000 years old.
Leaving aside for a moment the findings of radiometric dating, the
geologic column establishes the chronological "order" in which various
lifeforms first appeared on Earth: (1) single-celled, (2) multi-celled,
(3) soft-bellied, (4) fish, (5) amphibians, (6) reptiles, (7) mammals,
(8) apes, (9) austalopithecus, (10) homo hablis, (11) homo erectus,
(12) homo sapiens.
Creationism's most sacred doctrine is the God created all lifeforms,
including man, during a single, brief period known as "Creation Week."
Dinosaurs and human beings walked the earth simultaneously, as did
gorillas and trilobites. All animal "kinds" are the same age, give or
take a few days.
If this biblical doctrine were true, then all "kinds" of animal
fossils would appear "simultaneously," side-by-side, in the same layers
of the geologic column. Rather than a gradual progression from simple
to complex lifeforms, the column would reveal an "instantaneous"
appearance of all animal "kinds." But the scientific facts simply do not support the creationist position. Creationism is therefore "unscientific" at
its core, and should be viewed appropriately as religious dogma.
(David Mills, "Atheist Universe," 2003, pp. 132-136)
DI's news cronies wrote:These fish are not intermediates, explain Discovery Institute scientists I queried about the find. Tiktaalik roseae is one of a set of lobe-finned fishes that include very curious mosaics--these fishes have advanced characteristics of several different groups. They are not intermediates in the sense that they are half-fish/half-tetrapod. Rather, they have some tetrapod-like features. The anatomical characters of Tiktaalik and similar taxa were "coded" and analyzed by a computer program. Because of the presence of some advanced characters, the analysis placed Tiktaalik next to a group of tetrapod-like fishes. What is clear is that forms like Tiktaalik are a melange of primitive and more developed features.
In One Look dictionary search the quick definition for mélange is “a motley assortment of things”. So, we’re finally starting to see ID proponents describe how the intelligent designers come up with new designs. Intelligent designers hack together motley assortments of primitive and more developed features. Ummm...
Super Squirrel wrote:Discovery Institute: "They're not transitional forms! They are just organisms that share characteristics from organisms that came before and after them!"
Me: "... *Smacks forehead* How is that not transitional?"
<Physt> If 2 billion people believed in FSM.. we would use ID as the joke.. "YEAH, an invisible man just created everything".."Har har"
A small nitpick to head creationists off at the pass:
New layers of paint may be applied "over" old layers, but never "under" old layers.
This simile is true, but in reality rock layers can be "flipped over" by folding and faulting.
Also, there's some interesting stuff going on in the paleontologist world regarding Homo sapiens idaltu, another apparently intermediate hominid found in Ethiopia. It wasn't announced until the same year Mills's book was published, so perhaps that's why it wasn't mentioned.
<Physt> If 2 billion people believed in FSM.. we would use ID as the joke.. "YEAH, an invisible man just created everything".."Har har"
I was going to comment on the folding that occurs with "mountain building" forces - however, if parts of it hasn't been eroded away, you can follow the folded pattern down to the bottom "layer" (even if it has eroded away, get down far enough and it "rights itself".
Intermediate species are joys to those who like logic and use their heads for something besides a hatrack, if that, but will never convince the fundies. They have a vested interest in their dogma - the sense of "specialness" of being animated mudpies made by god - because attached to that is the "god-given" right, nay duty, to use, use up, and lay waste to what isn't used up of the rest of "god's creations" - it says so in the same book they use as evidence of their "creation".
"We could have done something important Max. We could have fought child abuse or Republicans!" --Oona Hart (played by Victoria Foyt), in the 1995 movie "Last Summer in the Hamptons."
