Tiktaalik, the transitional star, faces an evolutionary dead-end

[Stu]

Is the famous fish-fossil finished?

Tiktaalik, the transitional star, faces an evolutionary dead-end

Tracks of footprints found in a quarry in Poland have turned the palaeontological world upside down.1 For years there has been a neat evolutionary story about how fish evolved four legs and came out of the ocean onto the land (figure 1). Probably the most famous fossil in this sea-to-land icon of evolution is Tiktaalik roseae, a fish with fins that was claimed to have had features intermediate between fish and tetrapods.

Creationists consistently rejected the evolutionary spin put on the fossil and showed that it had nothing to do with any alleged sea-to-land transition.2 All the same, evolutionists promoted Tiktaalik relentlessly. It has its own website, 3 features in evolutionary diagrams (e.g. figure 1), stars on the covers of books about evolution4 and was even the theme of a song to promote evolution.5 Richard Dawkins, in his latest book The Greatest Show on Earth,6 claims “Tiktaalik is the perfect missing link—perfect, because it almost exactly splits the difference between fish and amphibian, and perfect because it is missing no longer.” (See Jonathan Sarfati’s refutation of this book, The Greatest Hoax on Earth?)

But now this footprint evidence from Poland consigns Tiktaalik and all its companion fossils onto the garbage heap. From being stars of the show they have suddenly become an evolutionary dead-end. So the creationists were right all along.

At first glance the evidence does not look very impressive. The tracks are preserved as shallow indentations on the surface of large limestone slabs from Zachelmie Quarry in the Holy Cross Mountains of Poland. The rough surfaces have an array of roundish indentations arranged in lines (figure 2). But, with the use of lines and diagrams (figure 3), the authors have argued a strong case that these indentations are indeed trackways of four legged animals that resembled large lizards.

The authors were even able to show the shape of the foot within some of the individual prints and identify the toe marks (figure 4). From the dimensions of the prints they concluded that some animals were more than 2 metres long.

These trackways are a remarkable find but tracks are not particularly unusual in the fossil record. Thousands of trackways of land animals have been found in many different locations all over the world. What has captured world attention is that that these tracks are dated (using evolutionary assumptions) at 397 million years, which makes them fully 18 million years older than Tiktaalik (again, by evolutionary thinking). If four-legged animals existed 18 million years earlier, then Tiktaalik can’t be the transitional fossil it has been claimed to be.

It’s suddenly been demoted to an evolutionary dead end along with all the other fossils connected with it. In other words, all those neat evolutionary diagrams that vividly displayed the transition from fish to four-footed animal ancestor (such as figure 1) need to be disposed of. The evolutionary house of cards, so proudly paraded before the world, collapses with a breeze of evidence from Poland.

A total upset

This is not some small correction or a minor detail. It has turned the paleontological world upside down. Something of the magnitude of the upset can be gleaned from statements made about the find.

“They force a radical reassessment of the timing, ecology and environmental setting of the fish-tetrapod transition, as well as the completeness of the body fossil record.”7

“[It] will cause a significant reappraisal of our understanding of tetrapod origins.”8

“[They] could lead to significant shifts in our knowledge of the timing and ecological setting of early tetrapod evolution.”9
“We thought we’d pinned down the origin of limbed tetrapods. We have to rethink the whole thing.”10

“That’s surprising, but this is what the fossil evidence tells us.”11

“These results force us to reconsider our whole picture of the transition from fish to land animals.”12

Note the terms “radical reassessment”, “reappraisal”, “surprising”, “reconsider … whole picture” and “rethink”. We are given the impression that paleontologists scratch around in the sediments and the evidence for evolution just pops out. Creationists are castigated because they are accused of working by faith and not evidence. Well, this Polish upset demonstrates that evidence does not speak for itself. It takes thought, ingenuity, mental exercise and interpretation to make sense of it. The paleontological world is going to take quite some time to rethink its stories.

Remember that all scientists come to the evidence with their own beliefs, biases and … vested interests. Those who have dedicated their lives and careers to the standard fish-to-beast story will not be very enthused by the implications of the latest find. They will be reluctant to change, especially since they have nothing to replace it with.

Curiously, there are a few different ways they could choose to rework the evidence and hold onto Tiktaalik at the same time. If that doesn’t work they may simply ignore it. Time will tell.

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[Kippiis]

A very interesting moment...

[abelcainsbrother]

From a creationists perspective young earth creationists would try to convince us that Tiktaalik was created by God about 6000 years ago and lived in this world until Noah's flood and then they went extinct only about 1400 years after God first created them just like they do for dinosaurs.But the truth is that they were not in this world as they lived in the first earth age/world that once existed on this earth and God did not make them for this world we now live in and if he had've they would have been on Noah's ark too just like all of the other kinds of animals were.There is no reason to think God would pick and choose which animals lives and which dies only about 1400 years after he created them,but YEC's must cram everything into Noah's flood and only have 1400 years from the beginning to Noah's flood to play with.Looking at Tiktaalik and comparing it to the kinds of animals we have in this world would make us realize it was not like the kinds of life we have in this world and many of the kinds of life we find in the fossil record also,such as trilobites,dinosaurs,etc.This also applies to the kind of plant life we find also which is different than what we find in this world. Tiktaalik lived in a totally different kind of world than this world we now live in is.This is the same if we examine hominids,Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal,they are much more like each other than man is in this world.Man is more unique compared to all of them physically.This would make sense since God created man in his image for this world.

[Philip]

ACB, it is incredible how you got sucked into this asserted previous world stuff. You claim to know so much about it, and yet no prophet, apostle or Christ ever mentioned it. And you can only get there by wildly creative use of a few cherrypicked fragments of Scripture. I do, however, give you high marks for you creativity and imagination.

I realize you cling to it because you believe the one thing that would flip many unbelievers to accepting the Bible is if you could kill their belief in evolution. But evolution isn't even the issue you should press people on - as it's the Big Bang and stunning things that immediately appeared at the moment of the Big Bang's beginning - with amazingly designed things immediately coming into existence, perfectly coordinatind and interacting and obeying incredible precise laws that govern and allowed the universe to begin, some 11 billion years before anything could otherwise possibly have existed to allow such theorized evolutionary mechanisms to have existed or to have begun.

The question of evolution would have been a FAR later and entirely dependent process as to what people really need to first explain - the Big Bang event! So your driving reason for your GAP belief is a waste of time. And the fossil record is easily explainable by a common Creator per Progressive Creation, utilizing His DNA codings and designs. Arguing constantly against evolution is a huge waste of time, because it doesn't force people to consider and explain the Big Bang!

[thatkidakayoungguy]

It gets annoying when people say that the Big Bang was some explosion and that it is part of evolution.

[abelcainsbrother]

ACB, it is incredible how you got sucked into this asserted previous world stuff. You claim to know so much about it, and yet no prophet, apostle or Christ ever mentioned it. And you can only get there by wildly creative use of a few cherrypicked fragments of Scripture. I do, however, give you high marks for you creativity and imagination.

I realize you cling to it because you believe the one thing that would flip many unbelievers to accepting the Bible is if you could kill their belief in evolution. But evolution isn't even the issue you should press people on - as it's the Big Bang and stunning things that immediately appeared at the moment of the Big Bang's beginning - with amazingly designed things immediately coming into existence, perfectly coordinatind and interacting and obeying incredible precise laws that govern and allowed the universe to begin, some 11 billion years before anything could otherwise possibly have existed to allow such theorized evolutionary mechanisms to have existed or to have begun.

The question of evolution would have been a FAR later and entirely dependent process as to what people really need to first explain - the Big Bang event! So your driving reason for your GAP belief is a waste of time. And the fossil record is easily explainable by a common Creator per Progressive Creation, utilizing His DNA codings and designs. Arguing constantly against evolution is a huge waste of time, because it doesn't force people to consider and explain the Big Bang!

Whether or not you agree with this bible interpretation or not.It was the leading bible interpretation before Young Earth Creationism became so popular amongst bible scholars and bible theologions.This is well documented in the book called "The Creationists" you can find on Amazon.You can reject it but you can't deny history.You just chooe to trust modern bible scholars and bible Theologions more while I do not.Also I am teaching the Gap Theory truthfully also as you can read Dakes Annotated reference bible,plus the Scofield bible if you disagree.You'll see I'm teaching it truthfully. But more importantly the evidence from the earth confirms this bible interpretation true.This is why I accept the Gap Theory it is based on who has the most convincing evidence behind their bible interpretation when it comes to the bible interpretation itself and the evidence they use to support it. I have explained before that if it was not for the Gap Theory I would probably accept Day Age Creationism. But I have discovered issues with it like the fact that atheists do not accept the Big Bang Theory and instead they focus on Scientific hypothesis's that are not real scientific theories but they prop them up next to the Big Bang so trying to use the bible to show how it lines up with the Big Bang does little to convince scientific minded people. I think Day agers need to focus on countering the problem but they don't. Meanwhile the evidence in the earth confirms a Pre-Adamite earth age if we honestly take the time to examine the evidence. It proves there was indeed a Pre-Adamite world that was different than this world we now live in. This is not a salvation issue but a bible interpretation plus evidence thing.

I realize it may not be so apparant at first but our evidence from the earth is the very same evidence that evolutionists use for evolution but we are looking at the evidence from a Gap Theory perspective while they are looking at it from an evolution perspective.Same evidence,just a different way of explaing the evidence that confirms this interpretation correct. So that when I'm dealing with evolutionists it is easy to show them based on the very same evidence they use. It will click if they look at it honestly and they'll realize a Pre-Adamite earth age world is much more believable than evolution is based on the same evidence.

This is the case because before Charles Darwin pushed evolution and before evolution became a scientific theory The Gap Theory was taught by William Buckland and Charles Darwin knew William Buckland which is why he mentions Buckland in his book "the Origin of Species". Buckland was a very popular Geologist at the time.But all Darwin did was blend evolution into the evidence that was used by Buckland to teach the Gap Theory. This is why it lines up with the same evidence evolutionists use and it is a better theory than evolution is.