Missing Link: Transitional Species Debunked

Debunked is probably too strong a word, but those that broker in the truth shouldn't have a hard time picking out nonsense and propaganda when they see it! Below is my thoughts on the latest discovery by scientists of what they are calling a transitional species between water-bound fish and land-roaming (terra-ferma) amphibian. It was written in response to an email from a friend directing me to an article on slashdot.com that announced this discovery:

Hey Jason,

How are things?

I thought you would like this recent article from the athestic anarchists at slashdot....

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/06/0217250

Alan

My response:

Alan,

Things are pretty good. I do miss Unishippers sometimes. Things there were more practical than here working for the government. It sure is nice to drive 15 minutes to work though (on a clear day with no construction!).

I read this article a few days ago in 3 different forms. I had to laugh, though at their outlandish speculation. I like your description of them: “athestic anarchists”. If you read carefully, there is no real evidence that this is a missing-link species. Consider these telling observations:

1. In the 2nd paragraph, they say that this find is in the class of Archaeopteryx which, they assert, bridged the gap between birds and reptiles. Problem is, there’s no evidence whatsoever that Archaeopteryx was anything other than just a bird. The whole body of evidence for Archaeopteryx being a bridge species is that they found it in a NE Chinese rock formation (Yixian) that, they asserted, predated the evolution of birds. Since birds didn’t evolve yet, they assert, Archaeopteryx must have been at least partly dinosaur! Interesting logic. If you’d found precisely the same fossil in strata that was dated, they assert, at say 300,000 years, then they would have said it was a new species of bird. But because of the strata it was found it, it must have been part dinosaur. What Archaeopteryx actually was is bedrock proof that birds were around as contemporary with the dinosaurs that supposedly turned into birds (a very new theory, even as evolution goes).
2. They also called it a “crocodile-like” animal. Well, if it’s like a crocodile, then why liken it to a fish!
3. The people who classified the find said it “probably had both gills and lungs”. Well that would certainly support their claims! But they didn’t find gills or lungs. All soft tissue was decayed an absorbed by the surrounding rock. No soft tissue survived (or normally does)! It really was just mindless conjecture to plant a picture in reader’s minds that would tend to support their claims that this animal was a transitional form.
4. I love this paragraph: Tiktaalik - the name means "a large, shallow-water fish" in the Inuit language Inuktikuk - shows that the evolution of animals from living in water to living on land happened gradually, with fish first living in shallow water.” So a name they gave the animal is evidence of evolution? Huh?!?
5. They say it had a “more primitive jaw”. Again, how do they know what a primitive jaw would look like. How do they know that a different jaw is a “more primitive jaw”. Imagine if they applied this logic to humans! Are blacks or aboriginal more primitive? Are Caucasian characteristics more modern? Pure racism. Darwinism is the basis for much of modern racism, as well as anti-Semitism. Again, baseless assertions.
6. Keep in mind that they didn’t discover through this find that fish crawled onto land. They “knew” that long before! The previous claim was the Coelacanth. They asserted that it’s fleshy fins would have allowed it to climb out of the water and go for short strolls. They had asserted dozens of things that they knew about the behavior and significance of the Coelacanth, and then they found some swimming around. Now there are 7 locations across 1000+ miles of the Indian Ocean that refute every claim they ever made about the behaviors of Coelacanth. Before, they were only 100% sure. But now, they’re 100% sure!!
7. Click here to read the description of the American Crocodile. It has webbed feet, scales, and (not in this article, 2 lines of rigid fins down it’s back and tail. How does this make it a fish?
8. Otters, seals, sea lions, manatees, beavers, alligators, crocodiles, caiman and many other species go between land and sea, this doesn’t make any of them “transitional forms”.
9. When they say: “Tiktaalik blurs the boundary between fish and land-living animal both in terms of its anatomy and its way of life”. This is raw assertion. They found this fossil less than a month ago, and they claim to already know it’s “way of life”??? This is preposterous! If their brand of science was employed by CSI, every criminal would get off and every prosecutor would be in jail for contempt. This is not even circumstantial evidence; it’s something worse.
10. What they didn’t find: They didn’t even find the back half of the animal (though that didn’t stop them from drawing/painting/modeling it). The back half could easily shatter their theories. They didn’t find, nor could they, any evidence that this fish actually lived in shallow water, ever left the water, ever went in the water, ever anything. It’s all a total fabrication, as is all their retelling of 300 million years ago.
11. If evolutionists want to prove their theories, they won’t do it by asserting that one species looks like a cross between species A and species B. They’d have to do it by showing that evolution beyond the borders of the “kind” can happen. Of this, there are NO examples! While men range in height from 21 inches to 9+ feet, they don’t turn into anything other than men! Darwinists the world over are dancing on what they think is the grave of “intelligent design” (they say), but they haven’t made one inch of headway!
12. When scientists have tried to assert relationships between variant species, it looks plausible on the surface. But when you look at anatomy (where available), and the genome (where available), their theories break down quickly. They have totally disprove most of what they used to believe about even the simplest species of bacteria. When examining the genomes, they found out that they were far more different than originally thought.
13. What the scientists found was not a “developing species” like they try to portray through slight of hand. What they found was a fully-functioning species in it’s own right. I would assert (with equal authority, i.e. pulled it out of my ear, that what they found was merely an extinct species of whatever. Keep in mind that the notion of taxonomy and “species” was made up by a man (Carl Linnaeus) in the 1700's based solely on superficial resemblances. By their ways of reckoning, a turtle is more closely related to a rock than a person! The “species” are not related the way evolutionists assert. They are very wrong and they prove it daily. They just don’t admit it. Note: Linnaeus beleived in creation.
    

Anyway, that’s just my thoughts off hand. I haven’t researched this deeply like I’d like to do some time. Unfortunately, the people who discovered this find are being very tight lipped about the find, and only supplying details and photos that would seem to support their assertion. They’ve learned by experience that if you can get the majority of the scientific community to buy into it before releasing the rest of the find, it’s highly unlikely than any amount of contrary evidence will change their minds later. No one likes to admit they’ve been duped!

Hope all is well at Unishippers!!