Missing Link A Little Fishy
I mentioned yesterday about a supposed transitional fossil. Well, today, Answers in Genesis (AIG) and Creation Evolution News (CEN) have their initial responses up. Like me, AIG mentions the Ceolocanth

There is the coelacanth fish, found in the same geological system (Devonian it is called) as this Tiktaalik discovery, that also has lobed fins. These lobed fins were once thought to enable the coelacanth to walk on the ocean floor (in fact it was, like “Tiklaalik,” once considered by evolutionists to be a type of transitional form). Later, it was determined that the coelacanth fins were used for better maneuvering through the water, and not for walking. The new creature uncovered in the Arctic might be something similar.

CEN notices a few interesting comments in the Nature articles themselves.

In the first paper by Daeschler, Shubin and Jenkins,1 they begin, “The relationship of limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) to lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians) is well established, but the origin of major tetrapod features has remained obscure for lack of fossils that document the sequence of evolutionary changes.” That is a strange statement. It sounds something like, We know it’s true; we just lack evidence.

Heh...that sounds just like most of evolutionary theory....
Back again, with this new discover is yet another ad hoc claim of 'convergent evolution'.

However, “Some tetrapod-like features evolved independently in other sarcopterygian groups,” while other two other fossils seem to have features shared with basal tetrapods by convergent evolution (homoplasy).

This comes back to the original quote...they know it evolved, so it must of evolved convergently!!

This is not how you do science, this is how you tell stories. If you are more sciency, be sure to check out CEN's response, although it is long, it has a look at what the scientists really claim.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Friday, April 07, 2006