Originally posted by UTEOTW:
"What a great article!!"
Really great article if you like to keep your head buried in the sand to prevent any chance of learning. Learning can be dangerous to opinions that are not rooted in fact.
Let's examine your quote.
"There is the coelacanth fish, found in the same geological system (Devonian it is called) as this Tiktaalik discovery, that also has lobe fins."
Let's put out a news flash. You may not have gotten the word.
For several decades, it has been accepted that tetrapods evolved from one branch of the lobe finned fish. You might have missed that.
As it turns out, the coelacanths are another branch of the lode finned fish. (You should not refer to the coelacanth as a single fish either. The coelacanths encompass several FAMILIES of fish.)
Now since the coelacanths and the lineage that led to tetrapods are both different branches from a lobe finned fish ancestor, it is a necessary condition that they must have existed at the same time.
There is no surprise that you find them in the same layers. If you did not, then you would not be looking hard enough.
This is a great example of AIG deliberately misrepresenting the situation to cast doubt in a way that only those who do not have enough outside knowledge to judge the claim could fall for.
Let's give an analogy. Felines and canines are both branches from a common carnivore ancestor, It would not cast the least bit of doubt upon feline evolution to find a fossil feline with a fossil canine or in the same age of rocks. You would actually expect there to be examples of such out there waiting to be found.
"These lobe 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)."
Such obfuscation.
First off, J.L.B. Smith who was an ichthyologist and not a palaeontologist or evolutionary biologist was the one who proposed that coelacanths used their fins to walk on the floor. He was shown to be wrong. Get over it. Don't paint with such a wide brush regarding the opinion of one guy.
Second, let's continue with our answer from above. Go back a few pages, first, to your Patterson quote mining. He was making the point that you can never know whether a givn fossil is directly ancestral to another species or if it was a side branch that was closely related to the actual ancestor. And mainly you get the side branches.
In our tetrapod transitional series, most if not all of the fossils we have are believed to be side branches from the actual path for a variety of morphological reasons.
Now connect in the the lineage that led to tetrapods is one branch of the lobe finned fish. Coelacanths are another branch.
This means that it is proper to view coelacanths as a transitional on the way to tetrapods even if it really represents a side branch. It still preserves many of the key features of the path.
Even better, there is a large amount of molecular and morphological data that convincingly demonstrate the close relationship between coelacanths and tetrapods. So it is wrong for AIG to suggest that coelacanths are no longer considered transitionals on the path to tetrpods.
"Also, there are other creatures (e.g., the Panderichthys) that are thought to be fish and yet appear to be similar in lobe and fin structure to Tiktaalik."
Well, let's see here. Panderichthys is only one node below Tiktaalik on the path leading to tetrapods and these guys find it surprising that there should be similarities between them. Do they understand the concept of a transitional? This is what one would expect. If they really are different points along the same path then they should shre such features.
"In addition, the bones for Panderichthys, Tiktaalik and the coelacanth are imbedded in the muscle, and are not attached to the axial skeleton, which you would find in a reptile or amphibian (and which would be necessary for weight-bearing appendages)."
Do these guys know any anatomy?
It is the normal condition for tetrapods to have the shoulder attached to the muscles of the body. Tetrapods with a direct bony connection to the spine and/or ribs is the exception. Just how is this supposed to be a problem?
Furthermore, the other tetrapod transitionals, both those more amphibian like and those more fish like, share this anatomy.
Finally, the question must be asked if AIG has even read both papers that were published in Nature? They seem to miss most of the ponts of the papers. Whether this is through ignorance or deliberate deception cannot be known for sure.
Worse, they only cite one of the two papers. They do not even cite the paper that deals specifically with the limbs.
It is bad enough that we cannot get you guys around here to read anything that might challenge your view. But it is much worse for AIG to try and refute something that it appears that they have not even read themselves.
