That is one ugly fish. . .er not fish.

Can I join in neener-neenering?

Jane

Posted April 6, 2006 9:11 AM by jane

This made me go yippee! (inside my head) on the subwasy this morning. I'm ripping the page out of the paper to show the kid, who thinks this sort of thing is pretty darn neat too.

I particularly like that the Nunavut Council of Elders was asked for input on the name.

Posted April 6, 2006 9:29 AM by Melissa Singer

Woo! Something had to restore my battered faith in evolution (long days dealing with people who - well - are better not described further)

Posted April 6, 2006 9:30 AM by xeger

Oh yeah? Then how come there are PYGMIES & DWARVES?.

Sorry - been hanging out at Pharyngula too much... Even better than this being a transitional form? It was a fossil that was predicted. Coz', you know, predictable & repeatable and successful replication and all that.

Posted April 6, 2006 9:38 AM by protected static

Won't change their minds. They'll say it's a fake. Or that it was put there by God to test our Faith. Or worse, it was put there by the Foul Deceiver to undermine said Faith.

Posted April 6, 2006 9:41 AM by Serge

Or, as P.Z. Myers has pointed out, two more gaps in the fossil record, one on each side of this fishapod...

Posted April 6, 2006 9:54 AM by theophylact

theophylact said:

Or, as P.Z. Myers has pointed out, two more gaps in the fossil record, one on each side of this fishapod...

Posted April 6, 2006 10:15 AM by Petter Hesselberg

Yes, because all the Creationists really want is some solid evidence, and then they'll support evolution.

Posted April 6, 2006 10:17 AM by Dave Lartigue

Another happy neener neener dance on the west coast. What an excellently ugly fish!

Posted April 6, 2006 10:36 AM by Madeleine Robins

Neener-neener-neeeeeeeeeener!

I don't know why, but an image of Teresa conveying this very message was easily, instantly, vividly, and quite clearly, playing in my head the moment I read these words. Except we were sitting in a circle and it had just been revealed that she was, in fact, the thing. Mischief suits you well, I think.

Oh, and by the way, that is one ugly ass fish. Kind of makes me think of what you'd see the evolutionary ladder halfway between a catfish and a crocodile. Still, part of me can't help but ponder the deeper philosophical implications of this finding, such as:

I wonder what he'd taste like battered and deep fried...

I'm also amazed that once again, my new tagline seems perfectly suited for this thread.

Greg "Oh look! A fish!" London

Posted April 6, 2006 10:50 AM by Greg London

Wow -- a fish that fights in water and on land! Wonder what sort of lures it would've taken....

Posted April 6, 2006 10:53 AM by Richard Anderson

Serge:

Won't change their minds. They'll say it's a fake.

Or that it was put there by God to test our Faith.

Also, could they please explain what other apparently solid data is eligible to be dismissed in that fashion? Yes? And how they can tell the difference? One step past that point in any direction, they'll fall into "some parts of creation are More Real than others": a muddy, fetid philosophical swamp that breeds errors by the swarm.

"What do we know, and how do we know that we know it?": There's a reason it's a classic.

Or worse, it was put there by the Foul Deceiver to undermine said Faith.

There's your real problem with Creationism: it's incompatible with Christianity.

Posted April 6, 2006 10:54 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

so Satan is a creative force, and had a hand in the creation of the world? That can't be anything but Manichaeanism: a recurrent Christian heresy, explicitly rejected as doctrine by all the major denominations.

You gotta admit, it's a really tempting heresy.

Posted April 6, 2006 10:58 AM by Seth Gordon

Never argue with a creationist. Wrestling, pigs, you know the story. They don't do evidence. They know the innermost secret of science: that the word 'theory' means 'unprovable surmise'. They already have an explanation for each and every life-form that exists: God made it that way, and that's all we need to know. Indeed, to enquire further is just Wrong.

Pelvic bones in whales? The human appendix? The primate inability to synthesize vitamin C, which humans share? Finger-bones on quetzal birds? Non-functioning eyes in cave fish? The penguin's unique swimming action? The kiwi's wings? Don't you see? One explanation for them all, perfect, neat, covers all cases. God did it.

Why bother to look further?

Posted April 6, 2006 11:06 AM by Dave Luckett

fish that fights in water and on land! Wonder what sort of lures it would've taken....

I was thinking I'd lure it out of the water with a laser pointer, force it to run around in circles until it was too tired to move, then whack it with something sufficiently dense, like, say, George Dubya Bush.

Posted April 6, 2006 11:07 AM by Greg London

Royal mode on: "Tiktaalik roseae, I dub thee 'Gator-Fish, slayer of creationist bunk'." (tap sword on shoulder) "Go forth and do battle in the name of clear thinking."

Posted April 6, 2006 11:12 AM by Greg London

Cliff Claven mode on: Ya know, Normi, the Gator fish lived in areas of water that were close to land such as swamps, coastal areas, rivers, and similar localities, where it was able to evolve limbs and walk on land for brief periods, giving it an advantage over fish who were forced to stay in teh water. It generally fed off of whatever garbage it found at the bottom of the swamp or river, and it's favorite was eating creationists for breakfast.

Posted April 6, 2006 11:16 AM by Greg London

Agreed, Teresa... By the way, my original comment was based on years of reading Skeptical Enquirer. It's amazing how some people can choose the parts of Science that suits them and still manage to dismiss the inextricably linked parts that contradict their beliefs. Look at the Shroud of Turin.

Meanwhile, I just came back from my barber. They had the TV tuned to one of those morning shows where they mentionned the Critter and how scientists think it is the link between fish and mammals then, after a very brief pause, added "...including humans."

They actually had the courage to say it.

Posted April 6, 2006 11:29 AM by Serge

Is it bad that, when I saw protected static's question about PYGMIES & DWARVES, my first thought was that the link would go to "a mountain, trees and a midgit [sic]"?

Posted April 6, 2006 11:31 AM by Captain Slack

between fish and mammals then, after a very brief pause, added "...including humans."

They actually had the courage to say it.

See, I would have heard that differently than you. I would have assumed that they added "including humans" for all the folks out there who don't know what a mammal is.

Posted April 6, 2006 11:34 AM by Greg London

God Almighty is infinite truth and light, but the God we deal with here on earth is lying to us?

The version I usually hear is that the details showing evolution and a world older than 6000 years were put there by the Creator to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing cosmos.

Posted April 6, 2006 11:34 AM by Avram

I believe, with the last song listed here, MC Hawking says it best.

"Doomsday, get my gun," indeed.

Posted April 6, 2006 11:39 AM by Skwid

The version I usually hear is that the details showing evolution and a world older than 6000 years were put there by the Creator to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing cosmos.

The one I like is to ask creationists how their lightbulbs work (since it's the same physics they claim is false in dating fossils).

Posted April 6, 2006 11:40 AM by P J Evans

That's a possible explanation, Greg. But maybe it wasn't courage either. That pause they first made could be interpreted as the-fundies-are-going-to-be-mad-at-us-but-let's-say-it, yes, but it might be that the anchor is a fundie who didn't want to say those words but said them anyway because it was in her script and she didn't want to be fired.

Posted April 6, 2006 11:54 AM by Serge

They'll say it's a fake. Or that it was put there by God to test our Faith. Or worse, it was put there by the Foul Deceiver to undermine said Faith.

Which is funny because all the really out there, high end, really hard to begin to wrap your head around the scope of it phenomenon are part of what drives my faith in a God of some sort.

The alternate, "Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a australopithecus out of my hat!" model would pretty much convince me that it realy was a cold uncaring universe.

Posted April 6, 2006 12:04 PM by Avery

Something must be wrong with me--I think it's kinda cute. (But then I've been trying to concept out some sea monsters in recent times.)

Posted April 6, 2006 12:11 PM by PiscusFiche

It has some resemblance to Diplocaulus, a Permian amphibian I've seen described as 'reach out and bump someone'. (It had a triangular head, at its most extreme a 45-degree right triangle with the hypotenuse as the neck edge.)

Posted April 6, 2006 12:24 PM by P J Evans

"one ugly-ass fish."
I dispute that.
For one thing, it is not ugly to another one of its kind.
For another, it doesn't have an ass, and in fact, there was no such thing as an ass at the time it existed.

Posted April 6, 2006 12:24 PM by Erik Nelson

P.Z. points us to "Embrace your inner fish" (as well as some other Tiktaalik art) at Troll Art.

Posted April 6, 2006 12:31 PM by theophylact

I don't know about ugly, but that beastie is both Eldritch and Squamous. And very nearly Batrachian.

Posted April 6, 2006 12:32 PM by Dan Layman-Kennedy

You daily dose of dumb-ass Intelligent Design rationalization:

Mean animals, Ebola, and AIDS designed by fallen angles; Panda's thumb, other clumsy stuff designed by good angels who didn't have permission to make drastic edits in God's basic designs.

The linked-to is what science will look like if the ID crowd has its way.

Posted April 6, 2006 12:38 PM by Stefan Jones

So, you found ONE unidentified fish, and all your desires for a world without God have come true. Pretty big leap if you ask me. There are still millions of other missing links that should be out there!

Posted April 6, 2006 12:45 PM by Army brat

Fishapod! *loves that word*

Posted April 6, 2006 12:52 PM by Luthe

The version I usually hear is that the details showing evolution and a world older than 6000 years were put there by the Creator to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing cosmos.

Well, that's the way I do it when I'm writing. And if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for the Almighty.

Posted April 6, 2006 1:10 PM by Ashni

you found ONE unidentified fish, and all your desires for a world without God have come true.

Funny, I find the two unrelated. All the fish says to me is that it is yet another piece of evidence to support evolution, that creationism isn't needed to explain how life formed on earth, and that God isn't needed to make it rain.

i have to chuckle every time (then shake my head) every time I hear religious folk take science's sole purpose to be to prove the non-existence of god. It isn't.

But I've had this conversation before. I believe the key word of all that previous discusion would be "orthoganal".

Posted April 6, 2006 1:13 PM by Greg London

Is it just me, or does it look like a Darwin fish?

Posted April 6, 2006 1:27 PM by Gag Halfrunt

I'm just tired of the whole argument. I'd really like to find a very nice little bumper plate of a Darwin fish holding hands with a Jesus fish walking away into the sunset.

My husband and I are both Christians, he's a scientist, I'm not, he believes the theory of evolution pretty adequately describes how God went about doing things and I don't necessarily believe the same. But, I'm not one of those militant creationists who would question whether someone could be a Christian and believe Darwin got it right. Maybe he did. I don't have a vested interest in figuring out how he was wrong and the Bible was right or the other way around and I'm not really sure anyone else does either... they just think they do.

Posted April 6, 2006 1:36 PM by Kelley Shimmin

"All your desires for a world without God have come true"

What? This is just the sort of thing I do not get. I never have. The Theory of Evolution and the existence of God are in no way mutually exclusive. Creationism and Intelligent Design, on the other paw, try to force God into a shape and size acceptible to our bounded human capacity, to set limits on something your own religion tells you is limitless.
Who can say that evolution isn't God's way of maintaining the Perfection of the omniverse, to keep it from becoming stagnant,from unessential decay. From being damn boring.
"There's your real problem with Creationism: it's incompatible with Christianity." Love you for this, TNH.
In my mind, Creationism and Intelligent Design both indicate a tragic lack of faith.
If I've understood correctly, Darwin was actually a fairly devout gentleman, and his studies point to a faithful man trying to better understand his creator. Not a man trying to disprove the existence of the divine, but to give a graspable framework to divine works.
I personally think Tiktaalik roseae is quite handsome.

Posted April 6, 2006 1:56 PM by J Austin

Kelley,
If you draw up the design and put it on Cafe Press, I'm sure you'd be surprised by the number of people who'd want one.

Posted April 6, 2006 1:58 PM by J Austin

I expect all the creationists will either

(a) ignore yet another inconvenient fact;

(b) claim that it's a fraud;

(c) bring up the irreducible complexity red herring;

or (d) call for defunding basic science research that conflicts with the narrowest possible reading of Genesis.

Posted April 6, 2006 2:01 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Yeah, Army brat, the folks around here sure do love them some militant atheism.

Posted April 6, 2006 2:01 PM by Dan Layman-Kennedy

J Austin: A lot of fundies believe that atheists and agnostics *really* know there's a god (or a Santa Claus), but deliberately choose to deny it. Evidence for evolution is, on this scheme of things, merely an addition tool for those of us who don't share their faith to deny what we know is self-evidently true.

Posted April 6, 2006 2:06 PM by Fragano Ledgister

I'd really like to find a very nice little bumper plate of a Darwin fish holding hands with a Jesus fish walking away into the sunset.

A friend of mine has this sort of thing on the back of her car, and it is an easy DIY. She took a Darwin fish and an ichthus and placed them so that the fishes were nose-to-nose...kissing. It's a really neat effect.

Posted April 6, 2006 2:09 PM by Kayjay

Dan - And the next sound you hear will be Army Brat's head blowing up.... If they can comprehend it at all.

Posted April 6, 2006 2:17 PM by Paula Helm Murray

you found ONE unidentified fish, and all your desires for a world without God have come true.

... all our desires for a world where the hard-won separation between Church and State is preserved against onslaughts by opportunistic demagogues -- who see human longing for harmony and love as a lever to gain financial, political, and social power.

... all our desires to maintain a standard of education in the United States that gives its voting citizens a chance to distinguish between sense and nonsense.

Posted April 6, 2006 2:22 PM by Lenny Bailes

Fragano Ledgister:
Well, they're messing up the rotation--it's puff, puff, give, dammit.

Posted April 6, 2006 2:27 PM by J Austin

Ah, another angel has jumped on the head of the pin as far as I'm concerned.

I find the fishapod neither cute nor ugly.

It's definitely smirking though. Now, if only they find a pack of cigarettes in its pocket, everybody will be happy.

Posted April 6, 2006 2:31 PM by Mark DF

Hey, doesn't that pink Amazon River Dolphin have an articulated neck like that, whereas sea-going dolphins' vertebrae are fused there?

Posted April 6, 2006 2:38 PM by J Austin

@ Paula: Army Brat's head might pure neutronium, light and facts bend around it. But no explosions (other than from accretion on the surface.)

@ Army Brat: One fish makes your God go away? Maybe you need to upgrade your Christianity to something a little more resilient. Many of the folks who comment regularly on this blog are quite comfortable with God and Science. I happen to see no need for a God, and oddly don't go on nihilistic rampages. Something about repeated prisoners' dilemmas, what you might have learned as The Golden Rule.

Posted April 6, 2006 2:45 PM by Bill Humphries

a Darwin fish holding hands with a Jesus fish walking away into the sunset.

If I were to design my cafepress bumpersticker, it would show the Jesus fish in salt water and the Darwin fish in freshwater, and one does not exclude the other. Sort of put that whole "orthoganal" bit I was talking about into pictogram.

I haven't figured out how to represent that in a simple bumpersticker pictogram though. Maybe that's why the fundamentalists can be so violent to science, there's no simple bumpersticker that shows science/god are unrelated.

Posted April 6, 2006 3:00 PM by Greg London

@ Greg: as Gould said, separate magisterium.

Posted April 6, 2006 3:12 PM by Bill Humphries

Ooooooo, kawaii!

Fishapod art!

Thanks bOING bOING!

Posted April 6, 2006 3:18 PM by Stefan Jones

I sell bumperstickers and buttons that say "God is who, evolution is how".

I *think* I've seen a yin-yang with one half as a Darwin fish and the other half as an icthys/Christian fish.

As for arguing with Creationists, my impression is that a lot of them would lose friends and family members if they started saying they believed in evolution. I'm not sure what arguments are strong enough to convince people who are giving in to that sort of pressure.

Is there any handy source for accounts of switching from Creationism to evolution?

Posted April 6, 2006 3:21 PM by Nancy Lebovitz

accounts of switching from Creationism to evolution?

How about accounts of Neo-Cons switching to the progressive party?

Have you ever seen a grown man naked, Billy?

Oh look! A fish!

Posted April 6, 2006 3:40 PM by Greg London

Scott re Manichaeanism:
You gotta admit, it's a really tempting heresy.

Most of them are. That's the problem with heresy.

Avram: ideal use of Gilbert & Sullivan.

Posted April 6, 2006 3:46 PM by Lila

Someone in my neighborhood has a bumpersticker of an icthyus (sp?) facing a Darwin fish, 'kissing' a heart. The sticker looks professionally done.

And Army Brat: thanks for moving the goalposts, just as predicted. Is your faith that fragile?

Posted April 6, 2006 3:50 PM by protected static

There's not much point in arguing with Victim Christianists--they're playing to lose. They want to be insulted and re-convinced that the world is going straight to Hell, and they are a beleagured minority...

All for the happy glow of martyrdom without the ickiness of actually being martyred.

Posted April 6, 2006 3:54 PM by alex

I'm an atheist, too stubborn to be anything else (Christianity turns vicious in junior high). My worldview does not exclude a creator-- it does exclude a lot of versions of it, but not the basics. I don't mind it if someone tells me that in the beginning, the word was Bang, and it was good, and then God or whoever sat back and watched the fireworks because there wasn't any need for intervening. If you want an omnipotent deity, I'm going to insist it's really omnipotent and able to set up the dominoes, measure the fuses right, and have just the right type of rabbit in the Rube Goldberg machine. Telling me that God needs to craft every molecule individually to code just makes me think God is either a total control freak or stupid. I don't buy a malicious control freak idiot in the sky. But the Big Domino-Tipper? Doesn't bug me.

Posted April 6, 2006 4:42 PM by Cassie

I think it's quite attractive in a rakish sort of way. I would cast Johnny Depp to play its voice in the animated film adapation. The fish would be somewhat grumpy and complain that nobody understands why he has a sore neck and you how irritating it is that you just can't find a good podiatrist anywhere.

Posted April 6, 2006 4:57 PM by Georgiana

My version of creationism is that every day, every hour, every second is completely new and unused, created *right now* and not recycled from somewhen else. Life, on the other hand, evolved.

But I bet fishapod is too bony for good eating. If it were still around to eat.

Posted April 6, 2006 5:00 PM by P J Evans

I've been mostly offline for the last couple of months. I wander back in here, and what do I see? Yet another drive-by eejit making a fool of itself by accusing the owners of militant atheism. Nothing changes. :-)

That fish is both ugly and cute. I want a teeshirt. And I confess to being yet another who thought "Mmm, wonder what it tastes like fried with chips?"

(Must remember to post a link to the "Things I believe" post on Easter Sunday. I usually keep my LJ a religion-free zone, but I'm feeling rather more militantly liberal Anglican than usual.)

Posted April 6, 2006 5:08 PM by Julia Jones

The version I usually hear is that the details showing evolution and a world older than 6000 years were put there by the Creator to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing cosmos.

I always think that if God is going to go to all the effort of planting fossils to make us believe that evolution operated, then the least we can do is go along with Him on it. Which is kind of like Teresa said, I guess.

They know the innermost secret of science: that the word 'theory' means 'unprovable surmise'.

Well, that's what 'theory' means in history, and evolution (as opposed to natural selection) is a theory about history. We can show that natural selection operates, and that evolution occurs, and that the kinds of changes that can take place are sufficient to account for most/all of the historical changes we have found. But we are never going to *prove* that humans evolved. Not even if we can evolve new ones from sludge.

But we don't need to. The theory of evolution is far and away the most convincing account of the evidence, and when new evidence turns out to be not just consistent with it but predictable (as protected static said), then it's solid enough for me. In fact, I think it helps to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. Just like in a law court, some theories are more convincing than others. I don't see that anyone needs to be embarrassed about this.

So yay! to the fishapod. And boo! to army brat if he/she thinks (that we think, etc.) that a fish can prove the non-existence of God.

Posted April 6, 2006 6:04 PM by candle

nobody understands why he has a sore neck

Well, he shouldn't have gone and evolved it. We were all perfectly content living in the water, and then he goes and evolves a neck just so he can stick it out. He'll be sorry when he finds out he doesn't have any lungs.

The only way he'll be happy is if his descendents evolve into some fish-eating reptile creature and kills us all. Mark my words.

Posted April 6, 2006 6:09 PM by candle

I think he's beeeeyutiful, although I agree he would be way too bony to eat. Poor Army brat didn't get the reaction he'd/she'd hoped for, I guess, judging by his/her silence. For myself, I find the whole incredible universe to be a stunning (though confusing) reflection (warning: metaphor! NOT to be taken literally) of its maker.

The God of the literalists seems to me to be so small...

Posted April 6, 2006 7:38 PM by Lizzy L

That is an amazing find, but it is most definately an ugly beast.

*Joins in chants of Neener-neener-neeeeeeeeeener!*

Posted April 6, 2006 7:49 PM by James Goodman

So ugly it's cute.

As long as we're saying nanny-nanny-boo-boo, each in our own dialect, how 'bout that Judas Gospel? The fundies' heads got some 'splodin to do!

Posted April 6, 2006 7:55 PM by TexAnne

So, no one has come up with a knit version already?

Posted April 6, 2006 8:05 PM by Stefan Jones

There's not much point in arguing with Victim Christianists....

I worry about the possibility that too many of them are now being manufactured for the legacy systems in the United States (social, political, educational) to deal with.

Drivebys like the "Army Brat" post reinforce a subjective belief I've been developing: the portion of the U.S. population that believes in social and scientific progress really needs to open new lines of communication with the elements who are increasingly being exploited by the Robertsons, Falwells, Bakers, and Roves.

Spending government money to open those communication lines is a tactic that's currently being thwarted by the alliance between Bush/Old Boy Profiteers and Corporate "Christianists." Those guys know who their common enemy is: anyone who questions their methods of amassing personal wealth and power at the expense of an enlightened, democratic society.

What can we do, during a time when the legacy institutions of civilization in the U.S. are being paralyzed by snake venom? Obviously, try to discourage the eco-niches that allow the snakes to flourish: throw the political criminals out and attempt to stop the damage now being inflicted on the public infrastructure.

In the meantime, we may have an increasing number of snake-bite cases like "Army Brat" crossing our paths. It's great that we have a real Darwin Fish. Oddly, we may also have the task of assisting ??% of the U.S. voting population to process the significance of the fish's existence.

Posted April 6, 2006 8:30 PM by Lenny Bailes

The whole idea of a "missing link," though, is somewhat of a misnomer. I wish they wouldn't use the term. There's no frentic search for some hypothesized "missing link." Fossilization is such a rare process that of COURSE most "links" go missing. Whole species, perhaps whole familes or higher may be missing. But the fossil is an important one that suggests possible origins of modern fish, even if it's not itself THE origin.

Posted April 6, 2006 10:16 PM by Things That Ain't So

Judas Gospel--"I was only following orders." Gotta love it.

God Made the Fish to Test Our Faith! Yeah, and He created all those hundred million year old fossils ten minutes ago to test your faith. What kind of God needs to post-date his reality checks?

Posted April 6, 2006 10:23 PM by Tully

Presumably the Tiktaalik fish went extinct when the Cycle turned, and was buried by the Greater Sediment of Chaos. Will the next interesting fossil be named Zerika?

Posted April 7, 2006 12:58 AM by Wim L

Teresa, would you do that very clever thing you have done to other drivers-by, and reveal Army Brat's secret identity?

Posted April 7, 2006 2:18 AM by Jonathan Shaw

you found ONE unidentified fish, and all your desires for a world without God have come true.

It's called the Enlightenment, that man should strive to understand the world through observation and reason rather than listening to whatever some loudmouth says the Big Sky Fairy thinks.

Deal with it or get run over.

Posted April 7, 2006 2:54 AM by Phoenician in a time of Romans

"Fossilization is such a rare process that of COURSE most 'links' go missing."

Rather like the way books go out of print, isn't it?

Posted April 7, 2006 7:18 AM by Randolph Fritz

Some of the creationist response aroused the magisterial ire of my friend Henry Gee, who edited the paper at Nature.

Posted April 7, 2006 8:59 AM by Oliver Morton

Rock on, rock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Rock on, rock on--you weren't in vain! Ignorance wanks against the wind, And the wind blows it back again. And every drop begets a Thought That grows within the Human Mind (Of someone else, of course, because That Brand of wanking makes you Blind).

Do I need to do the last four lines of the original? Or is this the appropriate ending?

Posted April 7, 2006 9:52 AM by adamsj

Future archaeologists are going to have fun:

"This 4,000-year-old Creationist cranium is extremely well preserved, thanks to its thick bones. Also the brain is perfectly petrified. We suspect it got that way while the Creationist still lived..."
;-)

Posted April 7, 2006 9:53 AM by A.R.Yngve

Double posted 'cause blockquote didn't work right for me:

Rock on, rock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Rock on, rock on--you weren't in vain!
Ignorance wanks against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.
And every drop begets a Thought
That grows within the Human Mind
(Of someone else, of course, because
That Brand of wanking makes you Blind).

Do I need to do the last four lines of the original? Or is this the appropriate ending?

Posted April 7, 2006 9:54 AM by adamsj

adamsj: I have it on good authority that William Blake is laughing fit to burst.

Posted April 7, 2006 9:59 AM by Fragano Ledgister

When I heard about the Gospel of Judas, my first thought, honestly, was Jesus Christ Superstar (which has makes use of the notion that Judas was carrying out Jesus's wishes).

I find the comment about "ONE unidentified fish" puzzling for two reasons. One, this is hardly the first transitional fossil that archeologist have found. (If it were, then I wouldn't have previously read the "well, now you have two gaps in the fossil record to fill" rejoinder and there wouldn't be a discussion about this in the Evolution FAQ.) Two, I don't understand what sort of correlation there is between finding transitional forms in the fossil record and a desire for a God-free world. It seems to me that if transitional forms exist, one would find them regardless of one's desires for the world. If they didn't exist, no amount of desire or belief could conjure up something which would withstand scrutiny by itself. Or is the idea that objects pop in and out of existence depending on the state of one's beliefs?

(In any case, the notion that evolution is compatible with religion is not a new one. I believe the notion of taking religious texts literally is a newer concept. However, I haven't done the research to substantiate this.)

The irony of the "you now have two gaps" defense is that Creationist demand greater physical evidence for evolution than they do for their own idea. That isn't playing fair if they insist that Creationism is, too, a theory.

Posted April 7, 2006 10:08 AM by JC

Oliver, thank you for the link to Dr. Gee's magnificant response. I love it when someone can answer back with the original Hebrew (actually Aramaic, I believe) and point out that the G-d in the original writing is quite different from their petty notions of Him.

Posted April 7, 2006 10:31 AM by Magenta Griffith

Oliver Morton: Dr Gee's essay was excellent, and your description of it as "magisterial" very apt. But did you see the creationist attempts at rejoinder?! They should be preserved as fossils themselves. In a millennium or two, teachers could show them to students as examples of the mental processes that went on in the Dark Ages. Everyone would laugh.

..... I hope.

Posted April 7, 2006 10:49 AM by Dave Luckett

JC -- What appropriate initials!

Only problem now is that Radio Central Nervous Center will play this:

"Every time I look at you I don't understand,
How you let the things you did get so out of hand,
You'd have managed better if you'd had it planned-
Why'd you choose such a backward time, and such a strange land?"

Or worse:

"Ho-sanna, Hey-sanna, 'sanna 'sanna ho-sanna hey-sanna ho-sanna...Hey JC, JC you're alright by me, sanna ho-sanna hey, Superstar!"

Posted April 7, 2006 11:08 AM by Lori Coulson

In a millennium or two, teachers could show them to students as examples of the mental processes that went on in the Dark Ages. Everyone would laugh

Heretic! To the fire with you.

Posted April 7, 2006 11:29 AM by Greg London

There's a second major evolution article in the Times today, this one on molecular evolution, and once again the paper gets the point right:

Dr. Thornton said the experiments showed how evolution could and did innovate functions over time. "I think this is likely to be a very common theme in how complex molecular systems evolved," he said.

Christoph Adami, a professor of life sciences at the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, Calif. who wrote an accompanying commentary in Science, said the research showed how evolution "takes advantage of lucky circumstances and builds upon them."

Dr. Thornton said the experiment refutes the notion of "irreducible complexity" put forward by Michael J. Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University.

Posted April 7, 2006 12:22 PM by theophylact

This is a marvelous example (from Gee's blog):

Serious proponents of Intelligent Design distinguish between microevolution, where changes occur within a species, and macroevolution, where cows change into dolphins. Microevolution is an accepted fact, but macroevolution is a fairy-tale for those grown-ups who personally feel the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible to be unacceptable.

Posted April 7, 2006 1:26 PM by Laurence Roberts

I thought dolphins came from wolves? And when it comes to life, I'd rather go with evolution than the Biblical literalists and Genesis. It's so much simpler than having to have special acts of creation for every species, including the ones that are only known from fossils.

Posted April 7, 2006 1:49 PM by P J Evans

When I heard about the Gospel of Judas, my first thought, honestly, was Jesus Christ Superstar

I thought of the Borges short story, of which (annoyingly) I can't remember the title. But it pretty much takes the Gospel of Judas kind of thinking to its logical conclusion and decides that Judas was far more worthy of worship than Christ - because Christ only lowered himself to be a man reviled (by some) in his lifetime, whereas Judas sacrificed himself to the point of accepting eternal damnation.

All attributed to a fictional theologian, of course.

(Ah, thank you Google: "Three Versions of Judas".)

Posted April 7, 2006 2:33 PM by candle

Personally, I find ID and Creationism insulting to God, because it forces Him to dumb down the cosmos to something mere humans can understand.

Posted April 7, 2006 2:52 PM by Renee

Oliver, thank you for the link to Dr. Gee's magnificant response. I love it when someone can answer back with the original Hebrew (actually Aramaic, I believe) and point out that the G-d in the original writing is quite different from their petty notions of Him.

Since it's Genesis Henry Gee is quoting from, it would be Hebrew rather than Aramaic.

Also quite interesting is a link that Gee provided to a short essay of his, here, where he argues that there's commonality and sometimes cooperation between Christian Creationists and similar anti-science fundamentalists in Judaism and Islam.

I'm not certain how widespread the latter really might be, since he only discusses one (Turkish) group -- are they really influential? Are there other such groups in other Islamic nations? (He does point out that some American Creationists have attended conferences organized by the Turkish group, and that the latter's mission statements sound a lot like the Discovery Institute's "wedge document").

This article discusses "Vedic Creationism", though apparently it's mainly active in the US, via US-based Hare Krishnas, hardly an orthodox Hindu group.

Posted April 8, 2006 6:28 AM by Peter Erwin

There's a very nice summary of the context for Tiktaalik -- what we knew about tetrapods before, and where the new beastie fits into things -- in science writer Carl Zimmer's blog, here: Walking Towards Land.

So why is Tiktaalik big news and not news at all? It is big news because it blurs the distinction between fish and tetrapod more spectacularly than ever before. It is no news at all, because it is just the sort of creature that one would predict from previously discovered fossils. Its place on our family tree has been cleared and waiting for some time now. And now it's filled.

I also like his (slightly melancholic) comment on being a science writer:

Writing books about science is massive fun, but it is always followed by an unpleasant aftertaste, as you watch all your work become quaint and dated.

Posted April 8, 2006 8:06 AM by Peter Erwin

They know the innermost secret of science: that the word 'theory' means 'unprovable surmise'.

Actually, scientific theories cannot be proved in the way a mathematical theorem can be; they can only be supported or disproved. You do the same thing again and again, getting the same results each time, and that supports your theory; but there can always be a counter-example. People thought for centuries that Newton's laws applied in all situations, but now we know that they're a special case when velocity approaches zero.

Paleontology is more like history; you're digging up the bits and trying to work out what happened, rather than what happens (which is where the repeatable experiments come in).

Posted April 8, 2006 1:50 PM by Cat

Well, I'm kind of stuck right now. I am a Christian, but I'm not a Creationist in the sense that most people here think. I believe that God created everything, but I don't really believe in all the nonsense that's attached to Creationists. I just don't see how the existence of God doesn't necessarily equate with evolution. I don't see how evolution is an impossibility. In fact, if I look at all the scientific and archaeological discoveries and compare them all, it all kind of fits together and makes sense. The newly-discovered fish just confirms my suspicions.

Man, it sucks for me to be a Christian who believes in evolution. I feel so squished in between two different groups.

Posted April 8, 2006 8:19 PM by Alan Yee

Alan, *you're* not strange. The ones having problems with this are the literalists, the one who insist that 'Everything in the Bible is Literal Truth', and won't actually *read* it, beyond the bare minimum that confirms their beliefs. (I think they're confusing 'of'-about and 'of'-belonging-to, but that's my opinion, and YMMV.)

Posted April 8, 2006 10:02 PM by P J Evans

Man, it sucks for me to be a Christian who believes in evolution.

Well, perhaps it doesn't feel like it, but you are in good company: Charles Darwin, for one, was a convinced Christian. I presume that his stance was that the history of evolution only showed how creative God really was and is. I also suspect that quite a lot of people on this site would define themselves as Christians who believe in evolution. Judging from this link posted earlier in response to army brat, that would include our hosts.

And again: sometimes it may not feel like it, but being stuck between extremes is often a very good place to be. Especially if you've chosen the place your standing on the basis of its own merits. The one good thing about being between the devil and the deep blue sea is the knowledge that you haven't succumbed to either.

Posted April 8, 2006 10:54 PM by candle

Alan, you have lots of company, including the present Pope, who has no trouble at accepting evolution. (I am at the moment reading Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity, which was originally published in 1968. In it he approaches the doctrine of the Trinity by discussing and quoting Schrodinger on waves and particles, and then comparing what modern physics says to St. Augustine.) He would, I expect, have a problem with the assertion that all that we can say about the creation of the universe is contained in contemporary science -- but then, most scientists would find that statement objectionable, too, since it implies we have nothing more to learn. I also (and others who post here regularly) believe in God and evolution, and I am not, I assure you, a creationist nor a believer in "Intelligent Design" as defined by those folks who are even now freaking out on Pharyngula. Don't feel lonely.

Posted April 8, 2006 10:54 PM by Lizzy L

It would be really wonderful to be able to discuss a fascinating scientific discovery like this and not have the discussion in the context of "here, this will show the crazy people." I have no interest in creationism or creationists. They shine no light on our understanding of the world -- they only create smoke.

Just ignore their existence, and the discussion morphs into something different entirely: an attempt to satisfy our curiosity, to understand the world. Sure, the feet on the fish are cool. Does the fossil show any other adaptations? What other fossils were found around it? How does it connect with earlier and later fossils? That is, does it seem to have evolved from anything we know, or evolved into anything we know? And so on and so on. Like we would look at a neat discovery in any other field of study.

Posted April 9, 2006 2:26 AM by Greg Ioannou

"What other fossils were found around it?"

Considering that it took six years (if I remember what I read/heard accurately) to find this one, I imagine there's a whole lot of excitement about going back to Ellsmere Island this summer to continue searching.

Posted April 9, 2006 2:54 AM by Linkmeister

This really is incredibly fascinating stuff, and I don't mean the fishapod, although I can't deny my interest in that as well.

The string of resulting commentary, however, is absolutely intriguing. Greg Ioannou's comment above indirectly touched on what I find so interesting- it's not so much the discovery itself that is so fascinating as the context in which the discovery was made. I wonder what sort of commentary would have been engendered if Tiktaalik had been discovered outside the current cultural/political firestorm of Creationism vs. Evolution?

Posted April 9, 2006 3:38 AM by Skjeve

I have no interest in creationism or creationists. They shine no light on our understanding of the world -- they only create smoke.

Unfortunately, in the US, at least, they also shape legislation and do a fairly effective job of forcing textbook publishers to conform to their notions of how the universe was created. "Just ignore their existence" is a bad tack to take, IMO.

Posted April 9, 2006 12:37 PM by Lexica

Lexica wrote: "Unfortunately, in the US, at least, they also shape legislation and do a fairly effective job of forcing textbook publishers to conform to their notions of how the universe was created. 'Just ignore their existence' is a bad tack to take, IMO."

Yes, I know. But I think those are two separate discussions.

An analogy: An acquaintance of mine -- definitely not a friend -- is obsessed with the Beatles. Any discussion of music with him ends up as a discussion of the Beatles. If you talk about Gregorian chants, he talks about elements of chanting in Beatles songs. And so on. It is refreshing when you've spent too long in his company to discuss music in a non-Beatles context.

Creationists' weird obsession should be confronted head-to-head and squashed in political arenas, in publishing, everywhere. It can be refreshing to have discussions of early biology in an atmosphere that is free from that obsession.

When you think about music in a non-Beatlecentric way, you notice things about the music that you might not otherwise hear. When you think about fossils in a non-creationcentric way, you might similarly make connections that would otherwise be drowned out by the creationists' irrational noise.

Posted April 9, 2006 2:44 PM by Greg Ioannou

By the way, why do we usually capitalize the c in "creationist"? I think it gives them unwarranted credibility.

Posted April 9, 2006 2:45 PM by Greg Ioannou

More neener-neener fuel here, in the form of evidence at the cellular level, blogged by tristero here

Posted April 9, 2006 4:30 PM by Jonathan Shaw

There was a very beautiful piece on Nature tonight revolving around the Queen Tree in Africa, a Sycamore fig. unless God (for whatever value of God) is also a master accountant. This ginormous tree is fertilized by a wasp that can fly (!!!!!) through the eye of a needle. And they portrayed a whole array of the marvelous dance of evolution that has to happen to keep a healthy ecosystem going.

One minuscule wasp flies into a fig and the small hole seals up once it's 'irritated' (the wasp has to squeeze in, losing her antennae and wings). and a whole realm of creatures live with/on/in/around the tree out of that.

Unfortunately the creationists/ "ID" folks would have turned off the program the first time they heard the word 'evolve' OR never turned it on because it's on the 'godless' public television.

Posted April 9, 2006 10:40 PM by Paula Helm Murray

Alan, our hosts on this blog are both Christians who believe in evolution.

It is in the creationists' interests for people to think of science and religion as enemies. Don't help them by falling for it.

Posted April 9, 2006 11:20 PM by Avram

Paula Helm Murray: OR never turned it on because it's on the 'godless' public television.

I dunno - I fear the wrath of the Almighty Elmo, and surely the miracles of Sts. La La, Po, Tinky-Winky and the other one (Holding the Wrapt Attention of Toddlers Everywhere) are evidence of the divine on PBS.

Posted April 10, 2006 12:22 AM by Larry Brennan

Larry! You forgot Dipsy, man! The only Tubbie that really matters, the green one. The one that gets all the best lines. Geeeeeez.

Posted April 10, 2006 12:54 AM by Greg Ioannou

No, no, no. The sun-god baby is clearly the divine presence.
And as long as we're arguing Teletubbies, Dipsy's the one to watch out for. Tinky-Winky may do as he pleases with no trouble; Dipsy will go after your children.

Posted April 10, 2006 1:01 AM by Cassie

I capitalize Creationist the same way I would the name of any other religious cult.

Posted April 10, 2006 8:41 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I think of creationism as being a view shared by members of some cults, rather than a Cult itself. But I could easily be wrong.

Posted April 10, 2006 12:17 PM by Alan Braggins

I always figured the Teletubbies were Eloi.

Posted April 10, 2006 12:34 PM by Stefan Jones

Stefan: Then who are the Morlocks?

Posted April 10, 2006 12:43 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Then who are the Morlocks?

Cookie Monster?

--Mary Aileen

Posted April 10, 2006 1:19 PM by Mary Aileen Buss

Mary Aileen: Not Oscar?

Posted April 10, 2006 1:56 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Horrible, skinny, big-eyed Teletubbies with pale gray felt skin.

They have nice voices, though. They're the ones who recite poetry through those loudspeaker posts. And who run the machines that make the toast and pudding.

Hard work, but once in a while they get to feed on great rare slabs of buttery-soft meat carved from the surface tubbies.

Posted April 10, 2006 2:19 PM by Stefan Jones

Sure, Oscar, too.

--Mary Aileen

Posted April 10, 2006 4:36 PM by Mary Aileen Buss

Nancy, you can find stories about going from SciCre to science here. The site's front page looks a bit odd, but don't let that put you off. Glenn Morton, a petroleum geologist who used to be a creationist and is a fairly conservative Christian, has his own odd and intriguing take on how to reconcile the evidence with a literal reading of Genesis. He has stacks - strata! - of evidence against Young Earth Creationism and Flood Geology.

Posted April 11, 2006 6:53 AM by Ken MacLeod

Today's Dr. Fun (part of his annual Peeps Week series) is a delightful tribute to our newly recognized fishy ancestors.

(In further Making Light synergy, yesterday's strip was hamster related.)

Posted April 13, 2006 8:54 AM by Skwid

Darwin fish & ichthys symbol getting along:

cafepress.com/darwin_ichthys

Posted July 9, 2006 6:41 PM by Glenn Hopper

Is there some kind of web robot that posts creationist tracts to any site that mentioned Darwin?

Posted October 20, 2006 8:14 PM by Stefan Jones sees a cut and paste comment

Hmmm, I wonder why they edited out my post? Perhaps it was the truth and they don't want you to know it. Falsehood is always bound to disappear and the truth shall always prevail.

Posted October 21, 2006 11:33 AM by Oh dear oh dear...

More cut-n-paste spam.

Gone.

Posted October 21, 2006 12:58 PM by James D. Macdonald

Why didn't you dare leave the truth so everyone can read it with an open mind? It is impossible for you to argue against the truth. Evolution is a load of crap and every sane person knows it. what a sad website which only wants to impose its own views. Oh dear oh dear...

Posted October 21, 2006 4:41 PM by I knew it... Oh dear oh dear

This is just another missing link myth, Darwinist propaganda and no more than a fantasy culminating from an illusory, preposterous and dogmatic claim of a so-called transition from water to land. The claim of such a transition is merely a dream, because the physiological gulfs between terrestrial animals and fish cannot be overcome by any of the fictitious mechanisms of the theory of evolution. The latest attempt to make Tiktaalik roseae fit this scenario, which is supported out of blind devotion to the theory of evolution and rests on no scientific evidence whatsoever, is based on preconceptions and intentional misinterpretation. There are several important facts the Darwinist media have deliberately concealed in their Tiktaalik roseae propaganda.

A mosaic life form is hardly evidence for evolution. Evolutionists distort these mosaic properties according to their own preconceptions and maintain that the animal is a transitional form between fish and terrestrial life forms. Mosaic life forms, however, are very far from being the intermediate forms required by the theory of evolution. The present-day Platypus that lives in Australia, for instance, is a mosaic creature that possesses mammalian, reptilian and avian features at one and the same time. But nothing about it constitutes any evidence for the theory of evolution. Mosaic life forms are not what evolutionists need to find in order to back up their claims; they need to find ?intermediate forms,? which would have to be with deficient, only half-formed and not fully functional organs. Yet every one of the organs possessed by mosaic creatures is complete and flawless. They have no semi-developed organs, and there are no fossil series that can be proposed as evidence that they evolved from some other life forms.

The picture that emerges from the fossil record is completely compatible with creation. The record reveals that living things appeared suddenly and lived for long periods of time without undergoing any change at all. Some 250,000 fossil species have been collected to date, and there is absolutely no trace of intermediate forms in any of them. Evolutionists are behaving irrationally and unscientifically by ignoring this and embarking on campaigns of missing link propaganda.

When the bodies of vertebrates are fossilized, they generally leave no remains behind apart from bones. However, bones leave traces of only a very limited part of vertebrate biology, about 1%. When evolutionists begin interpreting the fossil remains of an organism, most of the information about its biology has been lost. Evolutionists, with almost no information concerning the organism?s soft tissue biology ?fill? the gap in their knowledge according to the demands of the theory of evolution, which they have adopted as a dogma long beforehand. The intermediate form claims that evolutionists produce solely by looking at bones is no more than vague conjecture. Because soft biology of extinct groups can never be known with any certainty then obviously the status of even the most convincing intermediates is bound to be insecure.

One excellent example of this is the Coelacanth phenomenon. As with the latest fossil Tiktaalik roseae, the Coelacanth is a fish that evolutionists once fondly imagined to be a missing link in the transition from water to land. Evolutionists examined 400-million-year-old fossil Coelacanths, which was once believed to be extinct, and drew a number of evolutionary conclusions from the remains. For example, they maintained that the bony structures in its fins were feet that helped the animal walk across the sea floor, and they also claimed that it possessed primitive lungs. The important point here is this: All these assumptions were made in the absence of any information about the Coelacanth?s soft tissue biology.

The erroneous nature of producing evolutionary fantasies in the absence of any information about the animal?s soft tissues emerged following an important discovery in 1938. A living Coelacanth was caught, showing that it was not, as had previously been thought, an extinct life form at all. Furthermore, many more living specimens were caught in subsequent years. Evolutionists immediately set about examining the fish?s anatomy and way of moving in its natural environment, and saw that the missing link assumptions they had ascribed to it were completely incorrect. The fish, which they had assumed to live in shallow waters and to move by crawling over the seabed, actually lived at depths of around 180 meters, and they also observed that its fins never made contact with the seabed at all. The structure they imagined to be an evolving lung turned out to be a fat-filled swim bladder that had nothing to do with respiration whatsoever.

The realization that the Coelacanth, which had once seemed such a convincing-looking intermediate form for evolutionists, was just an ordinary species of fish clearly shows that the intermediate form claim being made about this latest fossil is also based entirely on uncertainties and speculation, because it, too, is based on imaginative interpretation of soft tissues from the fossilized remains of an extinct life form. In short, the ongoing propaganda through the media is based on nothing more than the exaggeration of scientifically vague information in the light of evolutionist dreams.

The theory of evolution maintains that change in living things is based on the selection of beneficial differences among those produced by random mutations. However, it is a known fact that mutations have no power to cause anything to evolve by adding new information to living things? DNA. Mutations damage the genetic information in living things? DNA, producing effects that leave them deformed or dead. That is because the DNA sequences are exceedingly sensitive, and the effect on these of any mutation based on chance can only be harmful. For example, no random changes to the letters comprising a manual for an electronic device will turn it into a novel; it will merely damage the information in that manual. In the same way, it is totally impossible for mutations in a fish?s DNA to acquire it a powerful skeletal structure capable of weight-bearing, to construct temperature regulating systems or systems for the use of water (involving such a complex organ as the kidney), or to cause gills to turn into lungs.

It is clear that if a fish does not undergo rapid change in different ways, such as in terms of its respiratory system, excretory mechanism and skeletal structure, it will inevitably die. Such a chain of mutations must take place that it must immediately acquire the fish a lung, turn its fins into legs, add a kidney onto it, and provide its skin with a water retaining structure. Systems of such vital importance to the animal either have to change instantaneously, or else not at all. Such a change is impossible through evolution, which is proposed as a chance-based and aimless process. Any rationally thinking person can see that the only possible explanation is to accept that fish and terrestrial life forms were created independently.

In short, the scenario of a ?transition from water to land? is at a complete dead-end. Evolutionists have no consistent fossil evidence they can point to. None of the known fishes is thought to be directly ancestral to the earliest land vertebrates. Most of them lived after the first amphibians appeared, and those that came before show no evidence of developing the stout limbs and ribs that characterized the tetrapods.

the ?missing link? notion is an unscientific one with no factual counterpart in the fossil record and used solely because of the requirements of the theory of evolution. The way that the Darwinist media cling so strongly to the idea is a method they resort to in order to spread their own ideologies among the public. Evolutionists have no evidence with which to spread their theory, which is the greatest scientific deception in history. All these endeavors are a propaganda technique, as described in the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler?s statement that a lie would be believed by many if repeated loudly and often enough.

In conclusion, evolutionists must accept the fact that paleontology demolishes their theory, and must realize that constantly repeating their missing link tales will not alter the fact in the slightest.

Posted October 21, 2006 4:47 PM by The truth for the benefit of the readers...

read it with an open mind? It is impossible for you to argue against the truth.

You keep using the phrase "open mind" and "truth". But I do not think it means what you think it means.

You wouldn't be Sicilian, by any chance?

Posted October 21, 2006 4:49 PM by Greg London

I'm not sure if this is better or worse than spam.

Posted October 21, 2006 4:50 PM by Greg London sees crazy people in comment thread

To: oh dear oh dear oh dear,
Subject: profession

Hey, bub, out of curiosity, are you a biologist? Do you work in the field of organic chemistry? Do you get paid by someone to produce empirically sound scientific work in the field around or near the biological fields?

Otherwise, aren't you just an untrained noob spewing dogmatic garbage about something you know nothing about? Or about something that someone evangelicized to you?

No, I don't care if you're a technical person in some other unrelated field. The way I see it, pretty much all the folks who are actually paid to produce results in the field of biology (you know, like people who come up with new antibiotics to fight the bacteria that evolved to be resistant to penicillan, stuff like that) generally acknowledge evolution as a fact to be dealt with.

The folks who oppose the idea of evolution aren't generally paid to produce results in the field of biology. They're generally paid to produce results in some unrelated field like, oh, say, theology, dogma, religion, and such.

Next time you go to the doctor, put your money where your mouth is. Demand nothing but penicillian if the doctor says you need an antibiotic. Because penicillian did perfectly fine when it was first discovered, and the only way to get new and different bacteria that is resistant to penicillian is evolution. And if you don't believe evolution, well, then all you need is penicillian.

Posted October 21, 2006 5:11 PM by Greg London

Hi Greg and thank you very much for your input. I appreciate your time and effort in writing your views. First of all, bacterial resistance to antibiotics is NOT an example of evolution. I won't bother going into the intricacies and rather cut to the chase. Evolutionists try to present this as the evolution of b