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Fish-o-pod Missing Link Discovered: Media [and FRevolutionists] Goes Nuts
Fish-o-pod Missing Link Discovered: Media Goes Nuts 04/06/2006
Evolutionists could hardly feel more relieved. Just when anti-evolutionary sentiment is on the rise, a new fossil has been announced that gives pro-evolutionists a missing link to run up the fishpole. Neil Shubin (U of Chicago) and two partners found a tetrapod-like fish fossil on a Canadian island. It helps fill one of the most puzzling transitions in the fossil record: the evolution from a fish to a land animal.
To hear the media frenzy resulting from this find, which some supporters are ranking with Archaeopteryx in importance, the war is over and evolution wins. Creationists have been complaining about gaps in the fossil record, and here is a perfect case of a transitional form. Here are just a few of the claims being made about Tiktaalik roseae, a new icon of evolution (emphasis added in all quotes):
Here we report the discovery of a well-preserved species of fossil sarcopterygian fish from the Late Devonian of Arctic Canada that represents an intermediate between fish with fins and tetrapods with limbs, and provides unique insights into how and in what order important tetrapod characters arose. Although the body scales, fin rays, lower jaw and palate are comparable to those in more primitive sarcopterygians, the new species also has a shortened skull roof, a modified ear region, a mobile neck, a functional wrist joint, and other features that presage tetrapod conditions. The morphological features and geological setting of this new animal are suggestive of life in shallow-water, marginal and subaerial habitats.Sounds like the popular press so far; now, into the details. They admit that The evolution of tetrapods from sarcopterygian fish is one of the major transformations in the history of life and involved numerous structural and functional innovations, including new modes of locomotion, respiration and hearing. In other words, many substantial changes had to come together in one animal to go from breathing through gills to breathing with lungs, developing feet that could support the weight, developing digits and ankles and toes and learning how to use them, and much more:
During the origin of tetrapods in the Late Devonian (385359 million years ago), the proportions of the skull were remodelled [sic; implies intelligent design], the series of bones connecting the head and shoulder was lost, and the region that was to become the middle ear [sic; implies progress] was modified. At the same time, robust limbs with digits evolved, the shoulder girdle and pelvis were altered, the ribs expanded, and bony connections between vertebrae developed.Few of these innovations are seen in the closest relatives of tetrapods, they say. They talk about Panderichthys, Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, which have been discussed earlier in these pages (see 04/05/2004 and 08/09/2003, Evolution of the Darwin Fish.). Surprisingly, however, they dismiss them as fragmentary and of doubtful utility. This includes the earlier leading candidate:
Panderichthys possesses relatively few tetrapod synapomorphies [convergent features], and provides only partial insight into the origin of major features of the skull, limbs and axial skeleton of early tetrapods[. In view of the morphological gap between elpistostegalian fish and tetrapods, the phylogenetic framework for the immediate sister group of tetrapods has been incomplete and our understanding of major anatomical transformations at the fishtetrapod transition has remained limited.The disparagement of previous candidate missing links was the build-up to the new fossil, which significantly enhances our knowledge of the fishtetrapod transition. (This should be taken with a grain of salt, considering that similar claims were made about Panderichthys earlier.) Proceeding on, they place Tiktaalik somewhere between Panderichthys and tetrapods. The paper provides the obligatory data for a new species: location found, taxonomy, nomenclature, description of the fossil, photos, drawings, etc. The head was remarkably well preserved, and three specimens were found. Naming and classifying an extinct species, however, provides the discoverers some leeway in placing it into the presumed evolutionary framework.
A phylogenetic analysis of sarcopterygian fishes and early tetrapods (Fig. 7) supports the hypothesis that Tiktaalik is the sister group of tetrapods or shares this position with Elpistostege. Tiktaalik retains primitive tetrapodomorph features such as dorsal scale cover, paired fins with lepidotrichia, a generalized [sic] lower jaw, and separated entopterygoids in the palate, but also possesses a number of derived [sic] features of the skull, pectoral girdle and fin, and ribs that are shared with stem tetrapods such as Acanthostega and Ichthyostega. Tiktaalik is similar to these forms in the possession of a wide spiracular tract and the loss of the opercular, subopercular and extrascapulars. The pectoral girdle is derived [sic] in the degree to which the scapulocoracoid is expanded dorsally and ventrally, and the extent to which the glenoid fossa is oriented laterally. The pectoral fin is apomorphic [i.e., derived, more developed] in the elaboration of the distal endoskeleton, the mobility of segmented regions of the fin, and the reduction of lepidotrichia distally.In summary, they think that Panderichthys, Elpistostege and Tiktaalik represent a paraphyletic [partially evolved] assemblage of elpistostegalian fish along the tetrapod stem that lack the anterior dorsal fins and possess broad, dorsoventrally compressed skulls with dorsally placed eyes, paired frontal bones, marginal nares, and a subterminal mouth. 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).
The pectoral skeleton of Tiktaalik is transitional between fish fin and tetrapod limb. Comparison of the fin with those of related fish reveals that the manus [hand] is not a de novo novelty of tetrapods; rather, it was assembled in fishes over evolutionary time to meet the diverse challenges of life in the margins of Devonian aquatic ecosystems.OK, now what do other experts think? In the same issue,3 Erik Ahlberg and Jennifer Clack gave their analysis. It is unknown whether Clack, who has been in the forefront of research into tetrapod evolution, was scooped by this discovery, or whether any personal feelings or rivalries were involved. She did, however, with Ahlberg, put a few brakes on the interpretations, though acknowledging the significance of the find. First, a little sermonette on missing links:
The concept of missing links has a powerful grasp on the imagination: the rare transitional fossils that apparently capture the origins of major groups of organisms are uniquely evocative. But the concept has become freighted with unfounded notions of evolutionary progress and with a mistaken emphasis on the single intermediate fossil as the key to understanding evolutionary transitions. Much of the importance of transitional fossils actually lies in how they resemble and differ from their nearest neighbours in the phylogenetic tree, and in the picture of change that emerges from this pattern.Though this fossil goes a long way to filling in the gap, it does not go quite all the way, they say. Its closest match is Elpistostege, a fragmentary fossil thought to be closer to tetrapods than Panderichthys. They admit, the authors demonstrate convincingly that Elpistostege and Tiktaalik fall between Panderichthys and the earliest tetrapods on the phylogenetic tree. End of story?
We raise these points because on pages 757 and 764 of this issue are reports of just such an intermediate: Tiktaalik roseae, a link between fishes and land vertebrates that might in time become as much of an evolutionary icon as the proto-bird [sic[ Archaeopteryx.
Although these small distal bones bear some resemblance to tetrapod digits in terms of their function and range of movement, they are still very much components of a fin. There remains a large morphological gap between them and digits as seen in, for example, Acanthostega: if the digits evolved from these distal bones, the process must have involved considerable developmental repatterning. The implication is that function changed in advance of morphology.Though each fossil seems to represent a mosaic of characteristics rather than a straight line of evolution, the two are ready to agree that the creature was evidently an actual step on the way from water to land, and that it seems, our remote ancestors [sic] were large, flattish, predatory fishes, with crocodile-like heads and strong limb-like pectoral fins that enabled them to haul themselves out of the water. Nevertheless, this is just one specimen, and many more are needed. This one creature must be seen in context. Perhaps the most important transitional forms are found in the future:
Of course, there are still major gaps in the fossil record. In particular we have almost no information about the step between Tiktaalik and the earliest tetrapods, when the anatomy underwent the most drastic changes, or about what happened in the following Early Carboniferous period, after the end of the Devonian, when tetrapods became fully terrestrial. But there are still large areas of unexplored Late Devonian and Early Carboniferous deposits in the world the discovery of Tiktaalik gives hope of equally ground-breaking finds to come.
You didnt get this much detail from the major news media. You didnt hear the discoverers hedge their bets and admit that this fossil is just a tiny piece of a huge puzzle that is mostly not understood. You didnt hear the AP (Associated Preach) tell the truth that the fossil record is characterized by large and systematic gaps between groups, not isolated and questionable transitional forms. No, you got hype and bluster and far-fetched exaggeration, where the actual bones were incidental to the true goal of making Charlie not look as dead as he is. Meanwhile, an explanation of the origin of all the genetic information required for such a transition was completely glossed over; and, of course, not a single credible non-Darwinian paleontologist got a word in edgewise in the din of the mainstream medias Charlie pride parade. If you got mad last time (04/05/2004) its time to get mad again for the same reasons.
A reader writes: Dear Staff... The April 6, 2006 article on the Fish-O-Pod found in Canada is great news... Now we know where all the Walking Catfish in the lakes in Orlando, Florida came from... They actually walk up on the interstate and get eliminated by cars! FISH-O-POD is nothing new, we have been squashing them for years!