The Fish That Shoots Down Evolution

Vertical Thought Magazine ^ | June 2006 | Mario Seiglie

[DouglasKC]

The Fish That Shoots Down Evolution

This unusual fish uses a specialized system to blast insects out of the air. How could this evolve slowly over time when there is no survival advantage without the whole system working perfectly?

by Mario Seiglie

In Asia, Africa and Australia lives a remarkable creature, the archerfish, that shoots down its prey from the air above it with a burst of water. It uses its tongue and the top of its mouth to form a groove similar to a gun barrel. Then, by compressing its gills, it squirts water up to six feet with deadly accuracy—in spite of the distortion caused by seeing the target from below the surface of water.

What's so amazing about the archerfish's ability to shoot straight? When light passes between air and water, it is refracted, which causes a distortion. If an archerfish simply aimed at the object where it appeared to be from below the water, it could never hit its target! Yet scientists have found that archerfish are able to strike their target when sighting upwards at angles of 40 degrees!

More amazingly, marine researchers have discovered that these fish can hit their prey whether the amount of refraction is large or small. They have also found that the fishes' binocular vision allows them to see clearly at considerable distances above them, an ability other fish do not have.

An experiment

Here is an experiment. In a clear glass of water, hold a pencil at an angle halfway under the water and look at it from different positions. Notice how the pencil appears different below and above the water. That is the refraction of the light changing from the water to the air.

So how can the archerfish compensate for this distortion and know how to shoot at the right place?

Evolutionists don't know

Evolutionists still don't know how the archerfish got its amazing abilities. They can only wonder! Viewed through the distortion of evolution, they cannot explain how the archerfish gradually learned to not aim where its eyes see but to aim instead at a different spot where the target actually is.

Without its binocular vision, it could not see the object with such precision, and without the special shape of the upper mouth and a specialized tongue, it could not make the groove it needs to shoot the concentrated jet of water. Many factors have to appear together—and be perfectly formed—for this shooting mechanism to work. This, of course, goes totally against Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory, which is based on a gradual, step-by-step process.

Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down" (1859, p. 171).

The archerfish offers precisely such an example, since several complex systems must all appear at the same time, perfectly and not gradually formed—binocular vision, a specialized mouth and tongue, specialized gills to compress and expel water and an aiming system based in the brain and not in the eyes. If any of these parts is missing, the mechanism will not hit the target and no survival advantage is created.

Shooting down Darwin's theory

When you get down to the facts, the archerfish with one squirt of its gills shoots down Charles Darwin's entire theory of evolution—and that by Darwin's own admission!

So evolution doesn't have the answer to this mystery. But the Bible does. Genesis 1:20-21 says that God created all the creatures that live in the water. He created a great variety of perfectly formed fish, including the archerfish with all its special features, such as binocular vision, other specialized organs and a built-in ability to compensate for the distortion of the water. VT

[Tax Government]

There are no such examples of beneficial mutations.

What are you thinking?

Species do not breed true; they breed a whole array of variations on a theme, some of which are more survivable. The world is full of examples.

Example: A few thousand years ago a segment of the world's population found itself in a lower-sunlight, more-cold-than-usual environment. Certain traits already present in the sub-population were given a chance to out-breed others. The part of the world's population not subject to those forces had no pressure to adapt in the same way: it may have adapted to something different. Magnify those forces over a thousand generations, and you have evolution.

[Thatcherite]

Fascinating. What is the physical mechanism that defines the limits that cannot be crossed?

Self correcting DNA. From Molecular Biology of the Cell

Yes, the copying fidelity of DNA is extraordinary. However copying errors do occur, You and I both have several mutations from our parents, just like every other living thing on earth. At some loci in the human genome there are more than 100 alleles. Yet Adam and Eve had 2 each. Noah's sons and their wives had 2 each (and Noah's sons presumably shared half their genetic material with each other). All other species sequenced have similar genetic variation that cannot have arisen from a single pair c. 5000 years ago. The copying fidelity of DNA does not represent a limit to change, just a limit on the pace of change.

[Thatcherite]

Selection has not been shown empirically to generate unequivocally new or more complex genetic information or unequivocally new physiological traits or organs. It merely selects from the genetic potential for variation already inherent in the population’s combined genetic potential in the gene pool, that pool has its limits and cant be crossed, witness the over breeding of animals, they remain the dogs, cats, whatevers.....

So, how does speciation occur then?

[shuckmaster]

I know exactly what a polonium halo is. You obviously don't.

Then you know that only an IDiot trying to fleece superstitious simpletons would even suggest on a public forum that polonium halos can be found in granite!

[freedumb2003]

Wow, I am sure glad you admit how dumb you are. What an appropriate screen name.

That's it? Sheesh, at least your brethren actually try to fire back.

[texpat72]

Watch the DVD series "Incredible Creatures That Defy Evolution" Volumes 1-3.

[KeepUSfree]

Which is why you REALLY shouldn't chime in on evo threads....you are clueless! You sound like a fourth grader.

[Junior]

Well, according to creationists, all critters were originally vegetarians, so any ability to shoot bugs from under the water had to have evolved since The Fall, and since this was ~6k years ago, evolution must've happened far quicker than Darwin even thought.

[Junior]

Huh? Are you saying that animals cannot learn from experience?

[Junior]

You're reply made absolutely no sense in light of the post to which you were replying.

[George - the Other]

"I think I should help out the newbies: Evolution Troll's Toolkit."

Very nice.

George (who took four years of honors geology courses at Montgomery College, and was a docent for two years at the Smithsonian Institutes' Museum of Natural History Naturalist Center)

[KeepUSfree]

You are comparing inanimate, non-living materials to life. Do you have that little respect for life as to compare it to wire & wood. Life is much, much more. And, in the same way that, we, as individual living creatures end up making extremely complex societies - which function as more than the individual - so does smaller life organize to form more complex life.

And, in the same way that our societies change, grow, mutate and die-off, so do individual organisms.

You want "the secret of life" - "the meaning of the universe"...here it is

BE HAPPY

I have personally spoken with God, and he commanded it.

If you think this requires years of study, worship, pennance and sacrifice, you are a fool.

After all, would you want anything less for "your children"?

[KeepUSfree]

Yet, he would leave his chosen to have to kill and eat the flesh of other animals??? Doesn't make any sense to me.. And, if this was because of sin too.....didn't Jesus die "for our sins"...so why are we still having all these problems?

Geez, you think a REAL caring and compassionate God would have fixed up all of the problems by now....

Like, when I "create" a fish tank, I only populate it with species that won't eat each other. And, if they get a disease, I "heal" them. And, I'm only a stupid human. Your telling me your God can't do better than that??

Pretty piss-poor God if you ask me....

[dmz]

I submit this is how the game of darts evolved, Guinness Stout providing the "refraction".

[Red Badger]

How would the "first fish" with a grooved mouth structure "know" that it could spew water that way to hit a target insect? As far as I know, no other fish shoots jets of water for any reason, dolphins and whales not being fish. Therefore, the whole evolution precept would seem to fall flat. A "learned skill" would have to be passed down from generation to generation via outright teaching or observation. If another fish that did not have this "grooved mouth structure" had the opportunity to watch and learn, it still could not do the same function............

[dmz]

you posited a way that is not verifiable, so it is no more than an opinion, not science.
______________

An interesting statement. Wouldn't carrying this statement out a bit further suggest that Christianity is "no more than an opinion" (as you say), because it is not verifiable?

[SaveUS]

"As far as I know, no other fish shoots jets of water for any reason,"

Hmm, slow changes over time to develop a specialty that insures survival. Sounds a lot like.... evolution.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

How would the "first fish" with a grooved mouth structure "know" that it could spew water that way to hit a target insect?

It wouldn't "know." When it happened to be facing in the right direction it would get the extra food.

[dmz]

Um, if God creates nothing that kills, but created man who kills as a result of his free will (which God also created), hasn't God created something that kills.

Or does logic not apply?

[Red Badger]

When it happened to be facing in the right direction it would get the extra food.

And water just happened to come forth out of its mouth for no obvious reason?...................