Evolution’s Middle Species
Snipped from DailyMail.co.uk.
Some of the arguers against evolution ask, “Well, if evolution exists, where are the species that are evolving themselves? Or middle-species?” Well, although there doesn’t need to be a middle species, this story may give a debater of evolution some ammunition. If a middle species is what you want then a killfish (among many more, but let’s stick with this one) is what you get. Here is a fish that is adapting has adapted to surviving outside of water for longer than thought possible.
This is really cool, and can be proof that life can originate in the ocean and end up evolving to become land species like what we see today. So there you go bible belchers, there is your proof. Now pack up your stuff and play somewhere else.
Here is a small portion of the article:
The discovery, along with its ability to breed without a mate, must make the mangrove killifish, Rivulus marmoratus Poey, one of the oddest fish known to man.
Around two inches long, they normally live in muddy pools and the flooded burrows of crabs in the mangrove swamps of Florida, Latin American and Caribbean.
The latest discovery was made by biologists wading through swamps in Belize and Florida who found hundreds of killifish hiding out of the water in the rotting branches and trunks of trees.
The fish had flopped their way to their new homes when their pools of water around the roots of mangroves dried up. Inside the logs, they were lined up end to end along tracks carved out by insects.
Dr Scott Taylor of the Brevard County Environmentally Endangered Lands Programme in Florida admitted the creatures were a little odd.
“They really don’t meet standard behavioural criteria for fish,” he told New Scientist magazine.
Although the cracks inside logs make a perfect hiding place, conditions can be cramped. The fish – which are usually fiercely territorial – are forced to curb their aggression.
Another study, published earlier this year, revealed how they alter their bodies and metabolism to cope with life out of water.
Their gills are altered to retain water and nutrients, while they excrete nitrogen waste through their skin.
These changes are reversed as soon as they return to the water.
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“Here is a fish that is adapting to surviving outside of water for longer than though possible.”
Isn’t it more like the have adapted? To know whether the adaptation is continuing we’ll need another report in a few years that finds them climbing trees or something.
Good point Micah. I will correct.
The key word in this article is ADAPTING. which is very different from the evolution that says people came from apes.
Actually, evolution is all about adaptation. Adaptation plus random mutation, plus millions of years of time equals evolution. Plus, humans didn’t come from apes. That is the misnomer that people use to frame evolution to sound awkward. Primates and humans branched off from the same ancestral “mother” species. Then evolved to become what we see today.
wow, with one fish you’re able to disprove god. it’s a miracle… funny, I think you have more faith than most “bible belchers” I know. The scientific method requires a process to be repeatable to be true, but you’ll just take it on faith!
perhaps in your next post you can posit that black is white and get trampled in the next zebra crossing…
(btw - There is no argument between creationists, ID’ers and evolutionists in the framework of intra-species adaptation… every time I get sick and develop anti-bodies it happens on a micro level)
Sorry JB, but this was not meant to be a serious article about disproving god. It was meant to be interesting, while lightly poking fun at the creationists. A little sensitive are we?
I am sensitive, but from the other side than you might think. I’m a scientist by training and am always looking. If a theory doesn’t fit, it’s either wrong, incomplete, or insufficient. I’m annoyed at scientists who will stoically cling to theories as if they were religion… and exhibit more faith than the zealots they denounce — and worse, often try to drum out merely because they believe in (a) god.
My reply was meant to be a tad sardonic, but also to have the opportunity to throw in a little Douglas Adams (hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy) humor in there, re: a fish disproving god & the zebra crossing.
So are you saying that you’re a scientist who thinks evolution is wrong? Or simply incomplete. It’s obviously incomplete which is why the theory is constantly… evolving. But to try to say its just wrong is laughable. I’m not a scientist, I’m not going to claim I am, so if you want to argue the details I’d direct you towards http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
But I do appreciate the Douglas Adams reference.