Thursday, April 06, 2006
The Missing Link
"Scientists have made one of the most important fossil finds in history: a missing link between fish and land animals, showing how creatures first walked out of the water and on to dry land more than 375-million years ago," according to The Mail and Guardian Online.
"Palaeontologists have said that the find, a crocodile-like animal called the Tiktaalik roseae and described on Thursday in the journal Nature, could become an icon of evolution in action -- like Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds."
This stunning discovery would appear, on the surface, to disprove the claims made by Phillip Johnson, and others in the church of intelligent design, that gaps in the fossil record disprove evolution. The opposite is really true.
Johnson claims that gaps in the fossil record prove that all living things are the product, not of evolution, but of special creation by an intelligent designer -- God.
While the so-called gaps are constantly being filled in by new scientific discoveries, such as Tiktaalik roseae, RSR, having heard Johnson speak, knows that he will receive this news with equanimity.
You see, for science, each new discovery fills a gap in our previous knowledge of the world, but for the intelligent design theorist, each new discovery merely creates two new gaps -- one on each side of the new discovery. Each time a new transitional fossil is discovered, ID activists see their position getting stronger, not weaker.
"Palaeontologists have said that the find, a crocodile-like animal called the Tiktaalik roseae and described on Thursday in the journal Nature, could become an icon of evolution in action -- like Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds."
This stunning discovery would appear, on the surface, to disprove the claims made by Phillip Johnson, and others in the church of intelligent design, that gaps in the fossil record disprove evolution. The opposite is really true.
Johnson claims that gaps in the fossil record prove that all living things are the product, not of evolution, but of special creation by an intelligent designer -- God.
While the so-called gaps are constantly being filled in by new scientific discoveries, such as Tiktaalik roseae, RSR, having heard Johnson speak, knows that he will receive this news with equanimity.
You see, for science, each new discovery fills a gap in our previous knowledge of the world, but for the intelligent design theorist, each new discovery merely creates two new gaps -- one on each side of the new discovery. Each time a new transitional fossil is discovered, ID activists see their position getting stronger, not weaker.
