He hates Tiktaalik. He hates it so much he even has a hard time spelling its name correctly.
Tikaalik is again being popularized through the new PBS series "Your Inner Fish.” it’s really a desperate con job on the part of evolutionists who can’t defend their evolutionary fictional story.
He actually surprises me a little bit: one of his arguments that it can’t possibly be a transitional form is that it is only a fossil. That’s one I hadn’t heard before. So extinct species can’t be evidence for evolution anymore, because only living species count?
Because it belongs to the group of lobe finned fishes (like Coelacanth /lung fish), and is only found as a fossil, the secularists force their evolutionary worldview onto this fossil in their desperate need to try to convince the world they have found a transitional form (when in reality such transitional forms should be abundant both fossilized and living).
I have heard creationists tell me, though, that extant forms can’t be ancestral (obviously), therefore living examples of intermediate forms can’t be used as evidence for evolution, either. That leads to perfect, irrefutable arguments for creationists.
Evilutionist: “The shared expression of Sonic Hedgehog and it’s homologous role in limb development in the limbs of different forms is evidence of common desc…”
Creationist: Doesn’t count. It’s alive. Are you trying to pretend that modern limbs are ancestral forms? God clearly created it that way.
Evilutionist: “OK, here’s Tiktaalik with limbs that exhibit a bony core of homologous…”
Creationist: Doesn’t count. It’s dead. Transitional forms have to be living creatures.
Evilutionist: <stunned into silence by the stupidity>
Seriously, reading anything by Ken Ham is discombobulating.
They claim that Tiktaalik is the link between fish and “terrestrial tetrapods”—four legged animals that walk on land. Tiktaalik’s discoverer Neil Shubin even calls his big fish a “fishapod” to emphasize his belief that it is a transitional form. (Most people hearing about Tiktaalik even think it had limbs, but it didn’t—it just had fins, like fish do. Having a special kind of fins with bones in them—as lobe-finned fish do—did not mean they were legs or limbs.)
Having a special kind of fins with bones in them
…but, but, but — that’s what makes them transitional. They have a combination of characteristics of the fins of fish and the limbs of tetrapods, being neither quite one of the other. Once again, we enter the realm of Catch-22.
Evilutionist: “Here’s the Tiktaalik limb. It’s got these internal bones, unlike a fish fin, that are similar in organization to our limb bones…”
Creationist: Then it’s a land animal. Case closed.
Evilutionist: “But it wasn’t strong enough or anatomically capable of actually walking on land, and it’s got traces of membranous fins…”
Creationist: Then it’s a fish. Case closed. It’s got to be one or the other, because transitional forms don’t exist, therefore I say it’s all fish.
Evilutionist: <wondering why she is wasting time with this idiot>
It wouldn’t be a Ken Ham rationalization if it didn’t drag out his usual claim that both the evilutionist and the creationist are using the same data, and only differ in the worldview they use to interpret it.
All this talk about Tiktaalik is also a reminder that the battle is not ultimately about evidence–Liz Mitchell and the evolutionists are looking at the same fossil. It’s not the fossil that’s different–it’s the worldview one has (and the starting point it is built from–God’s Word or man’s word) the determines how one interprets this fossil in regard to the past. But looking at the fossil, one can see it won’t directly fit into an evolutionary worldview–but it does fit directly into a worldview based on the Bible, as it is a particular type of fish for which we have similar types of living examples (e.g. Coelacanth ).
But we aren’t using the same data. The scientist is using the totality of the data, looking at both similarities and differences, to try and account for its place in history and biology. The creationist, as Ham has just clearly demonstrated, handwaves away all the unique characters of the fossil to claim it’s just like a coelacanth or a lungfish — he is explicitly ignoring any datum that contradicts his presupposition that it must be just another fish.
And then to take it that extra step further, and argue that his naive vision of what Tiktaalik was, stripped of all of its significant and unique characters, is somehow evidence for creationism that contradicts its clear evolutionary niche…
Evilutionist: “Holy crap…you’re an idiot, Creationist. Go away.”
Paul Nelson:
Since you cannot describe every molecular change that occurred between the limb of Tiktaalik and Acanthostega and hence answer The Target Problem™, it is self-evident that the tetrapod limb was intelligently designed
/PaulNelson
Do fish with bones in their fins exist in any current fish?
I think what he’s trying to say is that transitional species shouldn’t go extinct (although by my naive intuition they most certainly should) and continue to exist. i.e. we start with fish with bone-free fins and they stay around forever. We get the boney-finned fish evolving and they should (counter the creationists) stay around forever (and since they don’t, the creationist claim they are “just a fossil”). And we get the land animal with limb bones. Thus if evolution were true we’d still have boney-finned fish and we don’t so no evolution. (Of course, without evolution we never would have had boney-finned fish in the first place so… screw it.)
At least that I think that is Ham is arguing. Who knows…
I absolutely hate that man.
“and only differ in the worldview”
Well at least that’s true, and one of them is an insane world view, can you tell which?
Technically my arms and legs are special kinds of fins with bones in them… that happen to be really crummy at being fins. But I can still use them to propel myself through water, like my fishy ancestors.
@ 2 woozy
Sarcopterygian fish, including us, do have bones in their fins.
The thing that most annoys me about Ken Ham is the unbelievable smugness….as if he actually knew anything of substance about biology in general and paleontology, comparative anatomy and genetics in particular. He speaks as if he was in any way qualified to make criticisms of actual scientific data, as if he was just another expert discussing with his biology chums about how their hypothesis are flawed. I think he has spent so much time pretending to be that, that he actually believes himself to be qualified and on a par with actual professionals. It would just be sad and pathetic if it weren´t for all the harm this arsehole is causing.
It always cracks me up, though, that behind that veneer of faked competency what they are really saying is “you are wrong, it was magic”. If at least they had the decency to then put on a funny hat, declare themselves the Cosmic Archmasters of Poo and scamper away while giggling furiously…
Fossils don’t count because they never actually existed as animals. Satan made and buried them to fool us
These people like to call themselves “believers”. We should no longer use that term. Their lives are driven by superstition (belief in things supernatural). So we should refer to them as “superstitionists”. That’s what they are; they can’t deny it. And, they damn well don’t like it.
Superstitionists, superstitionists, superstitionists.
#STOPSUPERSTITION
#STOPGODWORSHIP
Ken Ham gets it wrong again.
Tiktaalik is evidence for god’s incredible incompetence. Tiktaalik clearly didn’t make it on the Big Boat or died enroute.
Noah was supposed to save all the animals in the Big Boat. We now know that 99+% of an animal species that ever lived are extinct. Including all the nonavian dinosaurs. We miss our dinosaurs.
This is despite heavy supernatural support, with god poofing miracles whenever the plot bogged down in silliness. A salvage operation with a 99+% failure rate has to be classed as a failure.
If god can’t do what he says he will, why call him god?
PS: The Aesir at least have a great success rate. Odin, Thor, Freya and all the rest promised to keep the Frost Giants away. They’ve been gone for centuries. Although they did try to break through this winter again. But they are being pushed back hard. It’s going to be sunny and 80 degrees F. in a month or two. Checkmate!!!
Uh, all of them, except the cartilage doesn’t ossify in some… :-) What’s interesting is a long, branched fin skeleton, found in lungfish and coelacanths today.
Glyptolepis, of which a fin is shown above, is fairly closely related to the lungfishes; this fin looks like that of an extant Australian lungfish, except that less of the cartilage has ossified.
Note that the reconstruction of the fin of Panderichthys has been known to be wrong since 2008, when the fin was CT-scanned. Instead of ending in a big plate, the fin skeleton looks more like those of Eusthenopteron and Tiktaalik.
Well look at it on the bright side.
1. Ken Ham and his band of primitive superstitionists are losing. They lost in the arena of intelligent adults a century ago.
2. US xianity is losing 2 million members a year, 1%, and on track to go below 50% in a few decades.
3. His Monument to Modern Plastics pseuduomuseum has declining visits/year and is losing money. The Ark Park con has been floundering and they’ve been trying desperate means to raise money for it.
4. Science discovers new, exciting, and interesting things every day. Which means Ham et al. have to make up new and obvious lies every day.
“when in reality such transitional forms should be abundant both fossilized and living”
I know one that is still alive but alas its brain is petrified – Ken ham’enchaphalos’ (Chengis, 2014).
If you haven’t yet, this lecture on how Tiktaalik was found is a great example of science in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4c8L3vUH6Y
The act of finding Tiktaalik was a vindication of our understanding of geology and evolution: we wouldn’t have found Tiktaalik if our understanding was faulty. The theory of evolution in conjunction with previously dated fossils narrowed down the time period where a transitional fossil like Tiktaalik could have existed. Our geologic maps and understanding how the earth has changed over geologic time narrowed down where in the world you could find sediment the right age that came from an estuary environment and were currently exposed to the surface.
There aren’t many places in the world where that is true which is why they wound up in one of the remote places on earth looking for a transitional fossil. It’s not like someone just tripped over Tiktaalik on the way to church. The fact that we found a transitional fossil exactly where theory said one should be is an excellent validation of that theory.
But of course all this sails over the heads of creobots. It might be due to the fact that their worldview never provides reliable predictions and they are therefore unable to recognize the true beauty of science when it smacks them in the face with a “large freshwater fish.”
I’m puzzled that Ham doesn’t just make the same claim for Tiktaalik as he does for the rest of the dinosaurs, after the creationists stopped trying to stop the tidal wave of popularity over them. IE: pre-flood, dinosaurs and people lived together in peaceful domesticated bliss, when there weren’t Gwangi fights. So, why bother gabbling something different for yet another fossil?
Aside: I would have been one of the first in the seats if there’d been biblically authentic dinosaurs in ‘Noah’. Aranofsky missed a sure thing there. Imagine raiding packs of raptors taking out flocks of goats and sheep while defending tribal archers launched a cloud of slings and arrows to take the predators down. No wonder the cities were walled!
Ham has all the earmarks of a vanity press writer with no editor or even beta reader. His paleomagic fantasy series suffers from continuity errors that show every sign of no chapter outlines before hand. It’s not even from book to book but chapter to chapter. The laziness of his Deus Machina plugs when he runs out of near-reality consistent logic is very jarring to the reader, rendering God a Mary Sue of the most annoying order.
To same myself trouble, when I said “the rest of the dinosaurs” I meant “the rest of the archaeo-species no longer with us”.
I have a Ken Ham book in my bathroom. It feels right, there. I am finishing my 7th or 8 reading of it, and continue to find new errors.
But there ARE living transitionals, all over the place. We can find semi-aquatic mammals all the way from weasels to mink to otters to sealions to seals to dolphins to whales. We certainly have semi-aquatic reptiles with predator jaws living the life Tiktaalik on riverbanks around the tropics.
Even if Ken Ham realized that evolution is true, we’d never know about it. He would continue telling the same old stories in order to drain every last dollar from his idiotic flock.
Considering that the diversity of life forms we see existing today, compared to the few thousand “kinds” creationists have retreated to claiming in order that they all fit on a boat, I’m curious what Creationists have to say about the transitional forms we don’t find in the fossil record spanning the last 4000 years or so since Noah was on the scene.
For all their science-hating those creationist sure like their sciency-sounding credentials. In his first sentence Hammyboy proudly puts ‘Dr.’ in front of ‘Elizabeth Mitchell’, as if she is scientist, maybe a biologist even. She isn’t. She is an MD with a BA in chemistry. So the ‘Dr.’ is totally misplaced there.
But it probably deceives the rubes enough. Sure seems to work if you read the comments by his idiotic followers beneath his post.
Creationist circularity seems to know no bounds.
I love it that both Neil Shubin and Neil deGrasse Tyson are so good at clearly explaining science to the non-science mind. I’m loving both of their shows and learning so much. We’re saving both shows on our DVR so that our grandson can watch them.
I enjoyed watching the segment on Your Inner Fish about the little boy with extra digits. I loved that Dr. Shubin was so delighted with the boy’s hands and made him feel very special for having those extra digits.
I was petting our Maine Coon, who has seven toes on one paw and six on all the rest. I ask the science minded hubby if the same thing that caused the little boy’s extra digits caused our cat’s extra digits. He agreed that it did.
Isn’t that proof right there that all of the living things on Earth are related and share certain genes?
It seems that the Sonic Hedgehog gene shows up in all mammals, as well as fish. I loved that one bone, two bones, many bones example. It’s easy to see that pattern in many living things.
I’m a Latin teacher, not a scientist, Jim, but these shows with their clear explanations of science concepts make perfect sense to me.
Any individual of a population that is undergoing selection pressure that is affecting allele frequency within the population is a transitional form.
There was a very thorough shredding of a cdesign proponentist the other day on Cuttlefish’s blog. It was extremely satisfying to watch Blanche Quizno rip apart the lies and misdirections.
@21 magistramarla
I liked that too but in my experience it is how almost any biologist would react. You show a case of polydactyly to a fundie and you will be told how the devil did this or that and the sins of the infant or its parents, bla bla bla, whatever, but it is clearly evil and the extra finger is a punishment for something. You show it to a biologist and hir will go “cool!”.
Even your average human, fundamentalist theist or not is likely to react with disgust or aprehension towards many biological phenomena. The biology nerd, however, will happily pick up the bug/clean the roadkill skull/handle the coprolite/celebrate genetic abnormalities that have no deleterious effects on the individual…because there is absolutely nothing wrong about that :)
This is why it is pointless to argue with these assholes–They say “show me the transitional forms” and you show them a transitional form and that is not good enough, “show me another ” and on and on. If the geocentrists, a subset of the creationists, can’t be convinced by “observational science” what chance do we have with fossil evidence with Ham and his minions
@24
When I think of how much insect anatomy is a result of adding another set of limbs and specializing them or removing a set or fusing them I’m shocked at how we terrestrial vertebrates get along with a paltry four
This just demonstrates that Shubin hit such a home run with Your Inner Fish that the only way for creationists to argue against it is to turn up the stupidity, insanity, and dishonesty all the way to 11.
@gussnarp- exactly. I was wondering how long it would take for YIF to get Creationist undergarments all up in a bunch. It wasn’t promoted nearly as much as Cosmos, but I think it actually does even more damage to Creationism because of the focus on Evolution. Loved the book, loving the series. Shubin is a real delight to watch and does a fantastic job explaining the science with enthusiasm. I heard an interview with him where someone in the audience asked a standard Creationist attack question, and he not only refuted it deftly with examples and an excitement that was near-contagious.
“the secularists force their evolutionary worldview onto this fossil ”
WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE FOSSILS!!!
=======
azhael @24:
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Oh, I run into this all the time. Just the other day I was on a downtown street with some friends. One of them spotted something in the street — “What is that? ” I recognized it right away – the head of a cool bird, a woodcock – and took photos and wrote about it just because it is so cool.
http://quodlibet-sarah.blogspot.com/2014/04/whats-that-bird-bat.html
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To be fair, the friends I was with are bird lovers, but I think they were a little surprised that I got down on my hands and knees in the street to look at a piece of dead bird.
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Then there was the time that I brought a dead mole to show and tell in first grade — it was so interesting!! I couldn’t understand why no one else wanted to examine it and see all the special things about it – those cool claws, the special nose — oh my! That was almost 50 years ago and I still love my memory of exploring that interesting little creature.
Yes, but unfortunately it will always be easier for the creationists to make strides then it will for rationalist to make equivalent gains.
For one, denying something always has the affect of reinforcing the thing (provided the thing is simple enough). Thus saying “No, Obama is *not* a muslim” only makes people believe it more. Thus “All evidence demonstrates evolution is the basic way things happened; it’s a done deal” only gets heard as “Evolution doesn’t know anything”. Unfortunately it doesn’t go the other way. “Evolution is just a faith for the atheist agenda” never gets heard as “evolution is true” because evolution isn’t simple enough.
And then, among creationists and their captive youth, “evolution” is just a buzz-word for “atheist propaganda coming” and they simply will not *listen* to your inner-fish because its focus is evolution. Really, the key in is the basic nature shows of “gee, look at the sun bear.; Why her paws are perfectly adapted for millions of years in a specific environment to the perfect whatevers they are”
Which is why Ken Ham and his pseudo-science facade is so disgusting. Your basic A is for Anteater book gets kids interested in basic questions (what are anteaters like? How’d they get such a thin snout?) but Ham’s “D is for dinosaur, and people used to use them to plow fields and here’s noah’s arc which is *all* about dinosaurs” just preemptively bury them in crap before they can even begin to ask question. (I’m **still*** appalled by his stamp of approved “Life in the Great Ice Age” where the Jabeth (Noah’s grandson) and his family face the changed climate after the flood and go on a saber-toothed tiger hunt. No, I’m not kidding. I hate, hate, hate, hate, Ken Ham.)
Take off my evilution glasses and put on my Bible glasses. Suddenly the world looks 6000 years old. I just need a Bible airplane and I can get from LA to the moon in less than an hour. I don’t need medicare or Obamacare, just need to start prayin’ once my leg breaks and wait for the miracle, if it don’t happen just means don’t have enough faith. And if my kid starts misbehavin’ just take him or her to the center of town and stone em’ to death. Oh god what if a third of the stars literally start fallin’ from heaven. So perfectly logical.
“God’s Word”?
Not many of Ham’s words are found in The Bible. Where does it say that the flood spread a kilometre of sedimentary rock over the Earth’s surface? Where does it say that radioactive decay instantaneously took place without producing heat? Where does it say that continents could go rushing about without producing heat?
This could go on for a long time…
@zenlike #19 “Hammyboy proudly puts ‘Dr.’ in front of ‘Elizabeth Mitchell’, as if she is scientist, maybe a biologist even. She isn’t. She is an MD with a BA in chemistry. So the ‘Dr.’ is totally misplaced there.”
I think I’d give him that one. If she’s an MD she’s certainly entitled to be called doctor. Of course Ham oughta shoulda mentioned her “qualifications”, but, come on, it’s Ham.
Reminds me of that claim a few years back that tens of thousands of “scientists” were climate change skeptics. Turns out you qualified on the list as a scientist if you had a bachelor degree with an “S” in it. Civil engineers, computer programmers, dentists, telecom managers, veterinarians, etc. were all deemed to be qualified to opine on climate science.
Full disclosure: I am a Doctor of Theology. My wife bought the degree for me some years ago from the Universal Life Church, and I have the pdf hanging on my wall. Cost her ten bucks. Cool thing is Bishop Hensley signed it three years after he died! (Ordained from Beyond the Grave! I am awesome.)
33 Dr. Strabismus
Would you not find it misleading that on an article promoting anti-vaccination, someone is quoted favourably, and this person is called a ‘dr.’, even though this person has a PhD in geology? And this fact is mentioned nowhere in the article?
But that besides: they hate science, but they still love to cushion their BS in sciency talk and titles.
Yeah, since the godbots love authority, they think appeal to authority is the only argument around. Except being an “authority”, I know better, and always question, as a good skeptic should.
Wait, so Creationists don’t believe in going fast?
34. zenlike
Wouldn’t believe it could happen. Geologists are pretty smart.
// And, speaking from my Position of Authority as a D.Theol., you may take that as apodictic.
Off topic a little, but Wikipedia tells me that D.Theol. is regarded by “the U.S. National Science Foundation to be the equivalent of a Doctor of Philosophy.”
Not sure what that says about the National Science Foundation. Or philosophy.
What bothers me the most here is that they put up this crap information as a means to discredit scientists in an effort to persuade their followers not to even listen or be open to new evidence. And his followers eat it up! I do hope some become more curious and actually go watch the program and read the book.
woozy #30
I’m reminded of this bit from Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth:
Yep, in all vertebrates; and it occurs in all outgrowths of the body wall – limbs, hair, feathers, “reptile” scales, teeth, you name it.
Other animals have just one hedgehog gene instead of several.
Ken Ham’s favorite song from Benny Hill, ting-a-ling-a-loo
the first verse:
Now if you’re feeling miserable, if you’re feeling blue,
Here’s a little ditty that’ll help to pull you through,
All the clouds will disappear, the grey skies turn to blue:
Just stick your finger in your ear and go ting-a-ling-a-loo.
Shorter #13… The really fun part of Tiktaalik was that Shubin and company not only predicted what it would look like, but where exactly it would be found. I’m sure that’s now the case generally for how fossils are discovered as opposed to the earlier ‘stumbled upon’ method. But that fossil morphologies and locations can be PREDITCED, runs against creationist’s claims that there is no predictive element to evolutionary theory. (of course they’re using ‘predictability’ in an ignorant or deliberatelt decietful way)
It wasn’t quite thorough enough, though. ^_^
Not much. People don’t often set out to search for finding a particular “missing link”; more often somebody stumbles upon a new site, and then the scientists flock in and describe the whole biota.
Someone tell Hammy boy that he’s blaspheming.
By refusing to acknowledge reality and slapping God in the face with the Bible and going “No, you made things how THIS thing says you made them, not how reality says!” he’s committing idolatry with his wood-pulp fetish.
Why does no one ever point this out to these people?
Because
Oh dear. Not much to do with Tiktaalik, but here are two new gaps in the fossil record.
Azuma Hazuki, it’s called bibliolatry, I think.