JBS Haldane is said to have responded to a question about how evolution could be disproved by saying, “A Precambrian rabbit”. What was meant by this, of course, is any substantial discovery that greatly disrupted the evidence for the chronological pattern of descent observed in Earth’s life. That pattern of descent is one of the central lines of evidence for evolution, so creationists would dearly love to find something that wrecked it — this is why they send expeditions to Africa to find a living dinosaur, Mok’ele-mbembe, or more conveniently, to Canada in search of a plesiosaur, Manipogo.
The Discovery Institute has it easy. They don’t mount expeditions, they just sit around, read scientific papers, and misinterpret them. Their latest abuse is to claim to have discovered the equivalent of a Precambrian rabbit.
A vertebrate swimming fish with camera eyes, blood vessels, digestive system, muscular swimming, and gills in the Lower Cambrian: for Darwinists, it should hardly be more surprising to find than a Precambrian rabbit.
Only it’s not in the Precambrian, it’s Cambrian. And it’s not a mammal, it’s a very primitive fish, unlike anything extant. Is anyone surprised to find ancient fish-like creatures in the Cambrian? Anyone who has been paying the slightest attention to publications about the fossils of the Burgess Shale or the Chengjian fauna in the last century?
Here’s a reconstruction of the animal that Conway Morris and Caron analyzed in a recent issue of Nature. It’s called Metaspriggina.
Just for comparison, here’s Pikaia, a familiar chordate (although it’s classification is somewhat controversial) from the Cambrian. The fossil was first described in 1911.
Here’s another Cambrian beast, Haikouichthys, described in 2002.
Here is a rabbit.
One of these things is not like the others. Which one would surprise you, boys and girls, if it were found swimming in the shallow, silty seas beneath the relatively hypoxic skies of planet Earth, 500 million years ago? Which ones look similar, as if they are related, yet don’t look like any modern organisms?
If you can answer those two questions, you’re smarter than a creationist. There is no prize, I’m afraid that’s a rather low bar to hurdle.
What also surprises is how much the Discovery Institute press release mangles the story. For instance, they want to claim that it is more advanced than modern forms.
All these traits show that Metaspriggina was not a primitive chordate intermediate to lampreys or other extinct Cambrian swimmers, but was in fact more “derived” (advanced) in some respects than some of the alleged descendants.
They then quote a section of an article that explains that lampreys have derived structures — that their branchial anatomy is extensively specialized. What Conway Morris and Caron actually say in the paper is the opposite — that Metaspriggina had primitive or ancestral branchial structures, that they possessed two-part bars in their branchial arches, which was the ancestral condition.
A striking feature is the branchial area with an array of bipartite bars. Apart from the anterior-most bar, which appears to be slightly thicker, each is associated with externally located gills, possibly housed in pouches. Phylogenetic analysis places Metaspriggina as a basal vertebrate, apparently close to the Chengjiang taxa Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia, demonstrating also that this primitive group of fish was cosmopolitan during Lower–Middle Cambrian times (Series 2–3). However, the arrangement of the branchial region in Metaspriggina has wider implications for reconstructing the morphology of the primitive vetebrate. Each bipartite bar is identified as being respectively equivalent to an epibranchial and ceratobranchial. This configuration suggests that a bipartite arrangement is primitive and reinforces the view that the branchial basket of lampreys is probably derived.
Notice that Conway Morris and Caron have identified Metaspriggina as a “basal vertebrate”, and that they note it’s affinities to other Cambrian forms. This is not a fish out of water; there is no evolution defying anachronism here.
The creationists even comment on the cladogram included in the paper, rather obliviously. Do they even realize that this diagram places Metaspriggina in an evolutionary context, and that it is clearly an intermediate form, more advanced than Pikaia, comparable to its rough contemporary Haikouichthys, and less derived than lampreys?
Cladogram with backbone constraint for cyclostome monophyly, and using rescaled consistency indices, showing the position of Metaspriggina as part of basal stem-group soft-bodied vertebrates. The origin and potential loss of key vertebrate structures is indicated.
Seriously, what part of “basal stem-group soft-bodied vertebrate” did they fail to comprehend? Metaspriggina is an unsurprising resident of the Cambrian era…and no rabbit at all.
Morris SC, Caron JB2 (2014) A primitive fish from the Cambrian of North America. Nature 512(7515):419-22.
Scientists found a fossil in precisely the right place we’d expect to find said fossil and it describes a form of life consistent with other fossils in that period.
Checkmate, evolutionists!
But is it cute, just like the rabbit!!
QED!!
Oops
‘it is’
(must be kcabwards yad)
What is it with creationists and branchial arches? I realize they are not the easiest structures to understand anatomically, but they seem to bollix them up every time they talk about them……..
Hah!
Your logic holds weight, that’s a weirdly adorable protofish.
That’s no ordinary rabbit! Its a killer. Look at the bones, man!
But a rabbit is a (radically derived sarcopterygan) fish!
The problem is that they think that a (primitive) fish is a rabbit.
Yeah, the branchial thing kills me. It’s not that hard. Look at the cladogram: gill pouches and bipartite branchial structures evolved sometime prior to Metaspriggina, the branchial basket was an innovation that evolved in just the lineage leading to modern lampreys.
Not. That. Hard.
And whoever wrote that hot mess for the Discovery Institute didn’t get it. I wonder who it was? Klinghoffer? Luskin? O’Leary? They’ve got an amazing roster of incompetents to write for them.
Never mind understanding evolution, understanding how to construct a sentence would be a start. To support their position, “more surprising” should read “less surprising”. Either that or the “than” is superfluous.
Please, nobody make a drinking game out of Discotute’s failures.
My liver can’t handle it.
Now what would be really good would be to find a Creationist in the Cambrian, or better still, a whole bunch of them, or all of them even. You know, on the “have your cake & eat” it principle.
Metaspriggina reminds me a lot of these guys!
@ richardelguru
?”yad sdrawkcab” tnaem uoy yleruS
So confused now. I thought a fish and a human were the same thing?
Thanks for nothing, Neil Shubin!
In addition to all the biological problems which have been mentioned, I think there’s also a glaring psychological/social one. Any scientist or scientists who discovered what amounts to a rabbit fossil in the Precambrian would not skim over this result lightly, hoping that it gets buried under all the technological talk.
First off, they would notice it.
And second, pro-evolution or not, they would scream and shout and wave their hands for attention. LOOK WHAT WE FOUND! Take note; remember our names. Fame and fortune! Not to mention the rights to claim discovery and the fact that this would be a discovery, an important one.
Creationists, ID variety or not, don’t understand either science or scientists.
:-D Haha, I read that name [bolded above] on first sight as “Klingon”. I laugh cuz that mis-reading seems to fit right in to the DI misinterpretation of the real discovery.
IE: “Shakespeare plays are best performed, in their original Klingon! Ka-plah!!”
A fish, a rabbit(,)and a creationist walk into a bar…
K: Well, what fish ‘ave you got that isn’t jugged?
M: Rabbit.
K: What, rabbit fish?
M: Uuh, yes, it’s got fins.
K: Is it dead?
M: Well, it was coughin’ up blood last night.
K: All right, I’ll have the dead unjugged rabbit fish.
You really can’t expect creationists to be good at distinguishing things. After all, they constantly mistake a poorly-collated, poorly-edited collection of random myths, old-wives tales, and poetry for the wisdom of an omniscient being.
Discovery Institute:
Never forget that there are more prohibitions on learning things from dead bodies than there are on ben-wa balls and Hitachi Magic Wands! Fight the good fight! The more someone appears to be learning useful knowledge permitting statements to be made about the world that later turn out to be true, the more evil that person is.
More evil than rent-boys! More evil than prostitutes and diapers. Even more evil than wet-suits and butt plugs, I tell you!
Don’t let yourself be led astray, donate all your funds, today!
Sastra,
They’d also present all the tests they did to show this wasn’t geology muddling their dating, a stupid prank, a forgery, etc. and requests for other scientists to get out and search this type of rocks of this age to find more Precambrian rabbits. Because, yeah, this is a way to be Very Famous… or look very silly if you miss something obvious.
@21
You really do have to appreciate the spectrum of denialism for its creativity in finding fault with reality. There’s just so many colorful narratives they can invoke to paper over inconvenient facts. On one hand, “historical science” can never be used to draw conclusions from fossil evidence and it’s all just so darn ambiguous and open to interpretation. On the other, sure, accurate conclusions can be drawn, but only because you’re a seer reading the Devil’s tea leaves.
Incidentally, I love coming across these cladistic analyses of basal forms in your blog (I caught the same bug for cladistics as Aron Ra). I’d be happy to see more of them, with or without a specific objection to some crass creationist.
O hai, Crip Dyke! I maded you an Internets from lavender cookies. And I did not eated it.
*sigh*
One slash. One slash…
A kingdom for a slash.
While not fully fluent in this particular branch of science vocabulary, I do speak English, and I do know what the word “basal” means. Hey, I’m smarter than a creationist! Time to do a happy dance!
@24 Callinectes
As the famous French wit Lamarck Twain said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and cladistics.”
Tim: “He’s got huge, sharp… er… He can leap about. Look at the bones!”
Ach! Wrong rabbit!
It’s not that the creationists don’t understand all this. They’re intentionally trying to spin news to suit the agenda they’re pushing. The trick is to fool laymen and students who are gullible to being misled by their articles. Since Steven Meyer has published a book stating that the Cambrian animals were designed, they’re especially eager to dismiss any evolutionary account connected with the Cambrian or Precambrian.
PZ Myers is doing science a favor by exposing the stupidity in their claims from time to time. It can help confused students understand why the creationist articles are so wrong.
I’m not holding my breath for Lagosauridae either.
@grasshopper
Funny! But I thought it was by Darvinci.
@Crip Dyke #21:
Fucking hell, CD, you almost had me convinced! If ever you decide to give up being ethical and honest, you should go into religion and make your fortune.
what if it’s an unjugged rabbitfish?
ah, covered in #19.
How to deal with a Cambrian rabbit:
PZ,
They don’t need to be competent enough to accurately describe a scientific paper. They just have to sound like they know what they are talking about, to that subset of the population that accepts anything that is supposed to “disprove” evolution. They may even look at the scientific rebuttals to their message as a good thing, in the same way that Perry’s indictment was great for fundraising. “See! We’re being persecuted! It must mean that we’re right!”
Their audience falls into the category of “You can fool some of the people all of the time”, the same resource tapped by the Republicans and religions. At best, you’ll give those who are starting to ask questions more to think about.
But sea rabbits are totes real. Daz @4 had a pic of one swimming, and here it is resting on the beach (DIRECTLY ON THE BEACH for any Mammotheers reading).
I composed a complicated comment about monks eating rabbits whilst pretending they were fish (the rabbits, not the monks) and monkfish and rabbitfish but it had too many links and hrefs and stuff.
It was pretty good.
I seem to remember that baby rabbits were considered to be fish in some places in the Middle Ages to get around religious dietary restrictions…
“Notice that Conway Morris and Caron have identified Metaspriggina as a “basal vertebrate”
-Methinks it is a *chordate* until proven otherwise. !!!!!!!!!
(extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence)
.
If you find a big pre-cambrian organism it is probably a shoggoth*
*BTW if those old Lovecraftian beasts were so fearsome, how come they were displaced by critters that were as complex as pond slime?
Now I expect the creationists to try to shoehorn the discovery of nocturnal synapsids like Dimetrodon into proof of creation.
birgerjohansson @ 40. Pond slime is shoggoths, they’re just resting.
@birgerjohansson:
ObStory: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm
The stars were no longer right, of course.
Has that Discovery place ever discovered anything besides suckers??
Also if they believe in intelligent design, whomsoever did the designing did a damn poor job!!!
All of it.
@35: Ah, the ‘Book of Armaments’ and the instructions to saint Attila.
Manipogo? you have got to be kidding. That was started when I was a kid. A friend of my father’s was selling lots for cottages and concocted the sighting story to drum up publicity selling real estate lots. (true story btw the family still has the cabin in the development).
@ 18: A fish, a rabbit and a creationist walked into a bar. After a short wait, the fish crawled into a booth, the rabbit hopped onto a bar stool, and the creationist walked over and asked ‘would you like fries with that?’
mothra #47
Good one.
mothra #47
Do people in low wage jobs deserve to be held up as “losers”?
Pharyngula, in a nutshell.
Sorry, but I just don’t see a “joke” which can be paraphrased as “Oh look, a lowly menial! Hahahaha!” as particularly funny.
and yet Chigau did.
will you criticize Chigau for thinking it funny?
will Chigau now feel guilty for thinking it funny?
like I said… this is Pharyngula, in a nutshell, for better or worse.
It’s interesting, that’s for sure.
why not
“Oh look, creationists are stupid.”
do you think it was Mothra’s intention to insult people who work as fast food clerks, or could it be they were using the trope itself as fuel for their joke?
I think we’d better ask Mothra to explain in detail…
Eh? I criticised the all-too-often-seen words I quoted and pointed out why I think they should avoided. Hopefully both those who utter them without thinking of their implication and those who laugh at them in the same way—which includes both Mothra and Chigau, along with way too many others—will understand my criticism.
Ichthyic #53
And that’s my point. The trope relies on menial jobs being automatically equated with bad education, stupidity, etc, not to mention a hefty measure of relative worthlessness.
I’ve done such work all my life. That joke stings, every time I hear it.
Not sure if this is stepping on toes, not being a regular commenter, but I agree with Daz. That punchline rubbed me the wrong way.
Also, agree with Daz, at least largely. Not sure how the joke could have been rephrased, though. Or even if it should. It’s not actually a very good joke even if you’re not offended by the trope. Creationists are beyond “badly educated”, and don’t necessarily have problems finding high-paying jobs.