Over the past couple years, Tiktaalik, a fossil allegedly documenting parts of the transition from fish to tetrapods, has become a new celebrated icon of evolution. PBS’s “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” documentary featured Tiktaalik as their premier transitional fossil, an anachronism since it wasn’t even reported until months AFTER the Dover trial concluded. The NAS’s recent “Science, Evolution, and Creationism” booklet also prominently pushes Tiktaalik, calling it “a notable transitional form.” Darwinists have a lot of rhetorical capital invested in this fossil, and it thus comes as no surprise that they are quick to defend it with the “zero-concession policy” vehemence we’ve come to expect from internet Darwinists. As William Dembski writes regarding this policy: Our critics have, Read More ›

[UPDATE: I have responded to Carl Zimmer’s critiques with updates and corrections, here.] I recently picked up Your Inner Fish, a highly simplified science book written for a popular audience by paleontologist Neil Shubin that promotes the alleged intermediate fossil between fish and tetrapods, Tiktaalik roseae. On page 83, Shubin’s book contains a nice diagram comparing the skull-components of a human head to the skull of a primitive craniate fish. It’s a vague comparison that does little to convince that fish-heads formed the template for mammal heads. But that’s not the focus of Shubin’s book. The primary feature that excites Shubin and other evolutionary paleontologists about Tiktaalik isn’t found in its head: it’s that this fossil is allegedly “a fish Read More ›