These words from a Darwinist, in the April 2003 issue of Focus magazine, describe the astonishment at the discovery of a living Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), for years portrayed as a transitional form, in today’s waters. Prior to 1938, Darwinists had made countless claims about the fossil Coelacanth, interpreting its fins as “legs about to start walking” and a fossilized oil sac as “a primitive lung.” With all this speculation about the fossil, they suggested that they had discovered a missing link.
Even the discovery of a living dinosaur would have been less surprising. Because fossils show that the coelacanth existed 150-200 million years before the appearance of the dinosaurs. The creature put forward by many scientists as the ancestor of land-dwelling vertebrates, believed to have disappeared at least 70 million years ago, had been found. 1
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Coelacanth
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These words from a Darwinist, in the April 2003 issue of Focus magazine, describe the astonishment at the discovery of a living Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), for years portrayed as a transitional form, in today’s waters. Prior to 1938, Darwinists had made countless claims about the fossil Coelacanth, interpreting its fins as “legs about to start walking” and a fossilized oil sac as “a primitive lung.” With all this speculation about the fossil, they suggested that they had discovered a missing link.
The capture of a living Coelacanth at such a time came as a terrible disappointment to Darwinists. This and more than 200 other living Coelacanths, the latest of which was caught in May 2007, totally discredited all the Darwinist conjecture about the fossils. It was realized that the Coelacanth was an exceedingly complex and highly developed bottom-dwelling fish, about 150 cm in length. In addition, the animals showed no sign of change over 450 million years. To put it another way, its complexity today is the same as it was 450 million years in the past.
Following the scientific realization of all this, the Coelacanth assumed its place as an example of a living fossil and all the claims about its being a transitional form were withdrawn. Darwinists lost yet another fossil they had speculated about so much. Had this animal not been found today’s seas, then, just as with Archaeopteryx, there would have been no end to the Darwinist speculation regarding it. It would still be depicted as the greatest representative of the passage from water to land, and there would be thousands of pieces of conjecture about it being AS IF THE UNQUESTIONABLE FINEST TRANSITIONAL FORM. And Darwinists would also be making attempts those saying that the animal is not a transitional form, but rather a perfect marine organism. Just as is happening with all the other transitional form claims now.
But the fact is that those who wish to deceive others with no scientific basis will never achieve their ends. As our Lord says in a verse:
Do not mix up truth with falsehood and knowingly hide the truth. (Surat al-Baqara, 42)
1 Focus, April 2003
