{"id":85035,"date":"2025-02-24T16:54:55","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T22:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=85035"},"modified":"2025-02-24T16:54:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T22:54:55","slug":"opinion-builds-that-rare-fish-isnt-evolutionary-missing-link","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/opinion-builds-that-rare-fish-isnt-evolutionary-missing-link\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion Builds That Rare Fish Isn’t Evolutionary “Missing Link”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

Source:<\/strong> Sentry Magazine<\/em>, Vol. 15, No. 1, March 31, 1989<\/p>\n

\"\"When the first living coelacanth came to the attention of scientists 50 years ago last month, they recognized it as belonging to a group of fishes previously known only from fossils and thought to have been extinct for 80 million years. The specimen, hooked by a fisherman, was quickly hailed as a “living fossil.”<\/p>\n

The coelacanth (pronounced see-la-kanth) had long been thought to represent an evolutionary transition from fishes to the first land animals. The newly caught coelacanth’s fleshy fins, hinting at a resemblance to legs, helped earn it the label of “missing link.”<\/p>\n

Today, however, there is a growing consensus among evolutionary biologists who have studied living specimens that coelacanths are not missing links. According to a report last week in the British journal Nature by Peter L. Forey of the British Museum (Natural History), the coelacanth features putatively linking it to land animals are probably only coincidentally similar.<\/p>\n

For one thing, fossil coelacanths were thought to have lungs, like several species of lungfish living today. These air-breathing lungs allow lungfish to live out of the water for long periods. The structure, thought to have been the precursor of lungs in early amphibians, evolved into the swim bladder of the more advanced fishes. Living coelacanths turned out to have no lungs.<\/p>\n

Still, interest in the three-foot-long, blue-and-white coelacanths remains high, especially among subsistence fishermen in the Comores Archipelago between Africa and Madagascar. Since the first specimen was recorded in 1938, at least 200 have been caught, and the pace of killing has increased rapidly in recent years.<\/p>\n

Forey said that although no one knows how many coelacanths are in the ocean, they are rare, and a Coelacanth Conservation Council has been formed to protect the species against overfishing that could lead to its extinction.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: Sentry Magazine, Vol. 15, No. 1, March 31, 1989 When the first living coelacanth came to the attention of scientists 50 years ago last month, they recognized it as belonging to a group of fishes previously known only from fossils and thought to have been extinct for 80 million years. The specimen, hooked by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[80],"class_list":["post-85035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issues","tag-evolution"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":54992,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/another-missing-link-debunked\/","url_meta":{"origin":85035,"position":0},"title":"Another \u2018Missing Link\u2019 Debunked","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Greg Gwin Many will remember the big 'splash' that was made in the news just a few months ago. The media seemed thrilled to announce that the 'missing link' had been discovered which proved humans evolved from the apes. A nearly intact fossil dubbed 'Ida' had surfaced which, it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ida-the-missing-link-300x180.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":56135,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-evolutionists-creation-story-inspired-by-naturalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":85035,"position":1},"title":"The Evolutionist’s Creation Story, Inspired by Naturalism","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Abraham Smith Naturalism:\u00a0A theory denying that an event or object has a supernatural significance. Once upon a time billions of years ago, everything that has ever been came from a little ball called the cosmic egg. At that time it was heated to trillions of degrees. It was so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88391,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/humans-and-chimpanzees-are-not-99-genetically-similar\/","url_meta":{"origin":85035,"position":2},"title":"Humans and Chimpanzees are Not 99% Genetically Similar","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Source: Robert Carter, \"Humans and chimpanzees are NOT 99% identical,\"\u00a0Creation Ministries International, 3 July 2025. \"Yes, humans and chimpanzees do share a lot of DNA, but when you include what they\u00a0don't share, the percent identity drops significantly, into the low 80% range.\" How similar are humans and chimpanzees? \"about 85%\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Issues"","block_context":{"text":"Issues","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83647,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/evolutionary-logic\/","url_meta":{"origin":85035,"position":3},"title":"Evolutionary Logic","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 25, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 11, November 30, 1983","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Evolutionary-Logic-scaled.avif","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Evolutionary-Logic-scaled.avif 1x, https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Evolutionary-Logic-scaled.avif 1.5x, https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Evolutionary-Logic-scaled.avif 2x, https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Evolutionary-Logic-scaled.avif 3x, https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Evolutionary-Logic-scaled.avif 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":57662,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/an-admission-that-the-evolutionary-theory-doesnt-work\/","url_meta":{"origin":85035,"position":4},"title":"An Admission that the Evolutionary Theory Doesn’t Work","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 4, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Source: Stephen Buranyi, \"Do we need a new theory of evolution?\"\u00a0The Guardian, 28 June 2022. \"... scientists still do not know the answers to some of the most basic questions about how life on Earth evolved.\" \"Take eyes, for instance. Where do they come from, exactly? The usual explanation of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Issues"","block_context":{"text":"Issues","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33898,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/mitochondrial-dna-differences-indicate-a-6000-year-old-human-race\/","url_meta":{"origin":85035,"position":5},"title":"Mitochondrial DNA Differences Indicate a 6,000 Year Old Human Race","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 3, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Source: Nathaniel T. Jeanson, \"On the Origin of Human Mitochondrial DNA Differences, New Generation Time Data Both Suggest a Unified Young-Earth Creation Model and Challenge the Evolutionary Out-of-Africa Model,\"\u00a0Answers Research Journal, September 2016. \"Previously, I predicted that a constant rate of mutation over 6000 years would result in 20 to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Issues"","block_context":{"text":"Issues","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}