Fish with Limbs

kpogoda writes "American scientists have unearthed the world's oldest arm bone, a 365-million-year-old fossil that provides key evidence that fish used limbs in water well before animals used them to climb up on land."

Comments

Reminds me of...

[FlyingOrca]

the epaulette shark:

http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/shark_p ro files/orectolobiformes.htm
(scroll down)

It uses its limbs to "walk" around, and will even "walk" away when threatened rather than swimming (which would be faster, one thinks).

A minor nit...

[ArghBlarg]

"Permanent land-living animals took another 30 million years to develop into reptiles, birds and mammals, but what happened during that transition is unclear."

Birds didn't evolve, to our knowledge, for a LOT more than 30 million years after the Devonian. Late Cretaceous, 65 million years or so.

(IANAPaleontologist, but I wanted to be one when I was a kid, heh)

Eugenics? Pull the other one...

[FlyingOrca]

Bzzzt! Wrong. I've let myself be trolled twice today, and my mouth is getting sore from the hooks, but I've got to correct your idiotic post.

First, "Darwinism/evolution" has no "natural (racist) conclusion of Eugenics". Evolution, as a theory - and if you can't handle what "theory" really means, go back to school, I don't want to get into it - describes how genomes change over time. Period. Like it or not, it's working on humans just as it works on every other living thing.

Second, scientists generally do NOT "have a hard time accepting" etc. Helping the poor is quite acceptable; they have not demonstrated a genetic disadvantage in reproduction. In fact, if they are reproducing at a greater rate than those who are not poor, they are demonstrating an advantage! Short term, I would think, but still an advantage.

As for birth defects, most are not carried into the next generation, being caused by either prenatal trauma (of one kind or another) or chromosome replication error. Most people with developmental disabilities, believe it or not, will have genetically normal children if they have any at all.

Close hospitals and ban free choice in human reproduction? What on earth makes you think this is part of the theory of evolution? I suppose some deeply twisted individuals might make a logically flawed argument that this is necessary, but I've never heard it advocated. Got a citation from a reliable source?

Now, personally, I'd like to see reproduction controlled, but only because there are too many people around already. However, that's irrelevant to the theory of evolution; we will be acted upon by selection pressure no matter what. It's the way things work. If we exceed our carrying capacity, a bunch of us will die; the survivors will be those whose genes (and memes, if you're into that kind of thing) confer advantage in that situation.

I'd like to see some kind of quote before I believe that Darwin "wholeheartedly believed in this sort of proposition"; I think that's complete hogwash, but I could be wrong. Again, got a citation from a reliable source?

"Rational believers of intelligent design theory"? Sorry, I don't think there IS a scientific theory of "intelligent design". A bunch of stuff promulgated by religious believers, yes, but I'm not aware of a scientific theory of that nature.

As far as "intelligent design" as a religious proposition (not scientific theory), I think you'd find that MANY scientists believe it to be quite compatible with evolution... the religious ones, anyhow. They just place the design further back in time - say, about 15 billion years further back.

Evolutionary theory describes a mechanism of great beauty and elegance; it's a shame that people's preconceptions often hide that truth from them. Still, if you can get past your prejudice long enough to read some good books on the subject, you might come away with a bit more appreciation for the subject.

Thanks for playing, have a nice day.