How could legs and feet evolve? They couldn't!
How could legs and feet evolve?
Quick-read this article:
Fish don't have legs, but amphibians do. And amphibians allegedly
evolved from fish. But there is no indisputable evidence of a
creature between the two groups to show how legs and feet evolved.
We believe this is because none ever existed.
Have you ever thought how impossible it would be for legs and feet to evolve?
Legs come in an amazing variety of designs and numbers. Two-legged creatures include birds and humans, yet most mammals, reptiles, and amphibians are supported on four legs and feet.
Ants, moths, bees, beetles and most other insects have six legs. Arachnids, a class of wingless creatures that includes spiders, scorpions and mites, are distinguished from insects by their eight or more legs and no antennae. Wood lice have 14 legs, caterpillars typically have 16, and centipedes can have from 28 to 354 legs. A record number of legs — 710 — was found on a millipede.
Did legs form by a process of evolution? Evolutionists must believe they did. But the evidence does not support this idea. For example, fish do not have legs, but amphibians do. And amphibians supposedly evolved from fish. So is there clear evidence that a fish's fins somehow turned into legs as the first amphibian appeared?
Evolutionary evidence is thin
Not at all!
Two amphibians, known as Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, are supposedly the oldest fossilized tetrapods (four-footed animals) with clearly preserved legs. Yet they had well-developed legs and toes, as shown by fossils found in Greenland. Acanthostega seems to have been a totally aquatic amphibian, despite one evolutionist's claim that it was a true fish. (Of course, if it was a true fish, then it was not a part-fish, part-amphibian, which nullifies their claim that it was a transitional form. This silly claim is also refuted by many other evolutionists — see bottom of this article.)
Allegedly “earlier” tetrapods, such as Elginerpeton and Ventastega, have yielded only fragments of their legs for scientists to study, so they do not provide evidence that legs have evolved from non-legs.
(See CMI article on Ventastega.)
Hypothetical fishibian
The hypothetical fish that gave rise to all the four-legged creatures is unknown. Candidates for the immediate evolutionary ancestor of the first amphibian have included:
- an order of lungfishes (Dipnoi), which were eventually dismissed because of their weak fins — which could not have turned into legs — and a skull that was too unlike the amphibian skull to have turned into it
- the coelacanth fishes, which were thought to be extinct until they were found living in the Indian Ocean last century. They show no signs of evolution, and have now generally been discounted as the ancestors of the amphibians
- a group of fishes called rhipidistians. But it has been admitted that the fossil record does not show exactly which rhipidistian was involved.
Lately, the alleged fish-ancestor of amphibians is said to have been a fish called Panderichthys. However, it would be impossible to mistake Panderichthys for a tetrapod.1 Its toeless limbs were buried inside a ring of fin rays, and it had too many other fish characteristics to have evolved directly into the first-known tetrapod, Elginerpeton.
In recent years a large number of fossils have come to light that supposedly bridge the gaps in fish-to-amphibian evolution. But the fact is that all the fishes had fins, and amphibians have legs. A vast amount of change would be necessary to turn a fin into a leg. We maintain that this change is not observed in the fossil record because it never happened. We believe that creatures with legs were created that way from the beginning, as the Bible's book of Genesis tells us.
Reference
- Zimmer, Carl 1999, At the Water's Edge: Fish with fingers, whales with legs, and how life came ashore but then went back to sea, Touchstone, New York, NY, p. 104. (Zimmer has written for National Geographic, Science, Natural History, Nature, and other science journals. His book has received praise from high-profile evolutionists such as Ernst Mayr, Mark Ridley, Philip Gingerich, John Horgan, and Douglas Futuyma.)
Was Acanthostega a fish or an amphibian?
Here are some comments from evolutionists to show that Acanthostega was an amphibian, and not a transitional creature.
- “Acanthostega, an early amphibian.” Political cortex
- “The Acanthostega fossil is the most primitive known limb. Judging from their skeletons, these amphibians spent most of their time in the water …” Science News
- “Acanthostega is an extinct amphibian” Timeline of human evolution
- “Acanthostega … isn't a fish exactly” Indiana.edu
- “… in some instances, it is difficult to tell if a fossil is a fish or an amphibian” National Center for Science Education
- “Acanthostega … This first amphibian-like tetrapod …” Kenneth R. Miller
- “Acanthostega gunnari (amphibian)” Museum of the Earth
- “Acanthostega may have had a terrestrial ancestor and then returned full time to the water” Physorg.com
- “the first tetrapod amphibians such as Acanthostega” WikiPedia
- “Acanthostega, although clearly a land-dwelling animal, retained an unmistakable sign of its aquatic ancestry: internal gills. No other amphibian possesses internal gills” National Center for Science Education
- “Acanthostega gunnari amphibian” Virtual Museum of Fossils
See also
- Yet another missing link fails to qualify Andrew A. Snelling
- The links are missing Jonathan Sarfati
- Transition from primitive bony fish to amphibians CreationWiki
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