The One That Got Away

We likely all have that friend or family member that tends to stretch the boundaries of believability when telling a story or recounting certain events. And they’re often so entertaining that we kindly let them get away with it.

After all, who doesn’t like a good old fish story that keeps getting more and more outlandish every time the tale is told?

Like the now legendary story about the huge one that got away, that would have made the perfect trophy over the mantle—if only the line hadn’t broken, the reel hadn’t melted because of the friction from the giant fish’s ferocity, or the grizzly bear hadn’t attacked at that very moment!

The Fishiest Story Ever Told

Well, in a similar fashion, among the scientific community, the evolution-believing component has often produced many fanciful stories promoting several so-called proofs of evolution over the years.

In all the 25 years of ministry I had dealing with the creation/evolution debate, there was one “proof” I remember that received more fanfare (starting way back in 2006) than I’d ever seen.

And it wasn’t so much the specific claims that evolutionists were making, but more so, just how elated the evolutionary community was upon its announcement and the way they went about promoting it.

And that was the tale of the finely finned so-called “fishapod” known as Tiktaalik roseae. The euphoria that grew in the evolutionary community upon the release of the Nature magazine article describing its discovery grew to a mild frenzy, especially among atheist types.

The article confidently declared that Tiktaalik “represents an intermediate between fish with fins and [four legged] tetrapods with limbs”1 and was from then on hyped as convincing proof of the story of evolution in amazing ways.

In behind it came news reports, articles, TV specials (by the likes of Sir David Attenborough, complete with CGI sequences of Tiktaalik), etc. that all proclaimed this was rock-solid proof that over millions of years fish sprouted legs and walked onto the land where they could breathe air, eventually turning into amphibians, reptiles, mammals, etc.

It was as if atheists everywhere thought they had finally found the silver bullet that would finally prove evolution as fact and that God didn’t exist.

It was as if atheists everywhere thought they had finally found the silver bullet that would finally prove evolution as fact and that God didn’t exist.

Understand, I am not overstating the evolutionary community’s affection and blatant promotion of this fossil as the in-your-face proof of evolution. The New York Times claimed Tiktaalik was “a powerful rebuttal to religious creationists, who hold a literal biblical view on the origins and development of life.”2

As a matter of fact, a song about Tiktaalik (still available on YouTube with over 215 thousand views, complete with several comments mocking creationists) was written and played with glee by evolutionists celebrating their “fishapod” animal ancestry and embracing their “inner fish.”

It was an amazing thing to watch human beings around the world essentially celebrating that they were simply evolved animals, descendants of a fishy forerunner brought about by accidental events in a world where there isn’t any ultimate meaning or purpose to life.

It was like watching Romans 1 play itself out before your eyes.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. Romans 1:22–25

Of course, rabid atheist Richard Dawkins, author of evolution-promoting books such as The Greatest Show on Earth, couldn’t help but join in the celebration, declaring

Tiktaalik is the perfect missing link—perfect, because it almost exactly splits the difference between fish and amphibian, and perfect because it is missing no longer.3

And this celebratory support made sense considering his atheistic worldview. After all, Dawkins himself says that we live in a universe which has “no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”4

It’s always intrigued me how atheists want to celebrate a meaningless existence and strive so hard to deconstruct those who profess faith in God, but of course, I used to do the same myself when I believed in evolution. It’s like the old saying goes—misery loves company. And atheists made sure to use Tiktaalik to win as many over to their side as they could.

Case in point, in an article from American Scientist, the author chided creationists and intelligent design advocates for thinking there are too few missing links for evolution to be viable, and yet hoped Tiktaalik might win them over.

Intelligent design advocates and creationists claim that too many links are missing for evolution to be credible; they see only the abrupt appearance of new forms created by an Intelligent Designer. Stephen Meyer . . . of the Discovery Institute, asserts that “the transitional life forms that ostensibly occupy the nodes of Darwin’s branching tree of life are unobservable....”

The highly observable Tiktaalik is exactly the sort of transitional form that Meyer maintains does not exist. The fossils are real and solid evidence that you can hold in your hand. . . . It joins myriad other “found links” that document transitions from one type of creature to another or from one habitat to another. Together these found links form a stony edifice in support of evolutionary theory.

With luck, its existence may spark others to rethink their position, too.5

Surprisingly, the article (titled “Missing Links and Found Links”) also touted the famed “dino-bird” Archeopteryx as another of the supposed “myriad” of other found missing link, saying,

The feathers and wings on these 150-million-year-old fossils qualify Archaeopteryx for the title of First Bird.6

Apparently, this contributor to American Scientist isn’t aware that evolutionists have already found fossils of true birds supposedly 60 million years older than Archaeopteryx7 and did so almost 30 years before he wrote this article!

A Symbolic Victory?

Now, it’s likely that one of the reasons this supposed evidence for evolution was so overhyped is that the whole idea of a fish with legs has become somewhat symbolic of the evolutionary worldview (in opposition to biblical Christianity) as many evolutionists display the Darwin fish symbol on the back of their cars, clothing, and ball caps as a public declaration of their allegiance to the atheistic story of evolution.

And this illustrates why these issues are so important for Christians to understand from a biblical worldview, because many believers, seeing the utter mess our Western culture has collapsed into, simply don’t “get” how this happened when it’s literally under their very nose when they drive in their car: they will see a “Christian fish” or “Darwin fish” on the vehicle in front of them, but many miss the significance of the contrast in worldviews between the two. And so the significance of news reports like the discovery of a “fishapod” usually fly over their heads.

Meanwhile, that same so-called evidence is being used to indoctrinate their children into a naturalistic worldview in the local public school.

Fishy Motivations

Think about it. What motivates the people that are willing to go down to the local store and plunk down 20 bucks so they can put a Christian or Darwin fish on their cars? What are they saying about what they believe we came from ultimately?

Christian fish—I came from an all-loving God.

Darwin fish—I came from pond scum!

And one might be tempted to simply leave it at that. But if you think a little deeper about it, it means

Christian fish—I was created, God owns me, and I am responsible to him.

Darwin fish—No one owns me, and I am responsible to only myself!

Think that’s a stretch? Well, look at this quote from atheist Jeremy Rifkin.

We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home and therefore obliged to make our behavior conform with a set of pre-existing cosmic rules. It is our creation now. We make the rules. We establish the parameters of reality. We create the world, and because we do, we no longer have to justify our behavior, for we are now the architects of the universe. We are responsible to nothing outside ourselves, for we are the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever.8

You see, the natural consequence of teaching the story of evolution is ultimately atheism. It fulfills the religious requirements of what all atheists believe.

You see, the natural consequence of teaching the story of evolution is ultimately atheism. It fulfills the religious requirements of what all atheists believe (there is no creator, and everything made itself over millions of years).

So, although atheists claim they removed “religion” from the government schools, they removed only Christianity and replaced it with the religion of atheistic humanism based on their foundational doctrine—the story of evolution. And atheism removes accountability for your sinful actions.

Because if the story of evolution were true, then the idea of absolute morality would be destroyed and society would reflect such thinking. And you only need to look at the nonsense going on in culture today to do with the topic of identity to see that.

So having answers for claims against your faith is important, even if it’s from just a funny-looking fishapod that is supposedly the hands-down argument against the Genesis creation account. So, what about that fishapod fable?

What About That Fishapod?

Well, even though you can still find older articles still posted and many streaming sites still full of older videos, the hype over good old Tiktaalik has nearly all but faded away.

Why? Well, once again evolutionists paid the price for their premature promotion of this supposed positive proof of evolution with the discovery of some fossil footprints found in Poland of a tetrapod creature that preceded the existence of good old Tiktaalik by millions of years—according to their own evolutionary timescale, so the famous “fishapod” was a little late to the evolutionary party and not the missing link it had been declared to be.

Understand, this wasn’t some minor upset to the evolutionary community, because what it means is that Tiktaalik was suddenly demoted to an evolutionary dead end, and all the neat evolutionary diagrams that “clearly displayed” the supposed transition from fish to four-footed animal ancestor were now bunk.

Upsetting the Evolutionary Apple Cart

The magnitude of this reversal can be seen in the numerous backtracking statements that suddenly came from a variety of scientific sources:

They force a radical reassessment of the timing, ecology and environmental setting of the fish-tetrapod transition, as well as the completeness of the body fossil record.9

[It] will cause a significant reappraisal of our understanding of tetrapod origins.10

We thought we’d pinned down the origin of limbed tetrapods. . . . We have to rethink the whole thing.11

These results force us to reconsider our whole picture of the transition from fish to land animals.12

So, all the hooting and hollering and jeering and song singing about “embracing your inner fish” must have all seemed a little silly now to people that had been beating their chest about this rock-solid evidence that “destroyed those silly creationist arguments.”

The Aftermath

Now, even though good old Tiktaalik is dead in the water (pun intended) as proof of a transitional form, I wonder how many people that were caught up in the hype even know it’s been tossed out? Most will likely never know, and just keep thinking the evidence for evolution keeps getting stronger with every new discovery they hear on the news.

And what about the Christians out there who were so swayed by the “overwhelming evidence” that they caved and accepted the idea of theistic evolution, that God used billions of years of death, suffering, and disease to create and then called it “very good,” all before Adam sinned.

And what about those who used to profess Christ, and then became convinced that science has disproven the Bible and walked away from the faith altogether?

Christians need to stand on the authority of God’s Word and not be swayed by the evolutionary stories that constantly come and go, no matter how impressive they may seem at the time.

Christians need to stand on the authority of God’s Word and not be swayed by the evolutionary stories that constantly come and go, no matter how impressive they may seem at the time. Just like your friend or family member that can tell a good yarn, by asking a few good questions, you will often find out the truth is far from the fanciful tale you first heard.

As Proverbs 18:17 says,

The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.