Has the Puzzle of Deep-Sea-Fish Evolution Been Solved?

Well, let’s separate the interpretation from the observational fact. What the scientists observed were well-preserved “bowl-shaped” pits and shallow trails. Based on the predatory practices of modern-day deep-sea fish, they inferred that the pits were excavations made by hungry fish and the trails were left behind by the fish’s tails dragging through the muddy seafloor.

Now, here’s where we move outside of observational science and into interpretation of the past (historical science). These fossils were found in so-called Early Cretaceous rock supposedly from 130 million years ago, so because of their evolutionary presuppositions, these scientists interpret the fossils as millions of years old and therefore as evidence of the evolution of deep-sea colonization. But that’s an interpretation based on the evolutionary worldview.

Fossilization, especially of something as fragile as a small trail in the mud, is a rare process requiring very specific conditions—particularly a quick burial.

It’s worth noting that, to our knowledge, fossils of fish feeding are not routinely forming in the deep ocean! Fossilization, especially of something as fragile as a small trail in the mud, is a rare process requiring very specific conditions—particularly a quick burial. How were the remains of these predators preserved? Well, the Bible’s history provides the answer—the global flood of Noah’s day which quickly buried billions of creatures and even the remains of their behaviors.

And in a biblical worldview, the fish that left behind signs of their hunt probably weren’t deep-sea fish in the way that we think of the deep sea today. The oceans were likely shallower before the flood, and when the continents broke apart, deep-sea trenches and other features were catastrophically formed. Oceanic kinds that lived in the pre-flood “deep sea” then adapted to these depths because of the genetic diversity God built into each kind that he made.

Contrast the biblical worldview of deep-sea fish with the evolutionary view expressed in these quotes from the article:

The availability of food in the deep seas favored bottom-dwelling worms, which, in turn, attracted fishes that used specific behaviors to expose them.

and

Such extreme conditions [found in the deep sea] required adaptations for deep-sea life that are evolutionary innovations as significant as those that allowed the colonization of the land and the air, such as wings and limbs, for example.

So these fish, in search of juicy worms, ventured away from the coasts and down to the cold, dark ocean depths and somehow managed to evolve the “significant” necessary adaptations? Such a story is utterly implausible, considering that there is no known naturalistic mechanism that can create brand-new genetic information for the new forms and functions such a transition would require!

All of the fish kinds were created by God on day five of creation week to “fill the waters in the seas” (Genesis 1:21–22), including the deepest ocean depths of our world.

Deep-sea fish didn’t evolve millions of years ago. All of the fish kinds were created by God on day five of creation week to “fill the waters in the seas” (Genesis 1:21–22), including the deepest ocean depths of our world.

Get More Answers on Answers News

This item was discussed Wednesday on Answers News with cohosts Rob Webb, Patricia Engler, and Dr. Jennifer Rivera. Answers News is our weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience here at the Creation Museum, broadcast on our Answers in Genesis YouTube channel, and posted to Answers TV. We also covered the following topics:

• Is it a “privilege, not a right” to know your child’s gender identity?
• Have “signs of life” been found on a distant planet?
• Did ancient “sea monsters” evolve longer necks by “adding more vertebrae”?
• And more!

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Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.