The Living Coelacanth

To be enlightened by the Coelacanth, look not at the anatomy of fishes but at the mentality of humans. What is to be learned from a fish that is labeled a “living fossil?” It’s a lesson from the mistakes of biology textbooks written before the 1938 discovery of the Coelacanth, and those mistakes may be more numerous and significant than is now commonly known.

Consider the mistake about “limb-like” fins. They were supposed to have gradually evolved into legs many millions of years ago. Since 1938, we have learned that the strange configuration and shape of the fins allow this fish to swim backwards and upside down. The usefulness of the fins is in swimming, not in evolving into legs.

What about the bony Coelacanth armor? Medieval knights wore armor, and dinosaurs had tough skin; insects, also proclaimed as ancient, have a tough outer covering. Could this general idea—that tough outer covering relates to ancient life—have influenced 19th Century biologists to classify the Coelacanth as ancient?

And the Meaning of “Living Fossils”

Biologists of the 19th Century had no radiometric methods of dating fossils. (In truth, fossils are not dated, even today, by potassium-argon or similar methods. Only carbon-dating can be done directly and it gives results—for organic material—in thousands, not millions, of years old.) Did they allow outward appearances (bony armor and potential leg-evolution) to influence their decision to categorize the Coelacanth as an ancient creature? Could the apparent non-existence of living Coelacanths have influenced their judgment?

The point is that the idea that the fossils of Coelacanths represent fish that lived many millions of years ago is traditional. The belief that this fish is ancient comes through intense indoctrination over many human generations. What is ancient about the Coelacanth? It can swim in all directions and has an electroreceptor in its head. (Humans have worked with electronics for only a few generations.) What a fish! What a marvel of design! Why not consider it a modern fish? It lives now.

But there’s something else: a major problem that GTE-believers have with “living fossils.” For the General Theory of Evolution to be perceived as anything other than a fairy tale, there must be fossils of creatures that are significantly different from living creatures. Every discovery of an organism previously classified, from fossils, as “ancient” eliminates another example of something that fits the standard evolutionary model.

Why do supporters of Darwin’s philosophy (unlimited common ancestry) need fossils that differ from living organisms? Without fossils that are very different, molecules-to-man evolution (GTE) is obviously pure speculation. It would not even remotely resemble science; it would, however, resemble transformation superstitions.

If no fossil of a Coelacanth had been discovered until after the living fish had been found, a later discovery of a Coelacanth fossil would likely have resulted in dating it very differently: much younger, closer to modern times. After all, it’s a living fish.

Jonathan Whitcomb, author of the book Searching for Ropens, is a living-pterosaur investigator. He explored Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, in 2004, searching for the ropen and interviewing native eyewitnesses. He has reviewed books on cryptozoology and continues to interview those who belief they have seen a living pterosaur.

I’ve been told, by supporters of standard models, that the discovery of a living pterosaur would not disprove “evolution.” But my critics fail to see that it would further erode the supposed evidence that Darwin himself saw threatened by “living fossils.” He knew: They do make a difference.

Jonathan Whitcomb, author of Searching for Ropens