An article of faith

Yet another missing link story has hit the newsstands. Scientists desperately hope this strange fish fossil might be the superstar that once and for all proves that all believers are kooks. By the way, for some reason the mock-up reminds me of these guys.

But the story is about more than just science, it's yet another chapter in the never-ending grudge war between creationists and evolutionists, one that sinks to almost kindergarten levels at times. This New York Times article certainly is willing to go there:

In addition to confirming elements of a major transition in evolution, the fossils are widely seen by scientists as a powerful rebuttal to religious creationists, who hold a literal biblical view on the origins and development of life.

They go on to link a creationist website that claims there are no transitional forms of this type, as a sort of hardy-har-har moment. Thing is, this is only a theoretical transitional form, isn't it?

Let me state my position before going further. I am a Christian with an open mind regarding the beginnings of life on the planet. I've also been trained scientifically. If one reads Genesis as a sequence rather than getting hung up on the literal days, it makes perfect sense. The sequence details the creation of a universe from nothing, followed by creation of earth, inanimate life, then animate life finally resulting in man. That's not far from what science tells us, despite the fact it was carved.

By the way, the new term BCE, before the common era, was developed to remove Christ from the old term BC, but it's still based on Christ. How does that make any sense? Anyone know if that new rule also applies to the movie 100 Million Years BC as well?

But stories such as this one tend to frost my butt, not because of the science but because of their snarky, condescending tone. I don't pretend to know whether every Darwinist is an atheist, but most certainly are, and it appears they tend to take just a bit too much satisfaction in tearing down other people's belief systems. That's probably why we've seen a number of 'missing links' that turned out to be frauds, while others have represented 'wishful' science--many believers simply couldn't wait and wanted to see it happen during their lifetime. That's reminiscent of some Christians who insist that Jesus will return on some specific date that only they've been able to figure out reading the scriptures. Both tend to cloudy up the definition of who better deserves the kook label.

But back to the fish. After hearing this news the average person might ask a logical question- if this fossil really represents a transition fish why was it the only one? Why haven't others followed? After all, the sea is still littered with fish, and there's been plenty of elapsed time.

The answer is not contained in the article, but a true Darwinian believer would probably provide the stock response--random mutations. That answer works for almost every such question, including the origin of the universe. That's because any evidence of a 'fingerprint' tends to expose the almost unbelievable statistical unlikelihood of a universe popping into being for no reason. To believe in such a probablistic long shot requires an article of faith in and of itself.