For our international readers who may not know, it is a science program broadcast on public television with major funding provided by the U.S. taxpayer.
NOVA provides informational programming on the cutting-edge of scientific knowledge.
We were fortunate enough to see a program this weekend.
The name of the fish and the scientists involved are not important particulars.
But these are the amazing facts we learned in the program.
For more than 150 years, scientists had fossils of a large fish with very unusual fins. These fins exhibited what apparently seemed to be a capability that mimicked the movement like those of human limbs.
This intriguing fact had scientists convinced that this fish was the first creature in a process that allowed water-dwellers to leave the oceans and become mammals on land. It was, they believed, a “missing link” in the evolution of man.
The fish fossil helped confirm their belief in Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Then, as NOVA reported, something “fishy” happened.
Scientists believed this fish, whose fossils they dated to be 400 million years old, was long extinct.
They were wrong.
In the 1950s, one of these “extinct” fishes that lived in the age of the dinosaurs was found alive!
At first, scientists did not believe this “fishy” story that this creature still existed. It was impossible, they theorized!
They were wrong.
The proof stared one particular scientist in the face. He was the world’s expert on this fish and, when summoned to where the fish was discovered, he couldn’t believe his eyes. There, before him, was the proverbial proof of the pudding.
The scientist was, of course, ecstatic. This was the find of his lifetime.
But something terrible happened to Mr. Fishy. Because it is a deep-ocean dweller, it does not survive at the surface. In the 1950s, refrigeration was not as common as today and so, in order to preserve the fish for the expert to examine it, its internal organs were removed and thrown away before Mr. Scientist got there.
This was a great tragedy, for now, Mr. Scientist had no way of knowing the internal structure of Mr. Fishy’s fins and therefore compare it to the internal structure of human limbs. This was critical if science was to confirm the theory that this fish was the evolutionary ancestor to a human limb’s motion capabilities.
Thus began Mr. Scientist’s lifelong “fishing” story.
So, he and other scientists around the world went on the hunt to find more of these supposedly “extinct” creatures. It took a while, but these fishies were found living in the Indian Ocean.
By paying local fishermen small insignificant rewards for their hard, backbreaking work, scientists could examine this fish in greater detail because they were now able to capture live specimens and receive large grants to continue their research.
Everyone was very happy.
Earlier fossils the scientists had found and dated to millions of years ago showed that some of these fishies had baby fishies inside their bodies.
Scientists were convinced this meant that when this fish’s eggs hatched, it was not adverse to cannibalism and ate its own young.
They were wrong.
By capturing a live specimen, scientists were amazed to discover that their theory was totally incorrect. The female they had captured was pregnant and science learned this fishy does not give birth by laying eggs. Instead, this fishy gives birth to live babies. It doesn’t eat its own young.
Scientists were also amazed that the fish they once thought was “extinct” was living in large schools at the bottom of the ocean. This also, for some inexplicable reason, made them more convinced that Darwin’s theory of evolution is correct.
This find allowed them to retrieve more fish and examine them in even greater detail. After years of research, scientists discovered that the inside of this fish has no correlation whatsoever to the inner workings of a human’s limbs. It, in fact, was not the “missing link” they had firmly believed it was just a few decades before they found the first real specimen. It was a stunning revelation.
They discovered they were wrong.
The scientists were not deterred by this revelation.
They understood that the fact that they were wrong only means that they have not yet found the real “missing link” and they are continuing their increased efforts (read more “funding”) to discover this elusive sea creature.
NOVA ended this “fishy” story on one sad note:
the scientist who was an expert in this fish, and devoted his life to this study as an avowed evolutionist rejecting creationism, became extremely distraught in his older years and — may God have mercy on his soul (if possible) — committed suicide out of despair at the age of 70.
“And God said: ...
Let the waters bring forth the creeping creature having life,
and the fowl that may fly over the Earth under the firmament of Heaven.
And God created the great whales, and every living and moving creature,
which the waters brought forth, according to their kinds,
and every winged fowl according to its kind.
And God saw that it was good.
And He blessed them, saying,
‘Increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea … .’
And He said: Let Us make man to Our Image and likeness;
and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea … .”
Genesis 1:20-22, 26
“And Jesus said to them,
‘Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ ”
Mark 1:17
© 2003 Angus Dei Presents!
