Page 50 - Atlas of Creation Volume 2
P. 50
THE COELACANTH SILENCED THE SPECULATION
CONCERNING FOSSILS
he coelacanth is a large fish some 1.5 meters long. Its entire body is covered with scales, reminiscent
of armor plating. It belongs to the Osteoichthyes class of bony fishes, of which the earliest fossils date
T back to the Devonian Period, 360 to 408 million years ago.
Before 1938, coelacanth fossils were depicted as the solution to a major difficulty for evolutionists. They
had not found the slightest trace of any of the millions or even billions of intermediate forms that supposedly
must have existed. Evolutionists needed evidence to back up the supposed transition of vertebrates from the
sea to dry land. For that reason, they took the fossil coelacanth, whose anatomy they believed was ideally
suited to this scenario, and began using it for propaganda purposes. They interpreted the creature's fins as
"feet about to walk," and a fossilized fat-filled swimbladder in its body as "a primitive lung." The coelacanth
was literally a savior for evolutionists bedeviled by such a lack of evidence. Evolutionists had at last laid
hands on "one" of the countless missing links that should have numbered in the millions.
48 Atlas of Creation Vol. 2
