Page 53 - Atlas of Creation Volume 2

Harun Yahya

THE COELACANTH
THE COELACANTH
A 410-MILLION-YEAR-
OLD COELACANTH IS A BOTTOM-DWELLING FISH
IS A BOTTOM-DWELLING FISH
FOSSIL FOUND IN DEEP WATERS.
FOUND IN DEEP WATERS.

Many living coelacanths were
caught after 1938. It was thus re-
vealed that these fish lived in deep
ocean waters and never rose above
180 meters. It emerged that the
coelacanth was not, as Darwinists
had long claimed, an intermediate
form, but a "living fossil" that had
survived unchanged for 400 mil-
lion years.

In addition, the fish, which had been portrayed as a precursor of reptiles, about to emerge onto dry land,
was a bottom-dwelling animal, living in the depths of the ocean and never rising above 180 meters. Even
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raising it into shallow water led to its death. Therefore, according to Millot, this creature that should have
represented the "missing link" they were searching for lacked all the primitive characteristics of a life form
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alleged to be undergoing a process of evolution. In other words, the fish was no intermediate form and had
lived in the ocean depths with exactly the same complex features for the last 400 million years.
In an article published in Nature magazine, the evolutionist paleontologist Peter Forey said the follow-
ing:

The discovery of Latimeria [the scientific name of the coelacanth] raised hopes of gathering direct informa-

tion on the transition of fish to amphibians, for there was then a long-held belief that coelacanths were close
to the ancestry of tetrapods. . . . But studies of the anatomy and physiology of Latimeria have found this the-
ory of relationship to be wanting and the living coelacanth's reputation as a missing link seems unjustified. 27

All the coelacanths subsequently encountered and studied in their natural habitats again confirmed this
fact, and in an even more explicit manner. The idea that the creature had fins undergoing a process of change
to enable it to walk was no more than a deception. As the German evolutionist and biologist Hans Fricke,
from the Max Planck Institute, said, "I confess I'm sorry we never saw a coelacanth walk on its fins." 28

For Darwinists, the existence and numbers of living fossils was enough of a dilemma all by itself. But
when the coelacanth—which they had depicted as an intermediate form and used as propaganda however
they chose and portrayed as the "greatest proof of evolution"—turned out to be another living fossil, the
problem facing them became a very great difficulty.
This state of affairs did away with all the theories developed by evolutionists regarding living fossils.
Darwinists had claimed that in order for a life form to remain unchanged, it had to be "generalized." That is,

in order to remain the same, a creature had to be able to live in any environment and feed in every possible
way. But with the coelacanth, they were now faced with a highly complex and "specialized" species. The
coelacanth lived in deep waters, in a specific environment, and had its own particular way of feeding. This
meant that all these claims made by evolutionists were untrue.
How had this fish managed to withstand changes on the Earth during the course of its own history and

thus remained unchanged? According to evolutionists, the continents had undergone changes some 250 mil-

Adnan Oktar 51