Darwin's Illusion

[Valjean]

I think that you have missed the point of my post. What I intended to say was that water-living fish didn't stop evolving after the evolution of land-living tetrapods during the Devonian period. Water-living fish continued to evolve and diversify into the tens of thousands of species of fish that exist today. Tetrapods form only a minority of vertebrate species; fish species are still in the majority.

You need to brush up on your biology. There are walking fish, with varying proficiency out of water and utilizing air. Evolution is a continuing process.

 

[Audie]

Since you have not knowledge of science an extreme Biblical agenda believing in ancient tribal scripture nothing you post is worth responding to.

Two scoops of chocolate Frubal in a
chilled dish.

 

[Audie]

You need to brush up on your biology. There are walking fish, with varying proficiency out of water and utilizing air. Evolution is a continuing process.

I saw no flaw in the post. Prease exprain.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't know. It is possible, but these modern fish would be in competition with land-living animals, unlike the fish-tetrapods of the Middle Devonian.

Yes, for the same reason that we do not see new life forms we do not see modern fish evolving much beyond the tidal or short crossing of land stage. Existing land life would consume them rather quickly. But if there ever was an event that killed off all land life we would also see a quick explosion of diversification as marine life evolved to conquer the land again.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It's not making sense to you because you are thinking about it too narrowly.

Very few "inventions" happen out of thin air, but are rather finding new uses for existing inventions, or adapting existing inventions to improve their efficacy. 40,000 years ago, there were very, very few inventions. No wheels (despite the Flintstones), crude shelters, no clothing. Around 9,000 years ago, humans invented agriculture, and this entailed settling in one place (near the crops), leading to the development of stone dwellings. It also entailed storing crops, leading to the development of carving vessels from wood, and pottery. But this is still really very small change. But as more and more inventions (and therefore knowledge) come into existence, and the invention of writing (the Sumerians were doing this 5,400 years ago) allowed such knowledge to be retained and shared, inventions start speeding up.

"In his 1981 book Critical Path, futurist and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller estimated that if we took all the knowledge that mankind had accumulated and transmitted by the year One CE as equal to one unit of information, it probably took about 1500 years (or until the sixteenth century) for that amount of knowledge to double. The next doubling of knowledge from two to four 'knowledge units' took only 250 years, until about 1750 CE. By 1900, one hundred and fifty years later, knowledge had doubled again to 8 units. The observed speed at which information doubled was getting faster and faster.[30] In modern times, exponential knowledge progressions therefore change at an ever-increasing rate. Depending on the progression, this tends to lead toward explosive growth at some point. A simple exponential curve that represents this accelerating change phenomenon could be modeled by a doubling function. This fast rate of knowledge doubling leads up to the basic proposed hypothesis of the technological singularity: the rate at which technology progression surpasses human biological evolution." Accelerating change - Wikipedia.

I think it is breakthroughs that open up whole new areas of discovery and invention that would not have occurred and at the rate of occurrence without that breakthrough. It is a proof of concept that acts as a springboard for new ideas.

I like that description you use from Buckminster Fuller. It puts a sound perspective on how our knowledge and application have developed over time. I think some people think things happen like it was magic.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

There are numerous amphibian fish species today that have characteristics of fish and land animals.

Amphibious fish - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Amphibious fish are fish that are able to leave water for extended periods of time. About 11 distantly related genera of fish are considered amphibious. This suggests that many fish genera independently evolved amphibious traits, a process known as convergent evolution. These fish use a range of terrestrial locomotory modes, such as lateral undulation, tripod-like walking (using paired fins and tail), and jumping. Many of these locomotory modes incorporate multiple combinations of pectoral-, pelvic-, and tail-fin movement.

Many ancient fish had lung-like organs, and a few, such as the lungfish and bichir, still do. Some of these ancient "lunged" fish were the ancestors of tetrapods. In most recent fish species, though, these organs evolved into the swim bladders, which help control buoyancy. Having no lung-like organs, modern amphibious fish and many fish in oxygen-poor water use other methods, such as their gills or their skin to breathe air. Amphibious fish may also have eyes adapted to allow them to see clearly in air, despite the refractive index differences between air and water.

List of amphibious fish​

Lung breathers​

• Lungfish (Dipnoi): Six species have limb-like fins, and can breathe air. Some are obligate air breathers, meaning they will drown if not given access to breathe air. All but one species bury in the mud when the body of water they live in dries up, surviving up to two years until water returns.
• Bichir (Polypteridae): These 12 species are the only ray-finned fish to retain lungs. They are facultative air breathers, requiring access to surface air to breathe in poorly oxygenated water.[1]
• Various other "lunged" fish: now extinct, a few of this group were ancestors of the stem tetrapods that led to all tetrapods: Lissamphibia, sauropsids and mammals.

Gill or skin breathers[edit]​

• Rockskippers: These blennies are found on islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They come onto land to catch prey and escape aquatic predators, often for 20 minutes or more. Leaping blennies (Alticus arnoldorum) are able to jump over land using their tails. On Rarotonga, one species has evolved to become largely terrestrial.[2][3]
• Woolly sculpin (Clinocottus analis): Found in tide pools along the Pacific Coast, these sculpins leave water if the oxygen levels get low, and they can breathe air.[4]
• Mudskippers (Oxudercinae): This subfamily of gobies is probably the most land-adapted of fish. Mudskippers are found in mangrove swamps in Africa and the Indo-Pacific; they frequently come onto land, and can survive in air for up to 3-1/2 days.[5] Mudskippers breathe through their skin and through the lining of the mouth (the mucosa) and throat (the pharynx). This requires the mudskipper to be wet, limiting them to humid habitats. This mode of breathing, similar to that employed by amphibians, is known as cutaneous breathing. They propel themselves over land on their sturdy fore fins. Some of them are also able to climb trees and skip atop the surface of the water.[6]
• Mangrove killifish (Mangrove rivulus): It can survive for about two months on land, where it breathes through its skin.
• Eels: Some eels, such as the European eel and the American eel, can live for an extended time out of water and can also crawl on land if the soil is moist. The moray Echidna catenata sometimes leaves the water to forage.[7]
• Swamp eels, which are not true eels, can absorb oxygen through their highly vascularized mouths and pharynges, and in some cases (e.g., Monopterus rongsaw) through their skin.
• Snakehead fish (Channidae): This family of fish consists of obligate air breathers, using their branchial arch, which are a primitive labyrinth organ. The northern snakehead of Eastern Asia can "walk" on land by wriggling and using its pectoral fins, which allows it to move between the slow-moving, and often stagnant and temporary bodies of water in which it lives.
• Airbreathing catfish (Clariidae): Amphibious species of this family may venture onto land in wet weather, such as the eel catfish (Channallabes apus), which lives in swamps in Africa, and is known to hunt beetles on land.[8]
• Labyrinth fish (Anabantoidei). This suborder of fish also use a labyrinth organ to breathe air. Some species from this group can move on land. Amphibious fish from this family are the climbing perches, African and Southeast Asian fish that are capable of moving from pool to pool over land by using their pectoral fins, caudal peduncle, and gill covers as a means of locomotion. Climbing gourami are said to move at night in groups.[citation needed]
• Arapaima are obligate airbreathers that breathe air through a modified swim-bladder.[citation needed]
• Knifefish: (Gymnotiformes) some species of Gymnotiformes, otherwise known as the knifefish, are obligate oxygen breathers that require resurfacing in order to survive, such as Electrophorus electricus and Gymnotus carapo, the latter of which uses an "esophageal force pump" to siphon air into its lungs for gas exchange.[9][10][11]

Note: Many amphibian like fish with physical characteristics of fish, amphibians and land animals still exist today.

More to follow . . .

You could just do your internet search and/or get a decent education in the sciences related to evolution.

An excellent annotated list, but some, if not all of this, has been presented numerous times only to have it denied for some frivolous reason or ignorance of what they indicate.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes, for the same reason that we do not see new life forms we do not see modern fish evolving much beyond the tidal or short crossing of land stage. Existing land life would consume them rather quickly. But if there ever was an event that killed off all land life we would also see a quick explosion of diversification as marine life evolved to conquer the land again.

I think so and the evidence seems to support that sort of explosive radiation when new niches open up. Explosive in a geological and biological sense of time and not suddenly, as if by magic.

My favorite example is the rapid radiation of cichlid fish species with the development of Lake Victoria in Africa. There is an example with grasshoppers that I heard about during a meeting once, but have yet to find papers to support it. So, the vertebrate example remains the best example.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You need to brush up on your biology. There are walking fish, with varying proficiency out of water and utilizing air. Evolution is a continuing process.

While I agree with you regarding the amphibious skill of some modern fish species, I must admit being a little lost on your post as criticism of the one you were responding to.

 

[Audie]

I don't know. It is possible, but these modern fish would be in competition with land-living animals, unlike the fish-tetrapods of the Middle Devonian.

Behold. I send you forth, a labyrinthodont
among crocodiles, ottters, herons, raccoons,
cats, snakes, eagles, jackals, hyenas,......

 

[YoursTrue]

What does it take to get through to you that evolution is NOT something that happens "now." No individual animal evolves. No individual animal is the parent of an animal very unlike itself. Evolution is something that happens over long stretches of time and many generations. Please try to learn at least that much.

I know that evolution is not something that happens now, as you suggest above. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that can be seen by anyone as it supposedly happened that fish developed by evolution, of course, to land dwellers. There is conjecture that fish evolved not suddenly to be land-dwellers, based on the idea that flopping water dwellers can move on land for a while, but that's about it.

 

[YoursTrue]

The inventions of agricultural farming started around 11,000 years ago in the Near East, not 6000 years ago.

Animal domestication or animal husbandry (eg raising cattle and herds) occurred roughly the same time, not 6000 years ago.

Both farming and animal husbandry allowed for permanent settlements and population growth, that weren’t possible during the glacial periods where large regions in northern Europe and Asia and that of North America were covered in deep ice sheets, which allowed for nomadic existence. And even in regions that weren’t covered by ice sheets, still suffered from cold and dry climates resulting in long periods of droughts.

The earliest city was at the earliest (and deepest) Neolithic layer on the site of Tell es-Sultan, which you would know as old Jericho, is about 11,500 years old (9600 BCE), not the nonexistent Enoch built by Cain 6000 years ago. The earliest stone-fortified walls plus a tower were constructed in this Neolithic town, around 8600 BCE (or 10,600 years ago). The walls were most likely built to prevent the Jordan flooding into the inhabitable settlement, not to prevent armed assault.

Irrigation were invented around 8000 years ago (c 6000 BCE), in southwest Iran...not 6000 years ago.

Pottery used to create vessels, to store food and drink, existed much earlier in China, 18 or 19 thousand years ago, but in the Near East, it was much later like 7000 years ago...not 6000 years ago.

Proto-Sumerian cuneiform were discovered as early 5400 years ago or 3400 BCE, at Uruk, in which some translations of Genesis 10 referred to as Erech (eg KJV).

Uruk was a large and prosperous city throughout much of the 4th millennium BCE, that archaeologists referred to the period of 4000 to 3100 BCE, as the Uruk period. But The oldest settlement of Uruk existed as early as 7000 years ago. What this mean, that Nimrod building cities in northern and southern Mesopotamia is utterly false. Nineveh is even older, being a Neolithic village as early 8500 years old, while Calah (or Kalhu in Assyrian), is only 3250 years old. So unless Nimrod lived over 5200 years old, it is not possible for Nimrod to build both Nineveh and Calah. Calah or more precisely Kalhu, was constructed during the reign of Shalmaneser I (1275 - 1245 BCE).

History isn’t a strong point for whoever wrote Genesis, and it certainly wasn’t by Moses, as no texts of Genesis existed in the Late Bronze Age. You don’t find Genesis until the 6th century BCE...most likely written by Jewish priests/scribes in Babylon.

It’s highly doubtful that Moses as real person.

I know that scientists make estimates based on artifacts and fossils and possible time dating. The situation remains, however, that these recent mind blowing and life changing inventions, including writing, happened in the more or less recent past.

 

[YoursTrue]

@gnostic -- we again come up with the time-dating process, and pottery not only comes FROM soil, but can be surrounded by soil. Therefore the 13,000 years old date can be seriously off if the idea is to say when the item was made.

 

[YoursTrue]

Since you have not knowledge of science an extreme Biblical agenda believing in ancient tribal scripture nothing you post is worth responding to.

lol, shunyadragon, you did it again1 Continue to refuse to give your knowledge for the readers, and just, as others do also, enjoy putting me down. It's been a lesson and so I thank you for that.

 

[YoursTrue]

While I agree with you regarding the amphibious skill of some modern fish species, I must admit being a little lost on your post as criticism of the one you were responding to.

Amphibious skill of some 'modern'--(?) fish species does not authenticate (I can't say prove, lol) the theory of -- evolution, especially by mutations leading to "survival of the fittest," or natural selection. It just does not authenticate or verify the theory.

 

[YoursTrue]

There are numerous amphibian fish species today that have characteristics of fish and land animals.

Amphibious fish - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Amphibious fish are fish that are able to leave water for extended periods of time. About 11 distantly related genera of fish are considered amphibious. This suggests that many fish genera independently evolved amphibious traits, a process known as convergent evolution. These fish use a range of terrestrial locomotory modes, such as lateral undulation, tripod-like walking (using paired fins and tail), and jumping. Many of these locomotory modes incorporate multiple combinations of pectoral-, pelvic-, and tail-fin movement.

Many ancient fish had lung-like organs, and a few, such as the lungfish and bichir, still do. Some of these ancient "lunged" fish were the ancestors of tetrapods. In most recent fish species, though, these organs evolved into the swim bladders, which help control buoyancy. Having no lung-like organs, modern amphibious fish and many fish in oxygen-poor water use other methods, such as their gills or their skin to breathe air. Amphibious fish may also have eyes adapted to allow them to see clearly in air, despite the refractive index differences between air and water.

List of amphibious fish​

Lung breathers​

• Lungfish (Dipnoi): Six species have limb-like fins, and can breathe air. Some are obligate air breathers, meaning they will drown if not given access to breathe air. All but one species bury in the mud when the body of water they live in dries up, surviving up to two years until water returns.
• Bichir (Polypteridae): These 12 species are the only ray-finned fish to retain lungs. They are facultative air breathers, requiring access to surface air to breathe in poorly oxygenated water.[1]
• Various other "lunged" fish: now extinct, a few of this group were ancestors of the stem tetrapods that led to all tetrapods: Lissamphibia, sauropsids and mammals.

Gill or skin breathers[edit]​

• Rockskippers: These blennies are found on islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They come onto land to catch prey and escape aquatic predators, often for 20 minutes or more. Leaping blennies (Alticus arnoldorum) are able to jump over land using their tails. On Rarotonga, one species has evolved to become largely terrestrial.[2][3]
• Woolly sculpin (Clinocottus analis): Found in tide pools along the Pacific Coast, these sculpins leave water if the oxygen levels get low, and they can breathe air.[4]
• Mudskippers (Oxudercinae): This subfamily of gobies is probably the most land-adapted of fish. Mudskippers are found in mangrove swamps in Africa and the Indo-Pacific; they frequently come onto land, and can survive in air for up to 3-1/2 days.[5] Mudskippers breathe through their skin and through the lining of the mouth (the mucosa) and throat (the pharynx). This requires the mudskipper to be wet, limiting them to humid habitats. This mode of breathing, similar to that employed by amphibians, is known as cutaneous breathing. They propel themselves over land on their sturdy fore fins. Some of them are also able to climb trees and skip atop the surface of the water.[6]
• Mangrove killifish (Mangrove rivulus): It can survive for about two months on land, where it breathes through its skin.
• Eels: Some eels, such as the European eel and the American eel, can live for an extended time out of water and can also crawl on land if the soil is moist. The moray Echidna catenata sometimes leaves the water to forage.[7]
• Swamp eels, which are not true eels, can absorb oxygen through their highly vascularized mouths and pharynges, and in some cases (e.g., Monopterus rongsaw) through their skin.
• Snakehead fish (Channidae): This family of fish consists of obligate air breathers, using their branchial arch, which are a primitive labyrinth organ. The northern snakehead of Eastern Asia can "walk" on land by wriggling and using its pectoral fins, which allows it to move between the slow-moving, and often stagnant and temporary bodies of water in which it lives.
• Airbreathing catfish (Clariidae): Amphibious species of this family may venture onto land in wet weather, such as the eel catfish (Channallabes apus), which lives in swamps in Africa, and is known to hunt beetles on land.[8]
• Labyrinth fish (Anabantoidei). This suborder of fish also use a labyrinth organ to breathe air. Some species from this group can move on land. Amphibious fish from this family are the climbing perches, African and Southeast Asian fish that are capable of moving from pool to pool over land by using their pectoral fins, caudal peduncle, and gill covers as a means of locomotion. Climbing gourami are said to move at night in groups.[citation needed]
• Arapaima are obligate airbreathers that breathe air through a modified swim-bladder.[citation needed]
• Knifefish: (Gymnotiformes) some species of Gymnotiformes, otherwise known as the knifefish, are obligate oxygen breathers that require resurfacing in order to survive, such as Electrophorus electricus and Gymnotus carapo, the latter of which uses an "esophageal force pump" to siphon air into its lungs for gas exchange.[9][10][11]

Note: Many amphibian like fish with physical characteristics of fish, amphibians and land animals still exist today.

More to follow . . .

You could just do your internet search and/or get a decent education in the sciences related to evolution.

None of that shows, demonstrates, or -- (horrors)--prove the theory of evolution.

 

[YoursTrue]

I think that you have missed the point of my post. What I intended to say was that water-living fish didn't stop evolving after the evolution of land-living tetrapods during the Devonian period. Water-living fish continued to evolve and diversify into the tens of thousands of species of fish that exist today. Tetrapods form only a minority of vertebrate species; fish species are still in the majority.

How do you know that water-living fish continued evolving after the evolution of land-living tetrapods, etc.? Hopefully you can say how you know this. For a certainty and not conjecture. I am speaking of fish purportedly evolving for a certainty now (or ever, but particularly at present) to land-dwellers. If you can say that fish certainly are now evolving to land-dwellers that would be informative.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I know that evolution is not something that happens now, as you suggest above. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that can be seen by anyone as it supposedly happened that fish developed by evolution, of course, to land dwellers. There is conjecture that fish evolved not suddenly to be land-dwellers, based on the idea that flopping water dwellers can move on land for a while, but that's about it.

No, evolution is happening now. That is why you need a new flu shot every year. The virus mutates and evolves. Are you the same as your parents? That is evolution on the dropping of a pencil to your desk scale.

Why do you think that evolution is not happening today?

 

[Subduction Zone]

None of that shows, demonstrates, or -- (horrors)--prove the theory of evolution.

Every time you use the word "proves" in a scientific discussion you lose. You demonstrate that your level of scientific literacy is extremely low and you have no excuse. You have been constantly corrected in regards to this error. There is endless evidence for evolution. You cannot refute this. Just as gravity is not "proven" neither is evolution "proven". But there is more evidence for evolution than there is for gravity. Why do you accept one and reject the other?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I know that evolution is not something that happens now, as you suggest above. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that can be seen by anyone as it supposedly happened that fish developed by evolution, of course, to land dwellers. There is conjecture that fish evolved not suddenly to be land-dwellers, based on the idea that flopping water dwellers can move on land for a while, but that's about it.

Funny, you know. Have you ever heard of the snakehead fish? It breathes underwater through its gills, like other fish. But when it wants to wander out of the water, it can take a big gulp of air and breathe it through a special chamber next to its gills. Sort of like a lung, really. And it can do this not for minutes or hours, but for up to 4 days!

Now that is real evidence that a fish has evolved to be able to survive on land for an extended period of time. It is not conjecture at all.

Amphibious fish are fish that are able to leave water for extended periods of time. There are about 11 distantly related genera of fish are considered amphibious, that can stay out of water for extended periods of time. These fish use a range of terrestrial locomotory modes, such as lateral undulation, tripod-like walking (using paired fins and tail), and jumping. Many of these locomotory modes incorporate multiple combinations of pectoral-, pelvic-, and tail-fin movement. (All of which you dismissively refer to as “flopping about.”)

Quite a few ancient fish had lung-like organs, and there are a few that still do, such as the lungfish and bichir. In most recent fish species, though, these organs evolved into the swim bladders, which help control buoyancy. Having no lung-like organs, modern amphibious fish and many fish in oxygen-poor water use other methods, such as their gills or their skin to breathe air

Lungfish (Dipnoi): Six species have limb-like fins, and can breathe air. Some are obligate air breathers, meaning they will drown if not given access to breathe air. All but one species bury in the mud when the body of water they live in dries up, surviving up to two years until water returns.

Bichir (Polypteridae): These 12 species are the only ray-finned fish to retain lungs. They are facultative air breathers, requiring access to surface air to breathe in poorly oxygenated water.

Rockskippers: These blennies are found on islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They come onto land to catch prey and escape aquatic predators, often for 20 minutes or more. Leaping blennies (Alticus arnoldorum) are able to jump over land using their tails. On Rarotonga, one species has evolved to become largely terrestrial.

Woolly sculpin (Clinocottus analis): Found in tide pools along the Pacific Coast, these sculpins leave water if the oxygen levels get low, and they can breathe air.

Mudskippers (Oxudercinae): This subfamily of gobies is probably the most land-adapted of fish. Mudskippers are found in mangrove swamps in Africa and the Indo-Pacific; they frequently come onto land, and can survive in air for up to 3-1/2 days. Mudskippers breathe through their skin and through the lining of the mouth (the mucosa) and throat (the pharynx). This requires the mudskipper to be wet, limiting them to humid habitats. This mode of breathing, similar to that employed by amphibians, is known as cutaneous breathing. They propel themselves over land on their sturdy fore fins. Some of them are also able to climb trees and skip atop the surface of the water.

Mangrove killifish (Mangrove rivulus): It can survive for about two months on land, where it breathes through its skin.

Eels: Some eels, such as the European eel and the American eel, can live for an extended time out of water and can also crawl on land if the soil is moist. The moray Echidna catenata sometimes leaves the water to forage.

Swamp eels, which are not true eels, can absorb oxygen through their highly vascularized mouths and pharynges, and in some cases (e.g., Monopterus rongsaw) through their skin.

Airbreathing catfish (Clariidae): Amphibious species of this family may venture onto land in wet weather, such as the eel catfish (Channallabes apus), which lives in swamps in Africa, and is known to hunt beetles on land.

There are more, but why bother, since you’ve already made up your mind.

BUT! My real point is this: with all this evidence before you, you dismiss it as mere conjecture. And yet, with the absolute absence of evidence for your religious beliefs, you have no doubt whatever about their veracity. This shows me that thinking, logic, science and empirical knowledge have nothing whatever to do with how you form your opinions.

 

[gnostic]

Funny, you know. Have you ever heard of the snakehead fish? It breathes underwater through its gills, like other fish. But when it wants to wander out of the water, it can take a big gulp of air and breathe it through a special chamber next to its gills. Sort of like a lung, really. And it can do this not for minutes or hours, but for up to 4 days!

Now that is real evidence that a fish has evolved to be able to survive on land for an extended period of time. It is not conjecture at all.

Amphibious fish are fish that are able to leave water for extended periods of time. There are about 11 distantly related genera of fish are considered amphibious, that can stay out of water for extended periods of time. These fish use a range of terrestrial locomotory modes, such as lateral undulation, tripod-like walking (using paired fins and tail), and jumping. Many of these locomotory modes incorporate multiple combinations of pectoral-, pelvic-, and tail-fin movement. (All of which you dismissively refer to as “flopping about.”)

Quite a few ancient fish had lung-like organs, and there are a few that still do, such as the lungfish and bichir. In most recent fish species, though, these organs evolved into the swim bladders, which help control buoyancy. Having no lung-like organs, modern amphibious fish and many fish in oxygen-poor water use other methods, such as their gills or their skin to breathe air

Lungfish (Dipnoi): Six species have limb-like fins, and can breathe air. Some are obligate air breathers, meaning they will drown if not given access to breathe air. All but one species bury in the mud when the body of water they live in dries up, surviving up to two years until water returns.

Bichir (Polypteridae): These 12 species are the only ray-finned fish to retain lungs. They are facultative air breathers, requiring access to surface air to breathe in poorly oxygenated water.

Rockskippers: These blennies are found on islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They come onto land to catch prey and escape aquatic predators, often for 20 minutes or more. Leaping blennies (Alticus arnoldorum) are able to jump over land using their tails. On Rarotonga, one species has evolved to become largely terrestrial.

Woolly sculpin (Clinocottus analis): Found in tide pools along the Pacific Coast, these sculpins leave water if the oxygen levels get low, and they can breathe air.

Mudskippers (Oxudercinae): This subfamily of gobies is probably the most land-adapted of fish. Mudskippers are found in mangrove swamps in Africa and the Indo-Pacific; they frequently come onto land, and can survive in air for up to 3-1/2 days. Mudskippers breathe through their skin and through the lining of the mouth (the mucosa) and throat (the pharynx). This requires the mudskipper to be wet, limiting them to humid habitats. This mode of breathing, similar to that employed by amphibians, is known as cutaneous breathing. They propel themselves over land on their sturdy fore fins. Some of them are also able to climb trees and skip atop the surface of the water.

Mangrove killifish (Mangrove rivulus): It can survive for about two months on land, where it breathes through its skin.

Eels: Some eels, such as the European eel and the American eel, can live for an extended time out of water and can also crawl on land if the soil is moist. The moray Echidna catenata sometimes leaves the water to forage.

Swamp eels, which are not true eels, can absorb oxygen through their highly vascularized mouths and pharynges, and in some cases (e.g., Monopterus rongsaw) through their skin.

Airbreathing catfish (Clariidae): Amphibious species of this family may venture onto land in wet weather, such as the eel catfish (Channallabes apus), which lives in swamps in Africa, and is known to hunt beetles on land.

There are more, but why bother, since you’ve already made up your mind.

BUT! My real point is this: with all this evidence before you, you dismiss it as mere conjecture. And yet, with the absolute absence of evidence for your religious beliefs, you have no doubt whatever about their veracity. This shows me that thinking, logic, science and empirical knowledge have nothing whatever to do with how you form your opinions.

* very informative *

Thanks, Evangelicalhumanist.

I was going to give a couple of examples.

The problems with creationists like @YoursTrue , is they don’t understand when there are sufficient numbers of independent evidence that verify one another, then the theory’s explanations & predictions aren’t conjectures.

They don’t understand what a “theory” is or what “evidence” is.

They all seemed incapable of basic understanding the differences between evidence and proof. Most of them are just simply hopeless science-illiterates.

Some have claimed, they are interested in sciences, but the truth is - they are just hypocrites, as they are really anti-science.