Probably most of you have already read that a group of palaeontologists have found an intermediate link between the tetrapods (limbed vertebrates) and the lobe-fined fish (sarcopterygians). Click here and here if not to read the two articles published in nature.

So I’ll assume that you know what I’m talking about.

The issue is obviously of extreme interest for both scientist and media. And especially for all those evolutionary biologists fighting against the troops of IDists. I was actually quite happy to hear the news. In fact I had a pint to Tiktaalik’s health yesterday night.

The only thing that again upsets me is the coverage of the news, as usual. How many times have you heard that ” a group of scientist found a fish in the act of evolving into…….

tiktaalik

This really hurts my ears or my eyes. I know that all of you know that this is evolutionarily incongruent (to put it very very mildly) but why they (journalists) DO NOT? I have read too many stupid things like that.

I want to remind you that we have to pay for the business pages in a journal, and aren’t they directed to a very very narrow audience? I don’t have a clue about stockmarkets, I don’t know about you. What I know is that to get my leaving cert I had to study the structure of DNA and some assays of classics philosophers among other things, but, to the contrary, nobody ever taught me anything about economics.

What I mean is that even with a striking scientific breakthrough like this, people will still be uninformed, and left with dramatically misconceived concepts in their heads (like “acts of evolving”) that can be easily manipulated for those that try to diminish your thinking for their own benefit.