Some fossil species are still living

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Claim

Some species, such as the horseshoe crab, cockroach, ginkgo, and coelacanth, are "fossil species." They haven't evolved for millions of years.

Source

James Gorman, "The Tortoise or the Ham?" Discover, October 1980, p. 89. [1]

Responses

  1. If a species is very well adapted to its environment, then it will not evolve. So-called 'living fossils' are merely organisms that live in environments that have been stable for a long time, and any mutation producing new traits won't increase that specific organism's number of offspring.
  2. The theory of evolution never states that a species must go extinct.
  3. Strictly speaking, a "living fossil" would include any species for which fossils were known. This would make humans a living fossil. Any other definition is vague. How long does something have to be unchanged to be a "living fossil"? A million years? 2 million? 50 million? Since the dinosaurs? Longer? Without a definition, the term doesn't mean much. No definitions are forthcoming.
  4. Most of the examples creationists use are quite false as living fossils (not withstanding the above complaint about definitions). Cockroaches have evolved quite a bit (the earliest cockroaches in the fossil record had three pairs of wings, like other early winged insects). The extant coelacanth, genus Latimeria, has no fossil record. Modern-day coelacanths are regarded as "living fossils" only because their closest relatives, the coelacanths of the genus Macropoma, died out over 65 million years ago. It is as similar to other fossil lobe-fins as raccoon dogs are to domestic dogs. Other common examples are equally false. The species of Nautilus have undergone quite a bit of evolution recently (all modern species seeming to have an origin in the last few million years) and aren't much like their ancient fossil ancestors. Dragonflies have gone through extensive changes with new families evolving and going extinct over time. Sharks are frequently claimed as living fossils, and while a few species do qualify (like the Port Jackson Shark, six-gilled shark, and goblin shark), many have quite recently evolved (hammerheads). Alligators & crocodiles have evolved considerably. Their ancestors up to the Cretaceous were terrestrial and modern crocodiles didn't appear until well into the Cenozoic.
  5. Fossils do not record every aspect of an organism. It is possible to evolve considerably and leave no trace of change in materials that are frequently fossilized. Therefore there is no way to say that just because an organism matches a fossil, it hasn't evolved since the time of the fossil.
  6. add more responses

Fallacies contained in this claim

  • Exclusion (the information that the "living fossils" are different from their ancetors is omitted)
  • Hasty Generalization (if one species is not extinct, that doesn't mean no species is extinct)

External Links

Related claims

See Also

Acknowledgments

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