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The 2009 Creation Magazine had an article using the Striped rabbitfish (Hydrolagus matallanasi) as an example of a species that has supposedly existed for millions of years, as evidence that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago.

Also, the living and fossil forms are much the same—this latest rabbitfish species, according to Soto, is unchanged in 180 million years—why no evolution in all that (supposed) time?

Putting aside the issue of Young Earth Creationism, is it true that the Rabbitfish has remained unchanged for 180 million years?

Henry
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Shannon T
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  • There's a lot of claims on that page. Young Earth Creationism? They quote "ancient" and "prehistoric" because they believe the planet is only 6 000. Also Noah's flood being 4500 years ago is mentioned casually. Not sure how widely believed it is. – Jerome Viveiros Jan 30 '20 at 05:42
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    Also that page is trying to refute the claim you mention; it doesn't make the claim. Maybe include the original claim they refer to because it's not clear from the site what they are trying to refute... might even be a straw man. – Jerome Viveiros Jan 30 '20 at 05:45
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    @JeromeViveiros: Creation Ministries/Creation Magazine are popular enough we can assume that this is notable enough to address. I've focussed the question to avoid a strawman. – Oddthinking Jan 30 '20 at 06:13
  • [The coelacanth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth) managed it, why shouldn't the rabbitfish? [There's a whole long list of critters and plants that were first discovered as fossils then later living specimens turned up.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_taxon) – JRE Jan 30 '20 at 06:53
  • @OddThinking: Fair enough and I've removed my downvote. – Jerome Viveiros Jan 30 '20 at 08:15
  • @JRE: Their thesis is: "Living fossils" (as described on your link) are unlikely (and not predicted by Evolution) so it is more likely that the Earth was created 6000 years ago. Producing more examples doesn't undermine their argument. But let's not discuss whether we have Young Earth. Let's see whether the claim that a fish remained unchanged is true. – Oddthinking Jan 30 '20 at 08:24
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    Note that the "why no evolution in all that [...[ time?" is easily and exhaustively answerable by any biologist worth his salt. Just sayin', while biting down on my tongue to avoid doing so. – DevSolar Jan 30 '20 at 08:32
  • @Oddthinking: The creationists seem to have this idea that evolution means that all of a particular type of critter has to change (or die off) when part of the population evolves. And, yeah, I'd rather not discuss creationists. That's why I linked to that list of other "living fossils." The list shows that the rabbitfish isn't unique in maintaining its state over a very long time. – JRE Jan 30 '20 at 08:59
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    @DevSolar: Don't bite your tongue! Provide a referenced answer! – Oddthinking Jan 30 '20 at 09:23
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    @JRE: I'm trying to maintain the distinction between "living fossils" - the idea that an extant species hasn't visibly changed in the body structure recorded in the fossil record, and "Lazarus taxon" - the idea that there is a gap in the fossil record where a whole taxa disappears, only for an instance to reappear much later. The coelacanth is from a lazarus taxon, but there is a an argument that it isn't a living fossil - see the intro to its [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth) - because, shock horror, it turns out to have visibly evolved once they looked more closely. – Oddthinking Jan 30 '20 at 09:31
  • [I am aware that I overstretching here - I haven't done enough research to feel comfortable about talking about the coelacanth; I am accepting Wikipedia's word for it because it fits in with my biases.] – Oddthinking Jan 30 '20 at 09:32
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    @Oddthinking: "*Why the rabbitfish remaining unchanged doesn't prove the creationists right*" wasn't the question. (There it is again, my problem with the whole format of Skeptics.SE being too rigid to actually address "the real WTF" behind the claims asked about...) – DevSolar Jan 30 '20 at 09:33
  • We usually call the rabbitfish that evolved "sharks". – T. Sar Jan 30 '20 at 11:11
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    I think @DevSolar is spot on here. This kind of thing comes up in debates all the time, where the argument is really along the lines of "let me show you this straw man of science doesn't work and assume it means all of science/evolution is wrong and thus my preferred magical thinking is correct." The answer that was deleted here earlier attempted to get at this implied claim, but those kinds of answers never work here. – Jerome Viveiros Jan 30 '20 at 12:53
  • Perhaps the fossils are only *similar*. Is there any reason why similar species cannot evolve more than once? – Weather Vane Jan 30 '20 at 18:44
  • @WeatherVane It's the same old question "If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?". Just with fish. There's an assumption along the way that the mere existence of apes/fish/whatever proves evolution didn't happen. That's what I tried to convey (badly) in my original comments here. – Jerome Viveiros Jan 31 '20 at 06:28
  • One could easily extend the question: http://www.oldest.org/animals/species/ – Fizz Feb 01 '20 at 00:00
  • See http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150413-can-an-animal-stop-evolving for a discussion on how unchanged some are. Until such a genetic study is done on this fish, we can't say... and it's a really obscure fish, so you might have to wait a while. – Fizz Feb 01 '20 at 00:07
  • See also https://www.livescience.com/49677-deep-sea-organism-evolution.html https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/27/1419241112 https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/E2559 – Fizz Feb 01 '20 at 00:25

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