Coelacanths

August 4, 2022

2 min read

What is the most important characteristic of a scientist? My personal opinion: critical thinking. It can be hard to be critical of data, especially when it’s your own. It is so tempting for many people to take the leap to grandiose conclusions with a limited dataset, which has been the downfall of many scientists. It is better, and rarer, for a person to be critical of their own data and let the data speak for itself.

Here is a cautionary tale of the coelacanth¹:

When a coelacanth fossil was uncovered, Swiss biologist and geologist Louis Agassiz noted that this extinct fish would play a pivotal role in the evolutionary story. This is because there were “leg-like” structures in the pelvic area, which makes the coelacanth the perfect transitional species of water to land-based animals. Charles Darwin actually agreed with Agassiz and wrote in his book, The Origin of Species: “This doctrine of Agassiz accords well with the theory of natural selection.”

Other speculative details were also pointed out like how the organs in the coelacanth were potentially well-adapted for land-based use, such as the advanced lungs, larger brain cavity, and shallow water habitat. This was so convincing that these speculative details were considered fact and biology textbooks throughout the early twentieth century widely portrayed Agassiz’s coelacanth as scientific evidence supporting Darwin’s theory of evolution.

But everything changed in 1938. Why? Well, they caught a live coelacanth and were able to watch it in action. Was it everything they had predicted based on the fossil? No, not even close! The coelacanth is, in fact, a deep-water fish, with a small brain that did not exhibit any signs of walking. The critical thought process was not applied when they interpreted the fossil, because their personal biases got in the way.

However, for those who hold to a literal Biblical view, this evidence once again confirms what is written in the Genesis account. For those Christian scientists out there, you do not need to forfeit critical thinking when reading through the Genesis account. The amazing thing is that all truth, even scientific truth, will always support the Word of God.