Hi Bill,
This is silly. If I and a fish were in the water and the sediment were
about to bury us, the fish would be decidedly in the better position to
avoid burial. His fins are much more useful for helping him to move in the
water than my oddly shaped legs. The fish can move much better in water
than I can or than can any terrestrial animal.
I remember swimming in the sea down by Brownsville Tx once and seeing a
fish, a big fish flash by in the wave that was about to come over me.
Seeing the speed and the size of that fish made me decide to leave the
water for a while, not desiring to be shark bait. Fish could escape much
better than you think.
And we know what I said about Acanthostega having half-evolved legs from
the biology and morphology and geology of it.
transitional forms amphibian-fish transition:
Note that the forelimb of Acanthostega is more fish-like than the hindlimb
and could probably not be brought into a weight-bearing position." ~ P. E.
Ahlberg, "Tetrapod or Near-tetrapod fossils from the Upper Devonian of
Scotland," Nature, 354, Nov. 28, 1991, p. 301
"In comparison with Ichthyostega and Tulerpeton, Acanthostega is the most
anatomically adapted for an aquatic existence. Moreover, this is consitent
with the sedimentological analysis which suggests deposition within active
regions of a meandering fluvial channel system. Large lycopod branches (50
mm diameter) indicate an abundant vegetation local to these channels, and
the palaeoclimate is interpreted as monsoonal. In fact, seasonality is
indicated quite dramatically by the fossil mud cracks disrupting the
otherwise fairly undisturbed remains of individual X, MGUH f.h. 1227. Thus
Acanthostega is envisaged as an occupant of stagnant, vegetation-choked
backwaters: " ~ M. I. Coates, "The Devonian Tetrapod Acanthostega gunnari
Jarvik: Postcranial Anatomy, Basal Tetrapod Interrelationships and Patterns
of Skeletal Evolution," Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh:
Earth Sciences, 87(1996):363-421, p. 402
"Conversely, fin-walking using a tetrapod-like gait, sometimes associated
with the evolution of pseudo-digited limbs, has evolved repeatedly in
entirely aquatic taxa, from epaulette sharks to antennarid teleosts." ~ M.
I. Coates, "The Devonian Tetrapod Acanthostega gunnari Jarvik: Postcranial
Anatomy, Basal Tetrapod Interrelationships and Patterns of Skeletal
Evolution," Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences,
87(1996):363-421, p. 404
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm