For the sake of argument, let us assume, as Michael Denton did, that there is universal common ancestry. The problem, both in terms of comparative anatomy and biochemistry, is that an unprejudiced view of the data suggests we didn’t evolve from fish. When I brought the topic up earlier in Taxonomic nested hierarchies don’t support Darwinism, in the course of my arguments in that thread, it became ever more apparent even at the molecular level, it was hard to justify the claim that we evolved from fish.
Linnaeus and other creationists perceived Platonic forms we know by names today such as: Vetebrates, Mammals, Primates, and Humans. These forms defy the story that we evolved from fish.
Again, let us suppose we all evolved from a common ancestor. Based on the data, who would be our ancestor? Would it be a fish, or some unspecified vertebrate? Let us, in an unprejudiced way simply lump the most similar organisms with each other based on similarity. What would the REAL groupings look like. Here is the grouping we would see using Bone Morphogenic proteins:
Click here for a larger image: Bone Morphogenic Proteins
You’ll get a similar grouping with the protein cytochrome-c which agrees with the old creationist Linnaean classification based on comparison of characters:
Amusingly, those diagrams were assembled to prove evolution. Superficially the impression of common descent is there, but problematic is the groupings look like the old creationist system where fish aren’t ancestors of mammals but instead (at best) some unspecified vertebrate. As Denton pointed out, as overwhelming the impression is of common descent, overwhelming as well is the impression there can’t be transitionals (like say between fish and mammals), and therefore evolution is impossible even in principle.
The creationist reasoning would go like this:
Vertebrates descend from Vetebrates
Mammals descend from Mammals
Primates descend from Primates
Humans descend from HumansTherefore: Humans descended from Humans
The Darwinist reasoning goes like this:
Vertebrates descend from Vetebrates
Mammals descend from Mammals
Primates descend from Primates
Humans descend from HumansTherefore: Humans descended from Fish 😯
So why do Darwinists, in the view of this overwhelming evidence against fish being our ancestors, insist mammals are actually fish (via phylogeny)? I did a little more digging into phylogentics and lo and behold, the answer emerged. Those clever weasels figured out methods to project whatever evolutionary story they want onto the data with fancy sounding methods like: Maximum Likelihood Phylogenetics and Baysian Evolutionary Analysis.
See: Phylogenetics 101. Look at page 25 where it shows how you can build trees with a preconceived model of evolution, and how you can build trees without one. (btw, Joe Felsenstein of PandasThumb and SkepticalZone is featured on page 29). You’ll see that one can build trees anyway you want with these “advanced” methods. All you have to do is assume who the common ancestors are first, and you can force fit the data anyway you want to agree with your preconceived evolutionary story. As I told Nick Matzke many moons ago, with such loose parameters you can argue fish evolved from humans!
And from the Berkeley evolution site:
Phylogentics
Another cool thing about phylogenetic classification is that it means that dinosaurs are not entirely extinct. Birds are, in fact, dinosaurs (part of the clade Dinosauria).
And by such phylogenetic reasoning also, we aren’t mammals we are fish — a claim which is at variance with an unprejudiced grouping based on comparative anatomy and biochemistry. The data agree with the existence of Platonic forms, not the twisted Darwinian view that rejects Platonic forms in favor of saying we are fish.
Though Denton accepts common ancestry, the incongruity of the Darwinist reasoning cannot explain the appearance of Platonic forms which seem to transcend (if not defy) any possible evolutionary story.
After looking at the data in an unprejudiced way, it bothered me that evolutionists would insist we evolved from fish when the data told another story. Something smelled fishy (pun intended).