Here’s why I write on the very unpopular subject of microbe-to-mammal evolution. A lady on Facebook cited a study from Nature, a prestigious scientific journal, saying that there were tetrapods (4-footed creatures) before Tiktaalik, a very famous fossil supposed to be a transitional fossil between fish and amphibians. The article is simply trying to say that tetrapods evolved before Tiktaalik. The lady, however, was deceived into thinking the article was against evolution. The result was that she posted a confusing post thinking she had evidence against evolution, but no one could figure out why she thought it was.

Anyway, someone referred to her as just another creationist deceiver. I answered that the judgment was too harsh. She is not a deceiver; she’s one of those deceived by creationist literature. She responded by asking me how she was deceived.

If you don’t understand what I wrote above, ignore this post. It’s not for you. Some Christians read and are interested in the anti-evolution organizations and their arguments. This is for them.

Here’s what I wrote to her. “Ahlberg” is the lead scientist on the study published in Nature. I’m answering why I say she is deceived.

It’s the post. there is nothing in your post that evidences the argument you just made. The fact is, if you accept the timelines in your own post, then 500 billion years ago, not long before your 375 million years ago (by geologic time), there were no fish nor quadrupeds.

The “fact” of evolution is that the deeper you dig in the earth, the more different life is. So whether Tiktaalik is a transitional fossil or not, something happened over the 125 million years between the Cambrian explosion and the findings you are reporting that produced creatures with skeletons, the first tetrapods and, later, dinosaurs and mammals. Whether Tiktaalik was the original transition between fish and amphibians is irrelevant. The article is merely saying that some species earlier than Tiktaalik transitioned from water to land.

Finally, you’ve been deceived by people who want you to believe that Ahlberg doesn’t believe fish can evolve into tetrapods. Here is a more accurate summation of his article:

“The story of the origin of tetrapods began with fishes leaving the water, and ended with the descendants of these first colonists on land diversifying into the ancestors of the modern amphibians and amniotes (the group that includes reptiles, birds and mammals). The timeline of these events has seemed clear-cut: the first tetrapods evolved during the Devonian period and the earliest members of the modern groups appeared during the following Carboniferous period.” (“Earliest reptile footprints rewrite the timeline of tetrapod evolution”)

Ahlberg is only adjusting the timeline of the evolution from fish to tetrapods, not denying it. Whoever pointed you to that Nature article lied to you, and you believed them.

I understand. It happened to me back in 1995. I was incensed because I try to be a man of truth and honor. As I looked into the people who deceived me, I found out the the Institution for Creation Research; Answers in Genesis; and the Creation Research Society are master deceivers, trained in deception by long practice. I should point out that Ken Ham, the founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis seems to be honest enough to abandon deceptive scientific arguments and opt for ridiculousness instead: “We can’t know anything at all about the past” (from the televised debate with Bill Nye, the Science Guy).

I hope you react to being deceived the same way I did, by exposing the deceivers.

I am still a Christian, I still love Jesus,  and I am still a Bible and Christian history teacher, but now, from Ancient Near East and Hebrew scholars, Christian ones, I know that Moses was not trying to argue science in Genesis 1-3; he was arguing theology, the one God who loves humans against the many warring and corrupt gods of the nations.

For my readers, I think I need to make a practice of referencing my article “Lying for Jesus” when I write about evolution. It gives examples of the lies I believed, passed on, and was both embarrassed and angry to find out were false. The “Tale of Two Cites” was later, but I embarrassed and dishonored myself with the others.