WHEN FISH FISH - There's Something Fishy About Evolution!
Plain Truth Magazine
July 1968
Volume: Vol XXXIII, No.7
Issue:
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WHEN FISH FISH - There's Something Fishy About Evolution!

There is something decidedly "fishy" about evolution! Evolutionists have an impossible task explaining how FISH evolved; but when it comes to explaining a FISHING fish, equipped with rod and bait — evolutionists flounder. Read, in this article, about some of the strangest creatures known to man; the ANGLER fish — and the hopeless snarl for evolutionists as they evade the "reel" truth!

   Even though there are many wildly different theories for the origin of life in the ideas of evolutionists, the one preponderant doctrine is that all life originated in the sea.
   High school and college texts abound with the monotonous stories about warm oceans, trilobites, brachiopods, algae, and fish. The pictures look impressive. The texts sound authoritative — on the surface.
   But precious few students really STUDY into the questions of evolution. Most just casually take for granted what the book says, and swallow the story, hook, line and sinker.
   Few are taught, for example, that scientists claim anything from cracks in rocks, polka-dotted air bubbles, dry land, extreme heat, extreme cold or an oscillation between the two, as well as the sea for the "cradle" of life. Perhaps few care.
   But in the dramatic tales told in evolutionary textbooks, there are far MORE dramatic stories left out. Reading of the supposed geologic succession of strata; of the "Devonian" age of fishes — the artists' drawings and broad, sweeping claims of evolution seems very impressive to young, impressionable minds.
   But if evolution is correct — and if man EVOLVED — then where is the proof?
   If our minds, which we like to think of as a logical, questioning, reasoning, thinking apparatus, evolved, then shouldn't the very process by which our minds "evolved" SEEM AT LEAST PARTIALLY LOGICAL to our logical minds?
   Strangely, there is very little "logic" in evolution.
   But there is a great deal of FAITH.
   In past articles in The PLAIN TRUTH magazine, we have shown the great, gaping holes in the theories of evolutionists — totally unanswerable, insurmountable problems which defeat the theory. Once in a while, we receive a letter from a disgruntled atheist who DISAGREES with an article. But NEVER have we received a scientific EXPLANATION for the many great problems presented. Never have we received a point-by-point refutation of the truths we have published.
   In this article, you'll read of some of the most astounding creatures alive and read of the UPSETTING facts which bewilder and confuse evolutionists. But first, remember — evolution is a THEORY.

When To Alter a Theory

   It SHOULD be an honest and correct method of research that each theory is altered to admit new facts; but not so in the case of evolution.
   You see, a scientist first may observe certain "things" which he calls "phenomena." Wary of calling anything by the label of "truth" or even a facsimile, such as "fact," the evolutionist uses the more modern, acceptable term, "data," in his research.
   Postulating that such and such is "so," based upon observing certain phenomena — the scientist collects his " data." Facts.
   There is a LAW, however — and it is a moral and truthful law that, whenever a theory or postulate is contrary to observed and proven FACTS, then that theory MUST BE ALTERED TO ADMIT SUCH NEW FACTS. The theory must always ALLOW THE NEW EVIDENCE.
   But if evidence — if FACTS — DIRECTLY CONTRADICT the theory, then the theory MUST BE DISCARDED AS UNTRUE!
   As we have shown in many past articles — this is not done in evolutionary thinking. Rather, mountainous piles of evidence, facts, data, and measurable, observable, provable TRUTHS are swept aside, ignored, or glossed over as the FACTS are continually altered to fit the theory! Believe it or not, evolution is one of the greatest HOAXES ever foisted on an unsuspecting world — and it has come to deeply permeate the whole of modern education, and with it, society.
   You want proof?
   Then take a look at a fish evolution CANNOT explain.

The Angler Fish

   Everyone knows about man's dependence on "fishing" for survival. Many whole nations subsist almost entirely on catches of fish. Exporting fish is the mainstay of trade in country after country.
   At one time or another, almost everyone goes fishing.
   But most people are unaware that fish fish. That's right, fish "go fishin'" too.
   There are some two hundred and twenty-five different species of FISH that fish — called, because of their built-in fishing poles, "angler fish."
   The angler is perhaps one of the most grotesque of all creatures. His face, from the huge seventy-pounder on record, to the tiny dwarf anglers measuring only a few inches, is enough to give the sturdiest housewife pause. He may have enough finny appendages hanging on him that he looks like seaweed — or he may have the mottled, craggy appearance of a rock. Many species can change colors in only moments, from bright reds to deep greens, and back again. In all his forms, the angler is anything but a pretty fish.
   But he's even uglier and more grotesque to evolutionists. You see — they can't explain him.
   Evolution seeks to explain how all life forms, in their myriad complexity, their fantastic balance and interdependency — their beauty, or ugliness, EVOLVED — how gradually, through "resident forces" and by "natural causes" certain constructive changes took place.
   The greatest excuse of evolution is always TIME.
   "Given enough TIME" they reason, almost anything could happen. But given BILLIONS upon BILLIONS more aeons than even evolutionists claim — evolution could never make a bird's feather out of a loosely hanging, frayed scale. And it cannot, given its own rules, principles, and scientific methods, explain a ludicrous fishing pole hanging out of a fish's head.
   The idea is that changing environments weed out those that were not genetically equipped to alter themselves to fit in with these new conditions. "Survival of the fittest," though badly battered in its original Darwinian form, is nevertheless still one of the bases of evolutionary reasoning. In effect, it is "progress or perish" in the evolutionary scheme of things.
   But here is the problem.
   Anglers are terrible swimmers. Actually, they prefer to sidle, or "walk" along the rocks by means of their ugly, elbowed pectoral fins, rather than "swim."
   As such, they have a terrible problem "catching" some other kind of fish. They slowly "paddle" about, or crawl. But did they develop that way? From what original state? Did they formerly swim about on the surface? At medium depths? On the bottom? If an angler fish evolved — he evolved FROM some original state — a "pre-angler" of some type.
   But let's think about this a little further.
   Let's imagine, in our mind's eye — the very first would-be angler fish. He didn't "angle" because he didn't yet have a bony membrane, with a fleshy "worm" dangling from the end of it, growing right out from between his eyes. Whether evolutionists would insist he was slow, ungainly, bulky, or whether slim, sleek and fast — he most certainly was not yet (according to evolution) an "angler."
   Now, any fairly intelligent fisherman knows it takes a certain amount of skill to catch a fish. Fish may be dumb but they're not so dumb as so many people think — to many a human angler's empty-handed chagrin.
   Let's create, then, our would-be angler. Back, back in time — billions upon billions of uncounted aeons ago, some bizarre accident occurred whereby some sleek, fast, well-designed fish produced, through sudden mutation, an ugly, huge-headed, elbow-finned, slow-moving fish that looked about as much like a rock, or a clump of moss, as he did a fish.
   How this could be possible so stretches one's imagination that it breaks with a resounding snap — but then, let's leap over about two dozen major difficulties and get down to fishing stories. The other remarkable aspects of the modern anglers can wait a few billion aeons.
   We see Freddie, the frustrated fisherman fish — a would-be angler. Here he is; ugly, squat, slow, minus a rod and bait. He looks around.
   His eyes are different from other fish — with rays of color extending outward from a tiny iris in all directions, they resemble a small urchin, or perhaps a tiny sea anemone. They're well camouflaged. Unfamiliar with the bottom of the sea (he had been a sleek, fast, darting type — easily able to eat other smaller fish, until this horrible transformation began to take place), he lunges first at this passing fish and then at another. To no avail. His Railings and flounderings stir up the sand and moss — but no meal.
   You see, his whole bony structure is DIFFERENT, radically, from that of other fishes. His body is lumpy, squat, short, and huge-headed. His pectoral fins have jointed bones that are far more efficient at crawling, paddling, and sidling along than at swimming. His whole system, from his digestive process, to his reflexes, to his bony structure, to his coloration, seems PERFECTLY designed to do what he does. Fish.
   How all this "just happened" is a fathomless mystery. But, back to our pre-angler fable.
   Desperate to survive, he must think of something. Quick.
   Ah! A FISHING POLE — that would be just the thing. So, according to one author, "Through the trial and error of evolution, anglers have selected a variety of exotic lures from nature's tacklebox," (The Living World of the Sea, William J. Cromie, p. 216.)
   Freddie swims — er, walks over to "nature's tacklebox." Wherever that is. He studies all the equipment — selects a "lure," and looks around for a rod to hang it on.
   But — oops! Just remembered something incredibly important.
   None of the males angle. Only the females do. All of which goes to prove the females have all the angles.
   But, let's suppose Freddie just sort of "plopped down" onto the bottom, one day, complete with all the equipment.
   Bewildered, he dazedly gazes around his new surroundings, looking wistfully at the flashing, sleek schools of colorful fish swimming about over his head. Here he is, right next to an ugly rock, and a sponge!
   He flexes his muscles to swim, and sees some ugly, elbowed fins paddling feebly at the sand and rocks. Shocked, he crawls around on the bottom, wondering what to eat. A motion appears in front of his mouth. Ahah! A worm! SNAP! GRAB! GULP!
   AAAAAAaaaaaaaagh! GHASTLY! He has swallowed his own fishing pole, and is struggling to spit it out!
   This brings to obvious focus two more problems.
   Not only do anglers have the instinct to attract OTHER fish to their little fleshy baits — they have the automatic instinct NOT TO GRAB IT THEMSELVES. Further — they know better than to grab each other's fishing bait. How COME?
   Science remains silent. Evolutionists have no answer.
   Except — "nature's tackle box."
   But can you believe such statements from evolutionary writings? If so, I know of a bridge for sale you might be interested in.
   No, colorful "kiddies'" tales won't do away with the amazing angler fish.

Only the Gals go Fishing

   While true only of certain species of anglerfish, only the females have "fishing poles." And whether one species or all — this is an impossible difficulty for evolutionists to explain.
   So how do the males eat? Do the females simply spit out half of each fish? Do they "feed" the male by regurgitation, like some birds feed their young? Nope.
   By an unusual process, the males literally hook on to the females, and the two bloodstreams unite. The male is fed intravenously! Try figuring how many billions upon billions of males DIED trying THAT routine. But if all the males kept insisting on starving to death — how were the babies born?
   Can you picture it? Here is a frustrated male — trying to hook up to the BLOOD supply of a busily fishing female. Ever try interrupting your wife when she was fishing? Anyway, Freddie first tries taking the fish out of his mate's mouth. (Just how both sexes evolved simultaneously, and then began immediately to reproduce after their own kind is an in surmountable impossibility for evolution to explain — but it deserves a separate article in itself, or several of them.) Perhaps she just nips him one — but certainly she didn't approve of the practice, or they would still be doing it!
   Next, he hopes she'll drop some. But she never does. When she gulps them down inside that chasm of a mouth (no slight intended just because she's female) — she gulps them completely into her stomach! Everything is swallowed whole — instantly!
   Then how did Freddie eat? He didn't. But then, he never existed, anyway.
   Obviously, since the males of some species are "surviving" by hooking onto the blood supply of the females — they have ALWAYS been "surviving" in this fashion. Either that — or they DIDN'T SURVIVE. And if they didn't survive — they are not here. And if they are not here, then we're all crazy.
   But they ARE here. And they DO survive. And they had to do what they do to survive when THEY WERE FIRST ALIVE IN THEIR PRESENT FORM.
   The fact that this is only one more of MILLIONS of proofs about instantaneous creation will escape anyone who has SET HIS WILL against his God.
   But not only is the sex problem insurmountable — there's the depth problem, too.

Evolution in Over It's Head

   The lower you descend into the ocean, the darker it gets. Inky blackness greets the eyes of men in bathyscapes in abyssal depths. And in that inky blackness, strange, luminescent lights appear.
   These may be the ingenious devices of the angler of the depths. Some have luminous teeth that shine brightly in the dark depths — attracting other fish. (And without using any artificial "whiteners," too!)
   Others have forked light organs on their foreheads! Others have a type of "flashing light" on the fleshy "bait" at the tips of their "rods," which can be turned off and on at the fish's desire. How is this luminescence produced? How DID IT DEVELOP? Science can't answer either question.
   Still another remarkable species of angler has his device dangling from the roof of his mouth — and it's brightly glowing, too! Can you imagine it? The little unsuspecting fish he feeds on is already clear inside the gaping maw before he realizes it — and by that time, it's much, much too late.
   No attempts are made, apparently, to explain how all the varieties of fishing apparatus "evolved." There IS some weak attempt made to explain about the "fishing poles" — you could probably do a fair job " reasoning" this out — if you're accustomed to the methods of evolutionary reasoning, that is. They say the "pole" just "gradually" grew from an extended dorsal spine — sort of "walked" up the back and down between the eyes, so to speak.
   But why only in the females in some species?
   And HOW LONG DID IT TAKE?
   And how did the "pre" anglers SURVIVE? If they survived by swimming faster, and grabbing other fish in some "PRE-angling state," then they WERE surviving, were they not? And if they were surviving quite well in SOME OTHER FORM — then why CHANGE?
   And why change so ELABORATELY, and make life so MUCH, MUCH MORE DIFFICULT?
   Why not just change into a bird. After all, evolutionists claim other fish did. Of course, they had to go through a rather nasty life for a few billions of years as lizards first — but birds they became, nevertheless. Or did they?
   But in attempting to explain how a dorsal spine got up between the eyes, and grew a fleshy "worm" on it — how can evolution figure it growing into the middle of the MOUTH — and then becoming LUMINESCENT?
   Let's try to apply sound reasoning to that one, for a moment.
   Which came first, the luminescence or the inky black depths?
   In other words — if the fish was not yet in the inky depths of the abyssal oceans — then he did NOT NEED the fluorescent apparatus — of many different varieties. But if he didn't NEED it then why develop it? Especially why develop it if there was no environmental reason to do so? But if there were some environmental REASON to do so — then he had to develop it QUICKLY, because he had to eat a meal to survive!
   If, then, angler fish were surviving in shallow water (which they ARE!), they didn't "need" to go into deeper waters in search of food — methods of survival. And if they didn't need to, then they didn't need to develop luminescent fishing lures. Of course, the truth is — they didn't "develop" ANYthing — they were MADE that way — but this sounds too "theological" to an atheist.
   But there is the matter of pressure, too.
   The deeper you go in water, the more terrific the pressure of the water. Many a boy has felt his ears hurting in 8 feet of water in the family swimming pool. But man has devised pressurized, steel-hulled spheres to lower into the water to study some of the fantastic creatures of what men call "Nature."
   They find an INHOSPITABLE world in the depths of the seas — with weird, bizarre creatures whose bodies are perfectly equipped for what would be body-CRUSHING depths for humans — depths which would CRUSH THE STEEL HULLS OF SUBMARINES, and probably did, recently, in the tragedy of the missing American submarine, Scorpion.
   Yet here is the angler.
   Equipped for the depths — equipped for the dark — equipped to survive PERFECTLY in such an inhospitable habitat. WHY? How? Evolution doesn't know.

Fishing Without a Hook

   Angler fish don't really "catch" fish — they just lure them close, and then suck them in. The mouth of the angler is so huge, and his gills and gill plates so arranged that he can create a powerful current by a sudden sucking motion.
   I have watched, or better said, I have TRIED to watch, anglers swallow their prey.
   But the suddenness of their attack leaves you wondering if it really happened!
   Watching one of our angler fish in the Ambassador Science Laboratory at feeding time — I noticed the fish whip his rod and fleshly "worm' out into active "angling" position when he saw a molly lowered into his tank. He flashed the worm about a number of times — but the bewildered fish, having just been scooped out of one tank, and thrown into another, was in no biting mood.
   The angler had to have patience. Finally, the tiny fish came close enough. I watched intently. A flash of movement — sand roiled around the angler's ugly body — his sun-rayed, staring eyes continued looking balefully at us. But the molly was gone!
   His lunge, and sudden inrushing current of water, had been so incredibly fast my eye didn't really see the whole action!
   Our photographers wanted to SHOW you a picture of the angler fish being successful with his angling — but many, many hours of fruitless effort passed. Finally, by trying to anticipate ahead of time when the fish would lunge they managed to snap a photo of a fish's tail just barely visible.
   The angler's cavernous mouth and head are out of all proportion to the rest of his body — the mouth of one species can be ten inches wide on a three-foot fish. And that's quite a chasm — one to give Joe E. Brown pause.
   But, ugly though he may be, he is perfectly suited for doing what he does — lying lazily about the bottom, moving slowly about, and, when hungry, luring curious little fish by dangling a "bait" enticingly in front of his mouth.
   To all of this, evolution has no answer whatever.
   It may sound picturesque, and it may even sound "convincing" (though it's difficult to imagine it could) to naive students that anglers "selected a variety of lures from nature's tacklehox" — but it sounds quite unscientific!

A World of LAW

   Evolution seeks to explain myriad laws in action without a LAWgiver.
   Evolutionists observe thousands of creatures, existing in a complex "food chain" or "web of life" according to rigid law.
   The food chain of all life begins in the tiny microorganisms; both in the sea, and in the soil. Bacteria are absolutely essential to all life! And, to all life in the sea (and hence all life on land), tiny "diatoms," living plants, are absolutely essential! Some seventy percent of all this world's oxygen is manufactured by these microscopic little plants in the seas.
   Plankton, or "krill," tiny marine animal life, is the primary food source of the creatures of the sea. Little fish feed on plankton, bigger fish feed on the little fish, and still bigger fish on those fish, and man on the big fish, and so on.
   The toothed whales feed on large fish; while the great sperm whales feed on millions of tiny marine animals plankton.
   In all of this, there is a fantastically interwoven CHAIN of life! It all acts according to LAW! Disrupt ANY ONE PART of it, and YOU have a disaster! Not only in the dying of some species of creatures — but the possible death of ALL LIFE!
   For instance, when I interviewed Dr. LaMont C. Cole, of Cornell, during the meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in New York, he had just finished explaining his paper on "Is There Intelligent Life on Earth"?
   It dealt with environmental pollution, and the threat to man through such pollution.
   Dr. Cole explained how, if the tanker, Torrey Canyon had been carrying some of the powerful pesticides instead of oil when it ran aground and ruptured its tanks, it would have been a virtual disaster — because all the tiny diatoms in the North Sea could have died, resulting in virtual oxygen starvation in the British Isles — not to mention total disruption of the food chain in the sea, and the dying of millions of sea creatures.
   The angler fish is a part of an intricately balanced, delicately interdependent marine environment. As such, he has a specific place in the whole environment. He operates according to intricate laws.
   All creatures, except humans, come equipped with instinct!
   Whether those instincts create nests, migrate, breath voluntarily from under the water, or angle for other fish, they are marvelous, fascinating, and LAWabiding actions of every creature. Evolution cannot explain, sex, or instinct, or the fact that each form of life must depend on many, many other forms of life. Believe it or not, like it or not, grow weary of it or not — evolution STILL cannot answer the simple question, "Which came first, the chicken, or the egg."
   Nor can evolution answer the logical questions any observant person would ask when studying specific creatures in God's creation.
   It's time you quit swallowing the bait of fantasy, colorful tales, and fishy stories!
   It's time you found your God!

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Plain Truth MagazineJuly 1968Vol XXXIII, No.7