Preserved Shark Fossil Adds Evidence To Great White's Origins
12 March 2009
What is Science?
Science is based on observable, empirical, measurable evidence and is used to determine if a hypothesis or model is a reasonable scientific theory and can become a scientific natural law using the scientific method. Once your hypothesis has been tested and verified to be plausible from the empirical evidence it can then be considered a scientific theory according to the Scientific Method.
Some paleontologists have considered the great white shark to be an evolutionary descendant of Carcharodon megalodon while other paleontologists think the great white shark is an evolutionary descendant of the mako shark. A recent study published in Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology shows that the great white shark is not as similar to the C. megalodon as previously thought. This conclusion was reached because of a fossilized great white shark found in Peru that had a complete jaw with 222 teeth and 45 vertebrate.
This new discovery is one of the most complete ancient shark fossils found. Almost all the evolutionary lineages for the great white have been determined solely from the preserved teeth. By comparing the size, shape, and thickness of fossilized teeth some researchers believe they can conclude that one fossil is related to another.
Good Science
- Mako shark has no teeth serrations.
- Great white shark have teeth serrations.
- This new fossil has some teeth serrations.
Bad Conclusion
"Here we have a shark that’s gaining serrations. It’s becoming a white shark, but it’s not quite there yet."
Finding serrations on teeth does prove that the shark had serrations on its teeth. Finding serrations on teeth does not prove one tooth evolved into the other. Some people think you can gather thousands of teeth samples from all over the world, arrange them from curved to straight, thickest to thinnest, smallest to largest, and non-serrated to serrated and think that shows evidence that one shark turned into another. Empirical science requires observation. No one has ever observed one kind of animal evolve into another kind of animal.
No fossil is proof of evolution. A wide range of animals exist and are alive today. It would be simple to show pictures of a dozen skeletons that all are slightly different from each other but still alive today. In this situation they can not be ancestors of each other even though they look similar. The Bible records an event several thousand years ago where the entire world was over flowed with water. If this flood occurred you would expect to find marine creatures fossils all over the world, even hundreds of feet above sea level. You would also expect to find sedimentary rock layers that had been laid down by water all over the planet.
Is it possible that the great white shark shared an ancestor with the mako or the megalodon? From the evidence (or rather lack of evidence) it is possible that they were. If you take 10 steps back and look at them, they are all sharks. The Bible teaches that animals will bring forth "after their kind". This means dogs will produce dogs, humans will produce humans, and sharks will produce sharks. God has built in enough extra code in our DNA to give us the ability to survive in many different environments. Survival of the fittest works but it does not explain the arrival of the fittest. Evolution teaches all the kinds of plants, animals, and insects share a common ancestor. There is no empirical evidence that one kind of animal has ever evolved into another kind of animal and if the Bible is true there never will be.
1 Corinthians 15:39
All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.
Presuppositional question: From which line of species did the modern great white shark evolve?
Evolutionary Answer A: Megalodon
Evolutionary Answer B: Mako
The question that has been pre-assumed is, did the shark evolve at all?
Biblical Answer C: It didn't.
http://news.ufl.edu/2009/03/12/fossil-shark/
