Warning: Creationist Quiz. May cause brain damage.
While checking out the horrible Christian Broadcasting Network site, I found this utterly bizarre test: What's your evolution IQ? (answers here). It's stupid and snarky, and mainly demonstrates the appalling ignorance of creationists. For example:
4. Fish evolved feet:
a) out of a need to wear Italian designer shoes, b) by the time I got to Phoenix, c) through a step-by-step process, d) by creating a lot of finfare, e) to show more good taste than Charlie the Tuna, f) out of a whimsical wish to slip on comfortable old sneakers, g) from a desire to outperform Al Gore's version of the Macarena
A step-by-step process would be what evolutionists would say. Endless controversies abound among scientists in regard to fin-to-feet transformation — largely because there are no verified intermediaries. This, like most of the field of evolution, is rife with speculation. The coelecanth, a "primitive" fish found in fossils, was once a prime candidate for its fins turning into appendages. That theory was abandoned partly because the fish was found living in the 1930s off the coast of Africa. Its fins matched the fossil's fins. Recent actual research video of the elusive fish shows it does not use its fins for support on the bottom of the sea, further removing any possibility that the fins were destined to become appendages for landlubbers.
So many misconceptions, so many lies. There are lots of intermediate fossils—ask Jenny Clack or Carl Zimmer. And they keep finding more! I commented on a new one just last month.
The coelacanth was a representative of a once-large group of lobe-finned fishes that are thought to be ancestral to modern tetrapods. The idea hasn't been abandoned. It's been strengthened.
I've also gone over these false ideas about coelacanths before.
11. What group of animals provides the most convincing evidence of evolution?
a) duck-billed platypuses b) Democratic senators c) Republican senators d) rock singers e) The Rockettes
The duck-billed platypus is said to be a transitional figure between birds and mammals. Unfortunately for the evolutionists, the platypus is not in between those two categories. Its mammalian features are fully mammalian and its ornithic traits represent birds quite nicely. The platypus is a mosaic, not the transitional animal predicted by evolution. Creationists have no problem with an "oddball" creature — their evaluations aren't tied to chance, but to the creative genius and will of the Almighty.
<sfx: jawbone dropping to floor with a clatter>What reasonable, respectable modern scientist has ever claimed the platypus is a bird:mammal transitional? Who has ever even claimed that such a thing as a bird:mammal transitional ever existed? Mammals did not evolve from birds or vice versa. The platypus has no birdlike traits at all—nor has anyone ever claimed such a thing. Well, except for some hare-brained, pig-ignorant creationists (now there is a 'mosaic' animal for you).
And, um, since when is egg-laying a "fully mammalian" trait?
Man, but this creationist crap is painful to read.


The duck-billed platypus is said to be a transitional figure between birds and mammals
Wow. Please thank those folks for straightening me out here PZ. I guess I'd been fooled by those zany chinese fake feathered dino's into swallowing the evil lie of dino to bird evo. I feel much better now.