Sunday, July 13, 2008

YAM

Not, not Yam the Semitic deity of the sea, appointed divine kingship by his papa El until Yam was killed by his enemy Baal, but Yet Another Missing Link.*

Flatfish (for example, the quite delicious, but now threatened Dover Sole) are born - similar to other fish - bilaterally symmetric, with one eye on each side of the body. However, at an early stage of development, the left eye migrates to the right side of the head.

The highly asymmetrical nature of flatfish (Pleuronectiformes, or "side swimmers") skulls has been used as ammunition by both scientists - who claimed sudden evolutionary changes - and creationists who continue to argue against (at least macro-) evolution.

But now, a University of Chicago evolutionary biologist has found evidence of transitional fish forms that support the hypothesis that this asymmetrical eye position evolved over thousands to millions of years.

For more details, I refer you to The eyes have it at Nature and A Wandering Eye at Science News (don't forget to check out the two short videos there).

I would also be remiss if I didn't reference The Bat, the Bird, and the Flatfish by Jewish Atheist.

(*Note that "Missing link" usually refers to human transitional species. I just thought that poetic license should rule over using YATS or YAML.)

4 comments:

Jewish Atheist said...

Very cool! And thanks for the link.

Jewish Atheist said...

Just blogged it.

jewish philosopher said...

FH, I'm very sorry however I cannot believe a Jew really believes that he is descended from a worm. Couldn't you merely be rationalizing a sexual addiction?

Frum Heretic said...

JP, your comments are welcome here but it would be nice if you could attempt to show at least an iota of intelligence when you do post. You may think you are being clever, but your snide cliches have made you a laughing stock.

I'll let your obsession with sexual addiction speak for itself.