Flatfish evidence falls flat

A 2008 National Geographic article headline read: Odd Fish Find Contradicts Intelligent-Design Argument. A fossil flatfish was found in northern Italy which had one eye on one side of its head and the other eye near the top of its head.  ICR reports that “Some scientists believe that the finds represent evolutionary transitions from fish with eyes on either side of their heads to flatfish such as the flounder.” Intelligent design advocates often say the lack of transitional forms (parts mutating into other parts like scales/feathers, fin/legs) is a fundamental weakness in Darwinian evolution—and it is. The discoverers think this alleged transitional form strikes a blow against the idea that animals were created by a Supreme Intelligent Being in much the same forms as we see them today. We do know that larval flatfish undergo a unique transformation whereby one eye (and its socket, etc.) migrates over the top of its skull to the other side, so the adults have both eyes on one side of the skull. So, perhaps this single fossil specimen is just a mutant with incomplete eye migration (remember, there was only one found). All we really have here are fish transforming from fish with one eye on either side of their heads  into fish with both eyes on one side. In other words, fish turning into fish. And we still have both kinds of fish alive today. As Dr. Seuss once stated, “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish….” We have lots of fish here. What we don’t have is a fish coming from a non-fish. And consider that “these newly-discovered forms were found in the same rock layers with the fish they allegedly evolved into! If they were transitional, they should be in rock layers above regular fish but below flatfish” (as ICR points out). This is a long way from disproving Intelligent Design. It only proves the variety God designed into the fish “kind” at creation.

http://www.icr.org/article/national-geographics-flatfish-story-falls-flat/