Did Scientists Make Fish Grow Hands? | The Institute for Creation Research

Did Scientists Make Fish Grow Hands?

A recent news story featured a variety of science writers repeating the meme "Fish grow 'hands' in genetic experiment." These sensationalized stories attempted to describe a new genetics research study published in the journal Developmental Cell.1 The primary results of the study actually produced data that refuted the accompanying evolutionary hype.

For starters, the genetically modified zebrafish embryos under investigation had no hands at all. When New Scientist magazine questioned one of the researchers, Fernando Casares, about the popularized claim, he responded, "Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands."2

Nevertheless, Casares and his colleagues did claim that their data had profound implications for the hypothetical evolutionary change required for fish fins to magically morph into legs, arms, hands, and feet. This mythical process would have been necessary for fish to transition to land animals. And contrary to common evolutionary claims, this dogma is not supported by any actual transitional forms in the fossil record.3

The zebrafish has been an important model organism for the study of embryology, because it can be easily manipulated by modifying its DNA. Researchers can then observe the effects in developing embryos. These genetic manipulations can be easily observed in the transparent fish embryos, which provide a window into the developmental process.

In this study, scientists inserted a control element (genetic switch) from mouse DNA into some zebrafish. The switch drastically ramped up the expression of a key developmental zebrafish gene called hoxd13. This caused a manifold increase in the hoxd13 gene product in developing fish fin tissue.

So, what were the effects of over-expressing the hoxd13 gene? Not only did the fish not develop hands or any other novel evolutionary favorable appendage, but normal fish fin development was completely and grotesquely perturbed. The resulting embryos died within four days on average—hardly a hallmark of evolutionary progress.

The mutated results of the study was that the normal tissue area of expression for the hoxd13 gene was markedly expanded beyond its normal, well-defined boundaries. It produced grossly distorted and lengthened sections of perturbed tissue. In fact, the growth distortions were not symmetrical but exhibited uncontrolled development.

Evolutionary media were quick to propagate a story where fish supposedly grew hands in the lab. But the actual experimental results told just the opposite story. Altering only a single gene's expression level disrupted the finely tuned system of hundreds of interacting genes within the irreducibly complex developmental genetic network, resulting in death of the organism.

Rather than showing how limbs could be produced from fins, this research showed how wonderfully fine-tuned and built the genome is.

References

  1. Freitas, R. et al. 2012. Hoxd13 Contribution to the Evolution of Vertebrate Appendages. Developmental Cell. 23 (6): 1219-1229.
  2. Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins. New Scientist. Posted on newscientist.com December 15, 2012, accessed December 26, 2012.
  3. See Chapters 8 and 9 in Morris, J. D. and F. J. Sherwin. 2010. The Fossil Record: Unearthing Nature's History of Life. Dallas, TX: Institute for Creation Research.

* Dr. Tomkins is a Research Associate and received his Ph.D. in Genetics from Clemson University.

Article posted on January 7, 2013.

The Latest
ACTS & FACTS
Pervasive Genome Functionality Destroys the Myth of Junk DNA
In 2001, the first rough draft of the human genome was published in a collaborative effort between private industry and the public sector.1,2...

NEWS
Happy Labor Day 2025
“For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:9) Labor Day was...

ACTS & FACTS
The Age of Reptiles Myth
We hear about the Age of Reptiles, also called the Age of Dinosaurs, almost as early as we can understand the idea. Even kindergarteners might be taught...

ACTS & FACTS
The Tiktaalik Missing Link Myth
In 2004, the paleontological community—and the world—was presented with what many evolutionists considered to be a dyedin- the-wool missing...

ACTS & FACTS
Archaeopteryx, Myth of a Transitional Fossil
In 1860, one year after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, a wonderfully preserved fossil feather was discovered in...

ACTS & FACTS
Busting the Myth about Lucy
by Brian Thomas, Ph.D., and Chris Rupe, Ph.D.* Most folks consider our ape ancestry as established science, with Lucy as the main link. However,...

ACTS & FACTS
Evolutionary Vestigial Features: Worse Than Myth, a Scam
Due to teachers’ influence during the formative years of young people’s lives, they can be a powerful force in spreading evolution to new...

ACTS & FACTS
Blind Cavefish Unmask the Convergent Evolution Myth
Within the ever-expanding theory of evolution, there is a system of specialized language designed to identify each major interpretative concept. Some...

ACTS & FACTS
A Booming Generation
And the king answered them roughly; and king Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the old men, and answered them after the advice of the young men.…And...

ACTS & FACTS
Darwin's Galápagos Finches: The Myth of Natural Selection
A group of birds known as Darwin’s finches (genus Geospiza) lives in the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean 600 miles west of Ecuador....