Tiktaalik, which means "large freshwater fish" in Inuit, grew to nine feet in length and probably used its forelimbs—which were arms with short fin extremities—to raise its head to the surface to gulp air. Illustration by Shawn Gould © National Geographic Society.

If there were a Nobel Prize in paleontology it ought to go to a guy like Neil Shubin. The reason is that Shubin shows why paleontology matters. In a kickoff speech he gave tonight for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s annual meeting in Cleveland, Ohio he described that while the rural Pennsylvanian community of Dover was mandating that Intelligent Design be included in the science curriculum in 2004, he was studying a newly discovered fossil from the Canadian Arctic that illuminates one of the most profound evolutionary transitions in the history of life—the transition of fins to feet.

I won’t go into the details on Tiktaalik roseae here. You can find them well covered in National Geographic News and in the University of Chicago’s press release. But I will say here that when Shubin describes the step-by-step transition of a lungfish fin to an amphibian's arm and hand, it is hard not to see how Tiktaalik fits into the picture. This transitional sequence, with Tiktaalik filling a previously missing temporal and evolutionary gap, is evidence of the reality of evolution as compelling as those we have for horses and whales. Remember the popular pro-evolution symbol that shows a fish with the word Darwin in it and legs on it? Tiktaalik is not too different from that image; it is well on its way to becoming an evolutionary mascot.

Shubin, who works at the Field Museum and the University of Chicago, is well known at National Geographic. So is his long-time research colleague Ted Daeschler of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. They are both grantees of the Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration. When I was Art Director at National Geographic Magazine, we helped bring their 375 million-year-old fossil creatures, including Tiktaalik, back to life with the help of talented artists. I watched as Shubin and Daeschler shifted their work from comfortable Pennsylvania to the Canadian Arctic. Shubin described how bad weather frequently shut them in their tents, which were only kept from blowing away by constructing walls of boulders around them.

I caught up with Neil Shubin (left) autographing his latest book,  Your Inner Fish, at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Its great to see hard work pay off. Shubin and Daeschler knew what they were after and they found it. It is also great to see how they are merging their fossil work with cutting edge studies in developmental biology. According to Shubin, these studies are showing how the genetic machinery to make digits is present in fish fins before we ever see fingers. The results of this research are clear for open-minded people to see. One can only hope that the message will get through to the many other Dovers out there before science loses more ground.

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