Charles Darwin proposed a theory that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry in The Origin of Species through a process he coined natural selection. Since its publication in 1859, this theory of evolution has been one of the most hotly contested theories in the history of science. A recent ancient eel discovery is the latest example of why.

In February of 2009, research diver Jiro Sakaue, descending into a dark fringing reef cave in the Pacific Ocean Republic of Palau, discovered a small unusual eel-like fish. The species of the fish has since been named Protaguillae palau. Prot(o) means prototype, first, or original, guilla means eel (a shortened form of Anguilliformes - an order of fish) with palau referring to the discovery location.

The problem for the theory of evolution centers on the fact that this species has continued to exist even though it is recognized as a prototype – the first and most primitive form of the species. According to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, though, as the original species begin to evolve, extinction of the “less improved and intermediate forms of life” should follow. Darwin explains in The Origin of Species:

We have seen that it is the common, the widely diffused, and widely ranging species, belonging to the larger genera within each class, which vary most; and these tend to transmit to their modified off spring that superiority which now makes them dominant in their own countries. Natural selection, as has just been remarked, leads to divergence of character and to much extinction of the less improved and intermediate forms of life.

Darwin’s even infers this concept in the full title of The Origin of Species–The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of the Favoured Races in the Struggle of Life. Accordingly, the favored races are to be preserved while the “less improved and “intermediate forms of life” are not. Darwin explains:

The theory of natural selection is grounded on the belief that each new variety and ultimately each new species, is produced and maintained by having some advantage over those with which it comes into competition; and the consequent extinction of less-favoured forms almost inevitably follows.

For Darwin, “extinction and natural selection go hand in hand” and one “must suppose that there is a power, represented by natural selection or the survival of the fittest, always intently watching each slight alteration … until a better is produced, and then the old ones to be all destroyed.” Extinction is an integral aspect of natural selection.

If Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true, then, the proto-eel should have become extinct, but it didn’t. The evidence for the continued existence of the ancient proto-eel clearly undermines Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

The scientific report of the finding, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society on-line in August headed by G. David Johnson of the Smithsonian Institute, was entitled A ‘living fossil’ eel (Anguilliformes: Protanguillidae, fam. nov.) from an undersea cave in Palau. The comparative morphology and genetic report notes the problem in the opening sentence:

We report the discovery of an enigmatic, small eel-like fish from a 35 m-deep fringing-reef cave in the western Pacific Ocean Republic of Palau that exhibits an unusual suite of morphological characters.

The discovery is certainly enigmatic for a number of reasons. Johnson notes that it is “even more primitive than the oldest known fossil eels”, yet still in existence. Since evolutionists estimate that the family of eels arrived over 200 million years ago, the proto-eel finding demonstrates evidence for stasis, not evolution.

John McCosker, chair of Aquatic Biology at the California Academy of Sciences, sums up the evolution enigma:

The analysis they have performed using morphology and genetics is brilliant and invites as many questions about eel evolution as it solves.

In other words, the eel discovery is a problem for the Darwin’s theory of natural selection. The scientific evidence from morphology and genetics has created an even greater insurmountable problem for the theory of evolution. What should have become part of the fossil record has been swimming around presumably unchanged for over 200 million years. In other words, Protaguillae palau spontaneously came out of the box functioning in perfection. That’s not evolution.

With evidence like this, professors Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini in the book What Darwin Got Wrong have been driven to conclude that “Darwin’s theory of natural selection is fatally flawed. Not only is flawed, even the concept of natural selection is simply an ‘intentional fallacy’.”

Michael Ruse agrees, “the truth is that there is virtually nothing today in evolutionary studies that corresponds to the facts of the Origin.” Even Jerry Coyne of Chicago University Evolution and Ecology Department has been driven to conclude:

We conclude—unexpectedly—that there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak.

Reflecting on the significance of this ancient evolution defying eel, is reason to consider the wisdom of Mark Twain:

Loyalty to petrified opinion never once broke a chain or freed a human soul.

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