I just happened to stumble across this 20-minute video of a lecture by
Abby Hafer, who describes an animal which is the embodiment of
evolutionary iconography:
<
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f31AoXFAWls>
A mudskipper needs no arguments about historical contingency, or
genetics, or selection pressures, or Rorschach-test fossils, or even
the multiplication rule of probability. Instead, its existence, and
the facts of its existence, are irrefutable:
1) It's a fish.
2) It has legs.
3) It climbs trees.
4) It spends most of its time on land.
5) It breathes air.
6) It lays, broods, and hatches its eggs, on land.
Since nobody, including the anti-reptiles-grow-feathers crowd, can
post the calculations which identify the genetics of reptiles growing
feathers, it's pointless to even raise that example. Instead, far
better to focus on something which actually exists, like a mudskipper,
and by doing so moots derivative issues.
Assuming the anti-reptiles-grow-feathers crowd also incorporates the
anti-fish-grow-legs crowd, perhaps one of them will reconcile his
denial with the existence of mudskippers.
--
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Attributed to Voltaire