I WONDERED if it was really worth replying to Basil Coates’ extraordinary letter in the SNJ, it is so utterly full of misconception and false statements.

What has caused me to write is his statement that ‘no one has ever found a fish with legs that enabled it to leave the water for land’.

There are indeed extant species of fish that are capable of travelling some distance over land, using their fins, but more to the point, there is a whole series of fossils that show the development of limbs to the extent that the end product shows a distinct resemblance to amphibians.

The most famous of this chain is Tiktaalik, discovered in 2004 by Shubin, Daeschler and Jenkins.

This creature is a fish which has definite precursors of legs.

The bones of these limbs have an arrangement typical of all four-limbed creatures that have descended since the emergence on land – bones analagous to our upper arm (a single bone), forearm (a pair of bones), then a mass of bones represented in us by wrists and ankles, fingers and toes.

I suggest Mr Coates reads Neil Shubin’s own account of Tiktaalik, and the whole development of limbs in fish, in his very readable book Your Inner Fish -–the amazing discovery of our 375 million year old ancestor. Pronouncements of scientists are generally supported by evidence.

Any good scientist will abandon a hypothesis if clear evidence to the contrary is produced but Mr Coates’ letter contains no reference to evidence, merely assertion.

Roger Plenty

Rodborough Hill