Edgar Nernberg is a creationist. And he won't let a little thing like discovering a crucial link in the evolutionary chain change his mind.
Nernberg unearthed a perfectly preserved school of fossilized fish while digging a new basement in northwest Calgary, Alberta, the University of Calgary reports. He had a feeling he'd discovered something special.
Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist at the school, confirmed that the five fossil fish are 60 million years old. There are few complete fossils from that time period, so the fish are an influential tool in helping scientists show how animals evolved after dinosaurs went extinct.
"These fossil fish are important because they are very primitive representatives of a large group of bony fish known today," she said.
Nernberg, however, thinks evolution is a sham. He lobbies to have creationism included in school syllabi and sits on the Big Valley Creation Science Museum's board of directors.
The museum's website says its exhibits "refute the lie of evolution." Visitors can check out a display about dinosaurs and humans, which purportedly disproves that dinosaurs went extinct long before humans lived on Earth.
Paleontologists' feedback on the fossils hasn't changed Nernberg's mind about evolution, he told the Calgary Sun.
"We all have the same evidence," he told the paper, "and it’s just a matter of how you interpret it."
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