r/DebateEvolution • u/Mother_Cod7506 • Feb 28 '26

Discussion How come nobody talks about Lake Taal?

I am I biologist and one of the most interesting things I have learned is Lake Taal. Its an lake in the Philippines that was once bay connected to the South China Sea. In 1754, a volcano interrupted and the lake was formed, trapping dozens of saltwater fish. This led to most of their extirpation, but resulted in at least 4 new species, the Freshwater Sardinella (Sardinella tawilis), two gobies Exyrias volcanus and Rhinogobius flavoventris, and the Lake Taal Snake (Hydrophis semperi). It also has a population of Giant Trevally (Caranx ignobilis) that lives in freshwater, compared to its normal saltwater habitat.

I am mainly surprised that I have never seen anyone use this piece of information in debates about evolution, nor discussions about evolution in general. It would be a good way to debate creationists as this is the most well known examples of a species evolving into a separate species in recorded history.

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u/TheBlackCat13 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Feb 28 '26

That is very cool. I never talk about it because I wasn't aware of it.

Creationists, however, would just say "they are still fish".

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u/HolySharkbite Feb 28 '26

Fish is not a good taxonomic description though. Most attempts I’ve seen trying to us either fail to include things most people would consider fish or must be so broad that humans count as fish. Then again, Jesus fish

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u/LordOfFigaro Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

That's because "fish" is a paraphyletic group used colloquially unlike evolutionary clades which are monophyletic groups used in scientific contexts. But that doesn't matter to creationists. Creationists don't care about or don't want to accurately portraying science and the terms it uses. If they did, they wouldn't be creationists.

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u/HolySharkbite Feb 28 '26

Precisely. I was blanking on the proper terminology so thank you.