i just met the guy who discovered this -- Neil Shubin! Basically, it was a transitional link when we came out of the water the first time about 370 million years ago. he described his trips to the arctic to search for it and was a great lecturer! he had us all laughing too.
i just can't imagine making such an important and sought after find such as that transitional fossil. after the lecture you go to a hall for refreshments and you get to meet him face to face. i had so many questions, but restrained myself and we got into a very interesting discussion about the fossil record and how the transitional fossils are predicted before they're found which continuously reaffirms and strengthens evolution. talked a bit about dawkins (who he's met and admires) and different paleontological references.
i was also thinking how utterly insulting, ignorant, and rude it is for those people (and there are so many of them) to discredit Darwin, not with facts, but with brainwashing, lies, and propaganda. it's so obvious once you pick up one small book on evolution that it is an astoundingly systematic and convincing theory and it makes this world seem so much more interesting and makes so much more sense! it's really a travesty of justice. i know, there really is no justice, but it's annoying.
of course someone had to ask about intelligent design and said, "what do you think about that?" he comically looked at his watch as if he was going to rant (which got a good laugh), but was very gracious about it saying, "i believe in falsifiability and testing. i don't give much time to things that don't have those important factors." another person asked a question, "don't you feel guilty and have trouble sleeping at night knowing in your heart that this isn't the way life came to land?" he quickly dispensed with that one by saying, "Tiktaalik wasn't the first life on land. There were plants and Arthropods. Next question?"
all in all, a night to remember. :) i saw my old boss there and wdb loved it too (zoology being a specialty of hers and now evolution too).