found this, as it turns out, the erroneous conclusion was that it actually walked on it's fins!
I suspected that's what you meant.
This was discussed starting at
Message 4 (and the last message referencing the coelacanth was 230, but there was a lot of other stuff going on as well).
There was a long (and not terribly productive) discussion involving Robert Byers.
Message 31 from Percy is perhaps the most significant bit in relation to the current thread :
Robert Byers writes:
Whether it was Darwin or his followers it is the history that it was presented as a classic case of a creature that while a fish still had deveoped leglikes that led to its walking on the land. It was presented as proof of a intermidiate creature between land and ocean.
The idea of its extinction was a part of their theory. It didn't die out but rather evolved out. That was their great point.
Loudmouth has already replied to this, but I'd like to comment on another aspect.
It is very common for the theory of evolution to be confused with reconstructions of life's evolutionary past. Reconstructing life's history from the theory of evolution can be likened to reconstructing the solar system's history from the laws of physics. For exaple, we send out space probes to analyze the composition of asteroids, and this information allows as to modify our ideas of the origins of the asteroid belt. But as we change these ideas, the laws of physics remain unchanged.
It is the same for the theory of evolution. As we gather more evidence, our ideas about life's history, for example the evolution of the first land animals, changes. But the theory of evolution remains unchanged. Darwin formulated the theory as variability within a population. natural selection, and descent with modification, and today that is still the theory.
Confused ? You will be...