“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin
Description: How disabled people have adapted to reach enormous success and how everyone can learn from them at work, at home and in life.
Hypothesis: Successful people with disabilities (our walking fish) hold specific, quantifiable, describable learned attributes through their disabled experiences which are the keys to their success. The scientific term for this is developmental plasticity.
Structure: The Walking Fish Project highlights the stories of amazing and inspirational disabled people and the science that supports their ability to adapt. The project further shows how these adaptable behaviors are the key for everyone in our current rapidly changing environment.
Formats: The Walking Fish Project is a web site, YouTube channel, book, documentary, lesson plan, and so much more.
Q: What are walking fish?*
A: Fish that are able to travel over land for extended periods of time. Mudskippers have adapted to be able to spend days at a time moving out of water and even climbing mangrove trees. They carry water in their gill chambers in order to breathe, similar in method but exactly opposite of how humans use scuba gear to breathe under water. In addition to walking, they also eat and court on land. This adaptation has allowed them to gather extra resources and obtain additional space, two gravely important factors in the art of survival.
- Fish That Walk” (National Geographic) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLh4ODMBGJE
Evolution has shown us that humans evolved from fish and other animals that have survived have adapted to the changes in their environment. Now current researchers at McGill University showed that Polypterus, current walking fish, make significant behavioral and biological adaptations in just 8 months when placed in a terrestrial environment. “Stressful environmental conditions can often reveal otherwise cryptic anatomical and behavioral variation, a form of developmental plasticity,” says Emily Standen, at the University of Ottawa, who led the project (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7516/full/nature13708.html)
- Walking fish reveal how our ancestors evolved onto land” (McGill University) -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu0LMnT9S4k&feature=youtu.be
* Please refer to our list of successful people with disabilities.
“The opportunity of adversity” (Aimee Mullins TED Talk) -http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_the_opportunity_of_adversity?language=en
The Walking Fish Project 