Dr. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz), a science professor at Dunsford University, receives delivery of a coelacanth. A student, Jimmy (Troy Donahue), asks Blake if the fish is really a million years old. Blake replies, "It's the species that's old. No change in millions of years. See, the coelacanth is a living fossil, immune to the forces of evolution". Blake lectures his students about evolution and Devolution (biology), telling them that man is the only creature that can decide whether to move forwards or backwards, and that "unless we learn to control the instincts we've inherited from our ape-like ancestors, the race is doomed".