Yes, and let me explain why. I hope I'll do a good job writing this. It's a result of one thing: We cannot define what a "fish" is. That's because fishes are not a monophyletic group. In taxonomy, a monophyletic group is a clade that includes an ancestor and all of its descendants. However, 'fishes' includes the vertebrate ancestor and *some* descendants but *excludes* tetrapods, even though they share the same common ancestor. To make “fish” a real clade, one would have to include all descendants of the fish ancestor, meaning amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, but that's clearly not what people mean when they say “fish.” This means there is no single scientific definition for what a "fish" is! You can say it's the definition that excludes tetrapods and be right, or you could say it includes tetrapods and still be right! If you want to be technical, yes, humans are fish because a species cannot evolve out of a clade. For example, birds are dinosaurs. When theropod dinosaurs evolved into birds, they retained most of their dinosaur traits, losing mostly just teeth, long bony tails, and some skeletal bulk. And yes, they retained the scales, not just on the feet: feathers are extremely modified scales. Here's a simple phylogenetic tree for reference: Archosauria ├── Crocodylomorpha (crocodiles and relatives) └── Dinosauria ├── Ornithischia (e.g., Triceratops) └── Saurischia ├── Sauropodomorpha (e.g., Brachiosaurus) └── Theropoda ├── Non-avian theropods (e.g., T. rex) └── Aves (birds) You can see here, Aves or Birds, descended from Theropoda, which descended from Saurischia, which came from Dinosauria, which came from Archosauria. I'm going to list a trait or two of each clade and how members of the clade after it are related Theropoda: Hollow bones, 3-toes and claws on each limb. Aves have these traits, making them theropods. Saurischia: A three-pronged pelvic structure, with the pubis pointed forward. Theropods had this, making them Saurischians* Dinosauria: Hind limbs erect beneath the body. Saurichians had this. Archosauria: Teeth in deep sockets, openings in the skull in front of the eyes and in the jaw. Dinosaurs had this. Now, hopefully I'm making sense here. Humans are related to tetrapods, which came from fish. This is what OUR phylogenetic tree looks like: Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish) └── Tetrapoda (four-limbed vertebrates) ├── Amphibia (frogs, salamanders) └── Amniota ├── Reptilia (lizards, snakes, turtles) └── Synapsida ├── Early mammal-like reptiles └── Mammalia └── Primates └── Hominidae (great apes) └── Homo └── Homo sapiens As you can see, our ancestry can be traced back to fish, or rather, a type of fish. We never left that clade, and we actually have retained a few features of lobe-finned fish! We have limbs (lobe-fins had rudimentary limbs), shoulder and pelvic girdles, the same Hox genes controlling limb development, lungs, similar pattern of bones in our skulls, ear bones (which evolved from jaw bones), and human embryos retain gill-like structures called pharyngeal arches.