Haeckels' Drawings Part II

First, can you back this claim up?Secondly, if little or no new work was being done in comparitive embryology, then why was embrylogy used at all to substantiate evolution?It boggles the mind that creationists knew these drawings were faked for over 100 years, but evolutionists were unaware of the problem. Why were evolutionists willing to use as prima facie evidence claims that had never been properly substantiated, claims that critics disputed?Is it that evolutionists in general never took the time to verify the so-called factual evidence in support of evolution was indeed factual?It sure looks that way to me.We saw the same thing with the fossil record. For a long time the claim was the fossil record supported the slow, gradual evolution from one species to another, but they never saw that so PE was put forward in the 70s.Don't you find it odd that evolutionists were largely unaware of the actual fossil record unless they were paleontologists, and yet exhibited such dogmatism over the data, as they did over embrylogical data.Is that proper science?Are there any basic claims concerning evolution where the data is well substantiated and understood, any area of proper science being done prior the theory being believed and accepted historically?I cannot find one area. Maybe you can help me on that.

Here is the problem modulou. The work was not done. It was faked, and it really looked to me, as I reviewed the evidence initially when I was still an evolutionist, that most of the so-called evidence for evolution was in this category.About the only sound area of evidence, imo, is genetics. I don't think evolutionists really understood the fossil record for instance. They assumed it showed evolution, but unaware of even the need for Punctuated Equilibrium to deal with problems. They didn't think problems existed.Likewise, they were unaware they had been making false claims in the area of embrylology because in typical evolutionist fashion, they said it was a fact so it had to be. There was no evidence, just faked assertions. Look, I was a student when I heard the drawings were faked and could tell that they were. All one had to do was make a quick visual comparison with any available photos or accurate drawings of the same periods of development.If all evolutionists had decided to check what they were being taught, and make sure the data was correct, all of them would have known very easily the drawings were faked. I mean this is not something difficult to find out, and for a science major, grad student, post-grad, teacher, professor, etc,...I just no excuse except that thousands upon thousands, maybe millions, of evolutionists just accepted this nonsense uncritically.When a large group accepts such a basic and easily verified error as true, something is wrong, especially if the error is a matter of factual materials easily verified and the field is suppossed to be one of science.

Modoulous, your whole post falls away with one simple fact.The drawings were so far away from realiity that you didn't have to be a comparitive embryologist to know they were fakes.That's the point.Now, some of the finer points such as evaluating the claims of a phylotypic stage, I agree would be more difficult. That doesn't excuse evolutionists from claiming that as factual without ever documenting that, but the simple fact is anyone practically could have taken just a little time to learn that Haeckel's drawings were wrong if they just decided to question what they were being taught and look into it for themselves.Contrary to what you claim, people can and should review and examine what their forefathers are teaching them in science to make sure, at least the basics, are sensible. That's how good science works.Unfortunately, the ToE is not often good science.

Yaro, if I thought you were honest and man enough to really do what you claimed in the following, I would dig it back up for you. As such, I suggest you review the old thread where textbooks were listed, and where one textbook author admitted to using drawings based on Haeckel's drawings, and that most textbooks did so. Usually, the drawings just had color changed but were identical in structure and feature.These textbooks include college textbooks.If you review the old thread, you should come back and admit you were wrong, and apologize for falsely blasting me for telling you the truth.But somehow I expect you to continue to deny, deny, deny, and defend the indefensible, just like this was some sort of political campaign, refusing to admit to facts, and I think this is probably due, imo, to the indoctrination rather than education being the basic approach in getting people to believe in evolution.

Jar, saying that doesn't make it so. I provided proof, and you just stick your head in the sand and deny it.I showed you the drawings with comparisons, showed you studies, including a peer-reviewed study, detailing that the drawings were wrong, and a textbook author admitting they used the faked drawings, and stating they were not the only ones, but most textbooks used these faked drawings.You guys tried to weasal out of it by noting they used "drawings based on Haeckel's drawings" but that's still using the faked drawings. Moreover, it appears the only difference in the actual drawings were a color change and leaving out some species, at least in the ones available from the web.There is no dispute the faked drawings were used, only denial of a provable fact, which shows just how twisted the claim of adherence to real science is among folks like you denying reality.It's sad really because there should be no debate. The drawings were wrong. It's over and done with, but somehow because you don't want to deal honestly with why such fakes were used, you claim somehow that it was never established they were used in the first place, despite textbook authors admitting to it.That's sad, but typical. It's as if evolutionists started claiming the sky was orange instead of blue, and we provide photos, statements, peer-reviewed studies showing the sky is blue, but no matter what the facts, you assert otherwise.it's cult-like, if you ask me.

I have provided quite bit of evidence, but it would be helpful to review something. The older message was "ontology recapitulates phylogeney" which I believe was still taught in some form in the 50s.Haeckel's drawings were used to show that.Then, that claim was softened because it was so obviously false, but evolutionists notably used the same term "recapitulation" and the same drawings.if you cannot see the significance of that, we don't have much to talk about it.Clearly, there is no such thing as recapitulation, but evolutionists had an effective argument, even if untrue, and were not so willing to abandon it altogether, and tried to figure some way it might still be true, and tried to maintain some connection to the earlier discarded claims by using the same pictures and same term.Evolutionists, as I showed in one link on the thread, even today will sometimes use a false claim of Haeckel's and the various forms of "recapitulation" and claim that embryos have fish gills, or gill slits, or gill pouches. All of these claims are factually wrong, but the practice still continues to a degree.So here we have a blatant false claim, which every time it is shown to be false, rather than completely abandon the lie, evolutionists have tried in one form or another to resurrect the myth, sometimes even using the same faked drawings and same false term, recapitulation.That is indicative of a process more religious in nature, and pseudo-religious in nature, than scientific.

We are talking about indoctrination so in that context the textbooks and introductory teachers of evolutionists and authors that write books explaining ToE are the evolutionists, for this debate.That's not dishonesty on my part, and you need to admit to that before we move on.Note also I mentioned the use of "gill slits, gill pouches, fish gills", etc,...You guys need to read the prior thread because I already said in review that the term "pharyngeal pouches" is not a problem as the more I looked at it, it does not mean gill pouches. At one point, I had confused the term "branchial" with pharyngeal.But "gill pouches" are used to describe human embryology, and that's false, and that's what I pointed out.it's wrong to assert fish gills, gill slits, gill pouches occur in humans because that never occurs. That's a false claim but something that still crops up sometimes.

Thanks for admitting it is misleading, which has been my point all along. Keep in mind that the issue is not just whether ToE is true, but whether it is presented factually. If misleading terms, false assertions, and overstatements are what is used to convince people of evolution, that's not education, but indoctrination.Evolutionist education, if anything, should play up the criticisms of evolution, not try to hide them by false data.In doing so, they could better educate people on the actual data, and what's important here is not a right belief on evolution, but a proper understanding of what evolution is, what the data is, and what the data isn't. But that's incorrect because the structure was said to gill slits when it wasn't, or gill pouches when it wasn't, and prior to that fish gills when it wasn't. What has been used in fact are the false claims about the structure, not the structure itself.Now, maybe that is in process of being corrected finally, and that's good, but keep in mind one argument has been that such false claims were used because embrylogy was out of favor. I think that's a specious claim, but if so, then that is more evidence that the structure itself was not used, but false claims about the structure since there was little understanding of the structure itself.Regardless, the molecular evidence to try to link the parathyroid and gills is interesting, but that's not what evolutionists relied on, and is very scant and weak evidence, but could evolve until more studies providing more ammo for evolutionists, although it could just be similar design via convergent evolution or a common designer, etc,...But after all these years of faking it, it's good news to hear evolutionists are beginning to drop the fish gills, gill slits, gill pouches claims.

WK, but the issue is a little more complex. Take embryology. Evolutionists earlier claims, whether Haeckel's or the phylotypic stage, didn't pan out. These claims consisted basically of asserting that species had some sort of greater similarity as embryos at early or mid-stages than they do as adults, and that was suppossed to be the result of evolution.That claim didn't pan out despite being asserted over and over again in one form of another. There is no recapitulation in any form whatsoever.What evolutionists are left with is arguing the data is not inconsistent with evolution, but in reality, it is not inconsistent with any theory that I know of, certainly not creationism and ID.A more pointed observation is that similarities between embryos are approximately proportionate to the level of similarity exhibited by the adult forms, proportionally.This is a mjor failure of the earlier claims.Now, it doesn't really disprove evolution, but it adds no significance any more than observing that certain species share more anatomical similarities than others.Big deal.We all know that. A chimp looks more like a human than snake. So what. That does not show the ToE, except in the weak sense that it does not contradict evolution, but it does not contradict ID or creationism either.

Yaro, I am not sure either ID nor ToE, as a general principle, can be falsified. Individual scenarios can be falsified, but one can always imagine a new one along the same lines to take it's place, or just reinterpret the data.Take ToE. Evolutionists will say stuff like if human bones or artifacts are found in such and such layer, then that would indicate ToE was wrong, but such things have been found and evolutionists have explained them away, right or wrong.So in a sense, the ToE is too elastic to be falsifiable.I am not sure since I have not studied ID as much, but it may be ID is in the same camp. There may not be good way to "disprove" it since we are dealing with the past.The best we can do, imo, is to take apart and look at the individual claims of each part of the data, which is my approach, and see if the claims are true first and foremost, also understanding the assumptions that go into reviewing the data, and then try to determine of the data is exclusive evidence of one theory or another.If it is not exclusive evidence, but merely does not contradict the theory, whether ToE or ID, then people learning about the data should be taught that.Imo, people should be taught in school the truth, which is none of the evidence is exclusive evidence of ToE.Now, IDers do claim irreducible complexity is exclusive evidence against ToE, and I think they are right, but at the same time, that does not falsify common descent. It just suggests that the mechanisms for materialist evolution fall short, and that another causal agent is involved to overcome the limitations of what normally would occur with mutations and natural selection without any intelligent manipulation of the process.So in a sense, ID is very broad, like evolution, and may not be easily falsifiable.To posit this is a problem, when ToE has had the same characteristics although that could be changing, is the pot calling the kettle black.

accidental double-post edited outThis message has been edited by randman, 08-03-2005 04:17 PM

Are you claiming changes in evolutionary phylogenies falsify the entire ToE?On the whale example, if evolutionists decided the data best fit with fish to whale transitions, they would argue that, yes. Of course, it would mean a major change in their phylogenies, but it would not change the ToE one whit.Moreover, there are no series of fossils that show whales evolving from anything but whales.There are fossils of remarkably different species that evolutionists piece together to make the claim that whales evolved from them, but they do not actually show whales evolving. They are simply theorized steps with the vast majority of in-between species not shown at all, assuming they exist.As such, claims in whale evolution rely more on unseen data than actual data.If you disagree, here is a challenge which evolutionists should easily be able to answer if they really understood the process.How many different species do you think it would take to evolve a land mammal to whales, and how many mutations and differences is it reasonable to expect?Please document that.For example, we can quantisize the differences between whales and land animals. Then, we can develop a theory as to what a single occurence of a mutation or group of mutations at once could realistically change in a single creature and then that species. Prior to that, we should consider how much variation could be produced without mutation.Then, we could have an effective model of how that mutation with other selected traits could develop a new species. I would think examining new species produced via breeding would help.So one would be assessing the level of differences that could be produced in one "step" or speciation event, and then show how many speciation events would be necessary to evolve a land mammal to a whale.Have evolutionists done this?If so, how many such speciation events, or "steps", did it take to evolve the first genuine whale?Please provide the answer.Next, how many actual species that could reasonably fit into this step have been found?For example, let's say it would take 3000 species to evolve an early land mammal to a land mammal close to being whale-like and then eventually to a full-fledged whale.What percentage of those 3000 steps have been discovered, and what percentage is it actually reasonable before we say the process has taken place?Let's say we claim if 33% of the steps are shown, it is reasonable to fill in the rest.Are there 1000 different species showing the transition?Has this kind of comprehensive analysis even been done?Imo, until this kind of analysis is completed, the whale evolution account might as well be fictional. To claim otherwise strikes me as a vast overstatement.

So you are saying you don't have evidence in the fossil record showing the actual transitions, not even a close percentage.

Are you claiming the visible spectrum evolved?If not, your question is not germane. All I am asking for is a reasonable assessment of how land mammals transitioned to whales. If you don't know, just admit it.My understanding is that new mutations would need to develop into an entire population, perhaps via a group being separated from the rest of other means, and that this group would develop enough differences to effectively be a different species, and eventually different enough to rule out any sexual reproduction with the former population.How many speciation events of this type do evolutionists posit to evolve land mammals to whales?If they don't know, why not?Are they really that much in the dark about the process?

So evolutionists via that thread present so-called "numerous transitional forms", eh?But what they are really doing is saying a creature fits in-between land mammals and whales, and then despite perhaps thousands of missing steps between the so-called transitional forms, they then claim the fossil record shows evolution? And you call that real science?Amazing.Why not educate the public on the reality. Of the the actual thousands or hundreds or whatever evolutionists thing of speciation events that need to occur, evolutionists have at best found a few, and at worst are assuming the few they found are intermediates based on a fictional account not shown in the fossil record.Clearly, there is not even a majority of the speciation events shown, and not even a good, few speciation events shown in succession that I can see.A reasonable alternative explanation is the fossil record does not show such speciation events because they did not occur.Can evolutionists, even in the handful of intermediaries they claim, well, even among those, can they show they actually evolved?For example, can they show the species before and after each one of these handfuls to at least show the species evolved from a prior species into another?In other words, can they even show demonstrably one single step of the hundreds or perhaps thousands needed?And if they cannot do that, how can they claim the fossil record is supportive of evolution except in the most general sense.ToE seems more a conjecture based on lack of evidence than real data.