Why are Haeckel's drawings being taught in school?

The fact the drawings were still in textbooks as late as 1998 and maybe even today is an indication, to me, of a basic delusion or dishonesty in the way evolution is taught and believed.It is deceptive, and imo, most of the way evolution is presented relies on overstatements and "fudged facts" and casts serious doubt on the credibility of it's proponents, especially in light of their defense of the use of such drawings.Btw, I am not arguing there is no evidence for common descent (ToE), just that it is characterized as much by indoctrination as education.

It is actually more of a misrepresentation. If they had not known the drawings were faked, one could say they were ignorant, but here they acknowledge the drawings were faked, but then try to use the same drawings and get away with it by stating they are not backing the same ideas!Moreover, they don't even admit that their drawings are faked, but say they are "based on Haeckel's drawings." So they know the drawings are faked, but try to get away with using them by admitting the originals were faked (sort of bypassing the fact thier drawings are nearly identical), and by stating that they are advancing a different idea.This shows what I have noticed for a long time, that evolutionists in general, at least those advancing the topic to the public, are loathe to give up on data, even if fake, when it "works" to convince people.The bottom line is the drawings they used are faked, and thus convey a false impression.Also, in terms of the evidence, I think Haeckel's ideas would have merit had universal common descent occurred. Universal common descent predicted a linear adding on of traits, and thus according to Haeckel predicted that later developed species would pass through the same stages.But the prediction did not hold true.Unfortunately, rather than own up to the significance of this failed prediction of evolutionary theory, evolutionists maintained a scaled-down version of the same, and used the same faked drawings to advance the idea for over 100 years.That's the facts.

I addressed your point.You claim that since the argument is true, and not Haeckel's argument, it is OK to use his faked drawings to argue the true point.You illustrate exactly the type of delusional thinking I am talking about, which has no place in a proper scientific discussion.The use of faked evidence for any argument should never be acceptable.It is though acceptable to you because you rationalize it much in the same way certain religious fanatics and cultists rationalize wrong-doing "for the cause."You don't see it, but you are essentially arguing the ends justifies the means, and I am arguing that in science, the means leads to the ends, and if the means is corrupt, then so is the end conclusion in alll likelihood.That's why I don't come out and argue and present a grand theory, but choose to look at all the evidence, each piece at a time, and try not to let foregone conclusions affect my assessment of the evidence. I suggest you do the same.This message has been edited by randman, 06-21-2005 05:43 PM

I would challenge that assertion.First, Haeckel in my opinion had a good point. He did not think we should expect more different embryonic development for more different species, but that we would repeat the earlier forms' development. His prediction was wrong, but his logic that universal common descent predicted that has merit.Secondly, how is your prediction any different than saying creatures that resemble each other fully developed probably share some resemblance at the embryonic stage? Basically, this is not really evidence for universal common descent because there is no real predictive element here, and universal common descent does not exclusively explain this.The fact that a pig is somewhat similar to a human in anatomy, for example, is a real fact, but it is nothing more than an observation. To say evolution predicts this observation is somewhat deceptive, especially since evolutionary theory for many predicted something different.But this goes to the heart of much of evolutionary dogma. Evolutionists insist that similarities are evidence for universal common descent, and cannot support anything else. This is asserted dogmatically over and over again.Nevertheless, we see that even with the camp of ToE, great degrees of similarities are produced via convergent evolution, according to evolutionists, and thus similarities as detailed as the 3 ear bones may not actually be evidence for common descent, but convergent evolution theoritically.Furthermore, common authorship could just as easily be what creates the similarities as universal common descent.Imo, evolutionists refuse to acknowledge other commonalities that could play a role in producing similarities.

Well Ned, just because you'd like to know something does not entitle you to divert the conversation, now does it?The fact is the drawings are admittedly faked. You admitted that on the other thread and admitted it was wrong to use them.Are you changing your mind on that?As far as what was wrong with them, I included links detailing that, but since my point is made regardless of what was wrong with them, I see no point in diverting the conversation down that path.In terms of predictions, the same holds true. Haeckel's predictions did not hold true. Because it does shed light on my point, I will include a quote on that to help illustrate how his ideas were wrong, and why he felt evolutionary theory predicted that he would be correct. http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/icon4haeckel.htmlThe reduction from passing through the same stages to "common features" imo is a significant area where predictions of universal common descent failed.In fact, I consider the following statement from the same web-site to be essentially a leap of faith on the part of evolutionists. The leap to make developmental features that develop into entirely different organs "homologous" is unfounded, imo, as is the claim of "the patterns of bones in adult limbs."First, such similarities according to evolutionists do evolve independently and thus show common descent is not necessary to explain these similarities.Secondly, similarities could just be the result of a common design embedded by a common Creator. The idea that these similarities are strong evidence, or central evidence, for evolution just illustrates how weak the evidence for universal common descent actually is.This message has been edited by randman, 06-21-2005 06:04 PMThis message has been edited by randman, 06-21-2005 06:05 PM

You mean after the fact, don't you. Because a great many people expected common descent to show the biogenetic law.Your claim they follow the same structure expected from universal common descent really does not hold any water since evolutionists just changed their expectations after many held to a different prediction.But here, I'll give you something that could be evidence for common descent, not conclusive evidence, but at least leaning that direction. If universal common descent is true, then embryos from species closer in relatedness but not closer in adult anatomy should be closer in embryonic development.In other words, let's say 2 species look more similar due to convergent evolution, but they are not. You should be able to compare the embryos with the species that look different but are considered closer genetically, and they should be much more similar than the embryos that are farther apart.Now, to see if this prediction holds true, we should look at a wide group, and compare them, or see if anyone has done that.Of course, one could argue that similarity in convergent evolution also produces similarity in the enbryos, and if you accept that, then you have to discount the similarities in the embryos as necessarily showing common descent.Or, you could also argue that genetic similarity does not show genetic relatedness, but let's don't go there for now since that raises the issue of creationism probably.

PaulK, look at the drawings. The only differences I can see are the fact the web-site adds color to the drawings.

I know you don't see this, but you are saying the end "no harm" justifies the fabrication, hence "no foul."That's not a lie. I am showing you the truth.What you fail to realize is you believe there is no harm done because you believe they are telling the truth. You think, well, the "drawings are not that bad", but they are that bad. They were created to give a false impression by overstating the similarities, and imo, that is bad all on it's own.if you think the evolutionist point here is bunk anyway, as I do, then you doubly think a "foul" has been done. The use of such images is taking away the ability of the generally less knowledgeable person presented with that evidence to objectively consider of the evidence really says what you say it does.Personally, I don't think the level of embryonic similarities indicates common descent at all. I am not saying it is evidence necessarily against common descent, but it certainly is not really strong evidence for it. I would characterize what I have seen thus far as fairly neutral.

You see no reason because you don't want to see any reason. The drawings are virtually identical to Haeckel's drawings in their form.The errors are false shapes, dimensions, the interchange of one creature's embryos for another, etc,...But why bother, PaulK? This is more of a matter of faith with you, it seems to me, that a matter of degrees of evidence.

Not sure what you mean there, but in general your post was long an assertion and short on facts.Let me tell you what I think is a common sense approach. Mainstream publishers of biology textbooks, professors and other evolutionists, including their students were surprised, in 1997, to learn that Haeckel's drawings in their textbooks were faked.What does that tell me?That the vast majority, probably including those here, never really challenged the evidence presented and looked into it for themselves.Repeating the assertion does not show you really looked into it.I looked into it for myself when challenged (I believed in universal common descent at the time), and knew a long time before 1997 that this was bogus use of data.Why should I accept the assertions of a community that did not do that, and was thus surprised at this in 1997?

OK then, back this point up in a way that is meaningful. I have an idea on how you could show this in a way that would be meaningful. Specifically, can you show (and I don't really know if you can so this is not a rhetorical question), that there is greater similarity in embryonic development between species that are considered genetically more closely related but anatomically or outwardly more different than species that share similar appearance.There are species that look similar ostensibly due to convergent evolution but which are considered farther apart genetically and listed as diverging from a common ancestor further back.It would be interesting to see if comprehensive embryonic studies actually support your views here or not, and to what degree they support standard evolutionist claims. Do species that are considered closer related genetically actually share more similarities in embryonic development with species that are farther apart but share enough similarities to illustrate that common descent is actually a factor in embryonic similarities.That would be some real evidence. Of course, that alone is not conclusive, but it is interesting to me that what we have seen are things like Haeckel's drawings and exagerrating the similarities and not the sort of comprehensive studies that should have been done 100 years ago, if we are to consider the whole thing real science.Are there such studies?

PaulK, if you want to switch the topic to the issue of whether embryos show common descent, we can, but that's a different topic.Some of the more nauseating assertions of evolutionists can easily be found googling some terms, such as the following which came up tonight. http://www.txtwriter.com/...rounders/Evolution/EVpage11.htmlThe above is basic deception, but I dount the author realizes it. He was taught the same lies as we all were.But regardless,1. Humans never have gill slits during their embryonic development. The areas evolutionists claimed were gill slits were just the area of cells that develop into the ear and area around there.2. Humans never have a long bony tail. What evolutionists tried to pass off as a tail is just our backbone being formed. True, there is "some" similarity to the human backbone and tails, but that is hardly evidence of common descent.I could go on and bash just about every paragraph of that site in this area, but it is nauseating, and more disturbingly so because so many accept at face value the incredible level of outright "just-so" dogmatic assertions passed off as real data.This message has been edited by randman, 06-22-2005 02:29 AMThis message has been edited by randman, 06-22-2005 02:59 AM

Wrong. My assertions concerned Haeckel's drawings as fakes, and I backed that up. An accidental oversight which I will see if I can find the link. Just unbelievable. What more can I say? I suppose the addition "like a fish" to describe the "gill slits" was entirely appropiate as well?No, they are not gill slits even if evolutionists want to call them that. Moreover, evolutionists when I was taught evolution never told us, hey, these "gill slits" are not really gill slits. We just call them that because we stupidly thought they were gill slits at one time.To the contrary, they assert they are gill slits indeed "like a fish."http://www.txtwriter.com/...rounders/Evolution/EVpage11.htmlThis message has been edited by randman, 06-22-2005 03:00 AM

Sorry dude, but calling that area gill slits "like a fish" is just deception, plain and simple.Same with most of your post. That's too bad as well.For example, I posted links showing Haeckel's drawings and the web-site's drawings, and one can easily see the "drawings based on Haeckel's drawings" are actually essentially his drawings with color added. You choose to ignore that evidence, and yet dare call me a malicious liar.Why are you lying here and claiming I did not show how those drawings were false? This is the second time I stated clearly they are the same form but with color added.Why didn't you just look at the pics themselves?Did you look at them and choose to lie or what?

PaulK, you are being completely unreasonable. It is a name only for evolutionists. It's not the medical term for that area, is it?Evolutionists duped themselves with the biogenetic law, which was false, and then refuse to drop the gill slits name, not because it stuck so much, but because they refuse to come clean and admit that humans never do have gill slits.The name did not "stick." What stuck was the deception of trying to teach kids and the public that human embryos have "gill slits like a fish" when they clearly do not.It's not some semantic misunderstanding but a basic and seemingly inherent dishonesty within the evolutionist community.On justifying the means, you erroneously claim the use of false images is harmless. Calling them harmless is wrong, imo, and a form of justifying the use of faked images. Your thinking is that they are harmless because they illustrate a true concept, not Haeckel's, but that's false too because first off, they do not illustrate something true at all, and secondly, even if they had, by using faked images to create a false impresssion, the student is robbed of the ability to view the evidence for themselves.It's inherently wrong and deceptive all the way around and far from "harmless."This message has been edited by randman, 06-22-2005 04:00 AM