Why are Haeckel's drawings being taught in school?

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?

I don't see that I am justifying a fabrication because I am not. I am not even justifying the usage of Haeckel's drawings. My argument is that it was a harmless error.And even if I had it would not be claiming that the ends justify the means since I did not invoke the end as a justificaton at all. THat was an invention on your part.So considering that I did not attempt to justify the use of the drawings (I stated that it was wrong) and that I did not invoke the ends at all (I pointed out that there was no evidence of harm and no reason to suspect that any significant harm had been done) - the claim that I am saying that the ends justify the means is doubly false. A complete fabrication on your part.The fact that you haven't even bothered to find out what the actual inaccuracies are only emphasises the point that honest examination of the evidence isn't what you have in mind. What you want to do is to reject a valid use of the evidence from embryology (which is presented in more recent books with photographs - not Haeckel's drawings). And rather than doing so in a fair way you are doing so on a "guilt be association" argument.

Instead of making vague noises perhaps you would like to idnetify ACTUAL errors in the ACTUAL drawings under discussion ?I'm just not prepared to assume that scientists are being dishonest without actual evidence - rather than the word of someone who appears to be a malicious liar.

"Malicious Liar" we can do without. You may instead point out a very specific clear error.I would also like to see more careful use of subtitles. We are way beyond "from another thread" right now.

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

I didn't ask to switch the topic. I simply want you to back up your assertions.As to your quote, I note that you don't provide a source. If you googled it you could easily have produced a link. Nevertheess I will comment on your point 11) Human embryos do have "gill slits" in that that is an accepted name for the structure. The name is based on an error (although an understandable one - the external appearance is very similar) but nevertheless it has stuck.I would have to investigate point 2 further before commenting

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

As I'm sure you know the drawings under discussion are NOT Haeckel's - they are only based on Haeckel's. You claim that they have errors (but then you even claimed that they were Haeckel's) so lets see the evidence.As to the point you find "unbelievable" it is entirely true, and I notice that you don't actually dispute anything I said - preferring instead to attack things that you suggest that I would say.And equally unfortunately for you, the structure labelled "gill slits" does occur in fish and human embryos. The name may be bad, but it is far from the only case where an error was made in the early stages of science and "stuck" (a well known example is the flow of electic current - what is really flowing is electrons, but earlier scientists made a bad choice, so the direction of current flow is the opposite of the electron flow).

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?

No, there are no lies in my post (unlike your claim that I was trying to change the subject).As I have stated the name "gill slits" was a mistake that stuck. I never said that "like a fish" was correct (although "like a fish embryo" wouldn't be too bad).And it isn't lying to say that you haven't shown how the drawings are wrong because you haven't. That's why I keep asking you to explain what exactly you think is wrong with the - and why it is evidence of deliberate deception.Meanwhile you can tell me how it can be the case that I was using "the end justifies the means" reasoning when I didn't claim that the "means" were justified and never raised the issue of the purpose. I want to know how you can justify such a blatant falsehood.

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

I posted the following in the other thread, I'll repeat it here:Haeckel did not "fake" his drawings. They're not particularly accurate and he did emphasise those features he wanted to draw attention to, and reduce other features he wanted to draw attention away from. And, what's more, he freely admits in the introduction to the second edition that he has done so. Haeckel argues that this is true of any and all diagrams and he has a point - you don't include oily stains on a diagram of an engine, for example.Drawing inaccurately is different from faked, and different from fraud. Schematic diagrams are different from faked, and different from fraud.Personally, I think it's a shame they are still used so often, photos will demonstrate the point just as well and without any dificulties of 'ariststs interpretation' (which, in fact, is what the textbook I studied from at school did).By way of analogy, this is a map of the underground, allowing you to compare the "real" map to the schematic one shown everywhere. The standard map bears strikingly little resemblance to the actual positions of things yet it is neither faked nor fraudulent.

To the best of my knowledge term "gill slits" was introduced in early embryologial studies. Certainly before Haeckel.And the fact is that it was evolutionists that rejected the biogenetic "law". Not such great dupes after all, then.So yet again we see more evidnece of your malice in your determination to turn everything into evidence of "dishonesty".On ends and means your explanation is that I did not state that it was actually justified only that it caused no harm. A point that you have yet to rebut. Nor have you offered any reason to suppose that they teach another point which is false. And most importantly you cannot offer anywhere where I said that teaching any other point was a valid reason for using Haeckel's drawings rather than more accurate ones ! Like I said the whole idea was a complete fabrication on your part.