Why are Haeckel's drawings being taught in school?

Peppered Moths sometimes rest on tree trunks, but it isn't their usual resting place. (Wells knew that but still sometimes tries to deny it).But picture this. You have camera equipment from the 1950s.
You want to compare the appearance of two moths against bark - and nothing more.
Do you go around climbing trees with delicate photographic equipment hoping to find two moths in a good position that will stay put or do you stage a shot ?Bear in mind that staging a shot will be a LOT easier and will probably produce a better result.And if you stage a shot its a lot easier to use dead moths pinned to the trunk (apparently the pins are visible in the better reproductions).Theres really no dishonesty here - just practical steps taken to produce a good photographic illustration.If anyone is being dishonest it is the creationists who use this as the basis of false accusations of fraud.

I have two A level/First year degree Biology text books to hand.On the subject of Haeckel, Roberts 3rd Ed (1982) (shows how long ago I was at school) says:

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Although embryology can be indispensible in establishing phylogenetic relationships, there has been a tendency in the past to take it too far. Thus Ernst Haeckel suggested that during its embryological development an organism repeats its ancestral history...There is a grain of truth in thus: the presence of branchial grooves and segmental myotomes in the human embryo, for example, bears witness to a fish ancestry. But it is quite wrong to assume that an animal literally 'climbs up its family tree' during its development.

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Translation - Haeckel was wrong.Campbell - Third Ed. (1993)

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"...many embryologists in the late nineteenth century proposed the extreme view that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"....The theory of recapitulation is an overstatement. What recapitulation does occur is a replay of embryonic stages, not a sequence of adultlike stages of ever more advanced vertebrates. Although vertebrates share many features of embryonic development, it is not as though a mammal first goes through a "fish stage", then an "amphibian stage" and so on."

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Same conclusion.Can you post corresponding parts of the textbooks you accuse of fraud on this issue so that we can examine them?[This message has been edited by Karl, 05-16-2003]

...and that's how it will always be with Creationist ('scientific' or otherwise) because what they state is true is not based upon evidence but upon revelation.Revelation just is. It doesn't have to agree with anything like physical evidence. Creationists start with their revelation and then try to shoehorn the evidence in to it, no matter what the stripe of Creationist.------------------
"Evolution is a 'theory', just like gravity. If you don't like it, go jump off a bridge."

Much (inaccurate) information about what textbooks teach and/or include is found in Jonathon Wells' book, Icons of Evolution (including the peppered moth info, Haeckel's embryos, the Urey-Miller experiment, etc). The NCSE site has a great response by Alan Gishlick, detailing each "icon," why Wells' characterizations are innacurate, what is actually contained in the textbooks Wells criticized, and how Wells scored each book.You can find it here: http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/

What I was not saying was what Ernt Mayr admitted as to the "stomach" or gut in relation to the "tree" of Haeckel which on a view of embryology Mayr was not able to disuade himself of even AFTER trying. I have not picked apart the meat in Gould's book but he may have avoided this problem that is really about the continutiy of genetic connection despite that a "revoltion" of the perspective from the genes is going on. I do not understand Paulk on what is more serious than this as this was first (aside from a protocol of topobiology for instance to which another Harvard guy Lewontin begged off on etc)made in materiality by a Cornell scientist on leave to Europe to try to CATEGORICALLY stop creationism by basis of drawable phylogenies onto molecular evidence to which Gould not so smartly seperated phsyscial and mathematical effects by postulating a token time tremeor of discontinuity in all probalisms.When I was reading my Grandfather's note books from his (graduate?) Zoology class at Urbana I got the impression that the "soft" parts COULD NOT be distiguished from Hackel's notion of the this part of anatomy but that the work on homeobox and molecular embryology to which Gould also removes himself textually from may have gain said this earlier education of biologists. For a time I had thought that I would have to stick with the fluke of my grandfater's own hand drawings of dissections when it came to the real biological difference I have with discussing what I have seen in the difference of heads of herps and fish (not what I have seen as the same)which would have relied on Haeckel to an extent maybe only ecological it is hard to say.The web had chaged this. The discussion on ICR forum established in my mind a way to avoid Haeckel electronically but I was not sure how to until quite a few posts down the c/e rabbit trails etc etc.The amazement however needs to extend to a discussion of lower vertebrate relations of upper and lower jaws, ears etc. I do think that maybe horned toads spikes and toad warts are used by the lower verts to transition longitudianl waves into transverse to the typanmum but then one would have to really/actually look at snakes and salamanders IN THE SAME COMAPARATIVE way to be rigorus which I do not. The closeness of anatomical proximit and different taxa creates the problem but this IS THE JOB of the systematists to which I thought I had a job in. I am not longer amazed but I need to use TWO arguments and not one in order to be conviceing but I have NEVER even got one to work on the web so it is still not possible for me to reveal everythin I know I have read.You need for instance to be very concerned about for instance why salamders have only ONE and frogs have TWO nerves into the ear. And I have not touched the issue of the claimed change which is seen in human youngs. I also have not thought about this for about two months so I do not have the whole gory details on my toungue tip. You need to interpret homones witout only saying "instinct". THIS IS BIOLOGY and I am glad your son was impressed for that is what starts one's interest in a given taxonomic group.So I agree to the similiarity but the PROBLEM part comes in when you try to do more sicence agreeing with what your eyes APPEAR to indicate, and now there is a standard evolutionary apprecation which is no different than notions such as "genes for horns" to explian tiatotheres across geo-horizons or one could remand a better statistical significance before concluding in that standard evo-devo way by attempting to consturct with a morphometrics some acutally no visual continuity. We need this higher mathematical continutiy if we are ever going to link up the form with the geographic distributions of the various forms. I know Croizat had done a better job than me looking at point distributions but instead we get some functional paleoecology which is really as specious and on the same degree of confidence as the visual impression. This is the same degree of ability as to read a letter such as double U. We need better as biologists if we are going to impress our physicist friends and we dont get it precisely as evolutionists BLAME creationists but it was the evolutionists who FIRST attempted to discount the cretaionists on this point of non-mental voluntary continutation (without any spirit).I spent all the time in the herpetology club trying to draw out the similiarites. that IS a good thing but an IMMEDIATE PREDECESSOR is not a successor and need not be a common descendant. Just by looking will not enable one to sort this out, some kind of interpreation or higher cognitive ability is involved. Best.

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Not really the topic for this, but let's see if I can do it quickly:

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Basic Genesis story: God makes perfect garden. God puts tree of knowledge of good and evil in middle and tells Adam "If you eat of this tree you will die that day." The serpent comes up and tells them "God's wrong; you won't die that day but rather, you will become like god, knowing good and evil." They eat the fruit of the tree. God says "They have become like us(?), knowing good and evil." They don't die that day but rather, 930-some years later.

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Who's telling the truth here? The serpent's story is the one that actually happens. Seems simple to me.

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Scripture distinguishes three types of death. First, there is physical death, which is the seperation of body and soul. The second type of death is spiritual death (which is the case in this situation) and the third death is eternal death."The aspect of spiritual death that overtook our first parents immediately upon their act of sin. Alienation toward God was shown by their vain attempt to hide from Him when He came to have fellowship with them in the cool of the evening (gen. 3:8) It was apparent from their attitude of guilty fear toward him (3:10), in the curse of expulsion from the Garden of Eden (where they had enjoyed intimate and cordial fellowship with Him), in the curse of toil and pain both in the eking out of a living from the soil and in the process of childbirth, and in the eventual death of the body and its reversion to the soil from which it was made (3:16-19,23-24). From that moment on, Adam and Eve fell into a state of spiritual death, separated from the living God through their violation of His covenant."Spiritual death is described in Ephesians 2:1-3.
Further reading is available here: Page not found - Apologetics Press
Bible Search and Study Tools - Blue Letter Bible

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...via a fictional narrative.

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The moth photographs are not meant to decieve but rather to demonstrate something that actually happens. A kind of visual parable. Unless you disagree that dark moths can hide better on dark trees?

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going further off-topic into a whole differnet topic which this thread was not meant to be about... Firstly, the author of the article is a creationist, like myself. We don't believe in evolution hence the reason why we don't believe in the pepper moth as evidence of any evolutionary activity. Secondly, you have interperted the article wrong. Haeckel's drawings and moth photographs are two seperate topics. In Haeckel's case, the pictures were faked and meant to decieve since none of it is real and in moth photographs, though faked, we know that there were two different colours of moths. No one ever said that the different coloured moths were a made-up fantasy so I have no idea where you are coming up with your accusations. Thirdly, peppered moths are not evidence of evolution. Even non-creationists scientists are having second thoughts about peppered moths as evidence of evolution. No webpage found at provided URL: www.the-scientist.com/yr1999/may/opin_990524.html. Further reading of this found here:
No webpage found at provided URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/bowdenmalcolm/evol.htm
The Quixotic Message
No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4105.asp

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Your definitions are exactly what I expected (I've heard those terms before) but you have yet to provide evidence that they're in use by mainstream biologists. Also it's not logically clear why there should be a distinction because the same mechanism can account for both phenomenon.

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First of all biologist call macroevolution a "fact of evolution".
No webpage found at provided URL: http:///RefLib/EvidencesMacroevolution.html. I'm suprised you would try to say otherwise. Christian critique found in the following link:
No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1b.asp

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What I'm asking is, why can't a fictional or staged photograph be used to illustrate something that happens in real life?

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Is it as bad to include artist's conception sketches in astronomy texts? Or illustrations in the bible?

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Is it ok for newspapers to retouch photographs to make them clearer or to remove visual artifacts? I once read about a sports magazine using photoshop on a picture of a runner to remove a radio antenna that appeared to jut from the runners chin, an accident of alighment between the camera, runner, and coach. Does that make the photograph any less "true"? Should the magazine have warned people that the real scene didn't look exactly like it did in the photograph they printed?

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Illustrations aren't evidence and have never been claimed to be. They're just teaching aids to make certain points clearer. Whether or not the photograph recorded an actual event or not is irrelavant.

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Please refer to the above lines that have provided.[This message has been edited by 7, 05-18-2003]

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Read the title you gave the topic. The best way to find out why is to ask, don't you think? Find a school, find yer answer

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I don't have to find a school because my school uses Haeckel's drawings hence my reasoning in creating a thread dedicated to the topic of Haeckel's drawings. Theres your answer.

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First rule of critical thinking - look for assumptions and question them. I question your assumption that a school using a textbook uses all the material in it. I certainly didn't use the entire textbook when I was at school.

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1. Just because you didn't use one part of a textbook doesn't mean that someone else didn't.
2. No i did not make any assumption that a school uses an entire textbook. Nor does the school have to mention anything about Haeckel's drawings. If the textbook contains them. a student can find them when he or she is using the textbook as study material.
3. Don't jump to conclusions and make up liable comments.
4. I question your assumption of my assumption that i did not make.

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I'm questioning your assumption that schools teach using Haeckel's actual drawings. The best way to find out is to find a school and ask them. Why is it so difficult, when you claim it is so widespread?

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I question your assumption that it is difficult for me to find a school to back my claims. Once again you have made accusations and made liable comments in an attempt to create defamation of my character.Oh and the teacher that used Haeckel's drawings as evidence of evolution was fresh out of teacher's college. I know she knows that Haeckel's drawings were false which leaves me to wonder why she would use fradulent material to teach evolution.Note: forgive my lateness in reply. I will try to find time in between weeks to answer your questions. I look forward to the upcoming "conversation."

Perhaps, but not in Genesis. God's words are clear. Adam and Eve will perish they day they eat the fruit. But they don't.Your explanation fails a literal reading of the text. Now I don't understand - you don't believe adaptation occurs? Or you don't believe adaptation is an evolutionary activity? I agree. I've already stated that the Haeckel drawings are insufficiently scientific to appear in a text. To my knowledge they don't appear in bio texts anymore. Certainly never in the ones I've had to read for class. On the other hand I'm reading college-level bio texts so maybe high school ones are different. They've never been meant to be. They've only ever been used as an illustration of adaptation through natural selection, which is something the theory of evolution predicts. Sorry, I don't debate web pages. I debate people.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 05-18-2003]

One thing: (My emphasis added)The word you're looking for here is "libel", or in the part of speech you're using it as, "libellous". Of course, strictly speaking Mr. P's comments do not even come close to approaching libel, as no one would agree that they defame your character. Maybe your argument, but not your character. It's not libel to disagree with someone.

a quick reply before I leave

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The word you're looking for here is "libel", or in the part of speech you're using it as, "libellous". Of course, strictly speaking Mr. P's comments do not even come close to approaching libel, as no one would agree that they defame your character. Maybe your argument, but not your character. It's not libel to disagree with someone.

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yes my mistake. but its libelous not libellous.libel - to misrepresent damagingly. IN this case Mr. P made up false accusations to make me look like a lunatic who can't back his claims. so his libelous remarks were against me and not the argument.
And no I never said anything about libel comments being related to disagreement in this topic.I will get back to your questions later on. till then.------------------
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. (?evolution?) Romans 1:22-23

Yes, my mistake. I assumed it followed normal rules of English spelling. That''s simply ridiculous. Perfectly rational people can't always back up their claims, so claiming that you can't back up your claims is not making you into a lunatic. And anyway, the defense for libel is the truth - if he can show that you can't substanitaite your claims, you have no argument for libel.Your claims are pretty hollow; it's pretty clear you're using them to shore up a losing argument. I find that rather disingenuous. It's a poor sport who enters a debate with such a thin skin.

I was in a rush so I will explain myself better now. First of all, libel is the act of misrepresenting which he has done to my responses. His remarks were not directed towards you so I don't expect you to understand but place yourself in my shoes. How would you answer his response when he accuses you with something you never claimed? How would you answer someone that accuses you of making assumptions when he jumps to assumptions about you? Once again, I feel you wouldn't understand since his remarks were not directed to you. However, who are you to say that I did not feel slandered? I actually felt he was trying to insult me.

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That''s simply ridiculous. Perfectly rational people can't always back up their claims, so claiming that you can't back up your claims is not making you into a lunatic. And anyway, the defense for libel is the truth - if he can show that you can't substanitaite your claims, you have no argument for libel.

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You have misunderstood my post. I never claimed that by not backing up my claims will me a lunatic. What I meant were his remarks were meant to downplay me as a person of reason, intelligence etc. For example:"Read the title you gave the topic. The best way to find out why is to ask, don't you think? Find a school, find yer answer"I felt I gave a satisfactory answer to his response but then he tries to talk to me as a superior instead of an equal (I tried to treat this entire forum as equals, we all know how a debate works)."read the title you gave the topic" Seriously what kind of remark is that? He tries to make me sound stupid. sorry bud, but even my father did not speak to me like that."First rule of critical thinking - look for assumptions and question them. I question your assumption that a school using a textbook uses all the material in it. I certainly didn't use the entire textbook when I was at school."What are you my teacher? Once again I am bombarded by a cocky attitude directed towards me. Must I go on to explain my reasoning?

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Your claims are pretty hollow; it's pretty clear you're using them to shore up a losing argument. I find that rather disingenuous. It's a poor sport who enters a debate with such a thin skin.

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I don't know where to begin to tell you how wrong you are. If you feel I'm making up baseless accusations over frustration of a debate, you're just simply wrong. I came to this debate as a reasonable person and now I am attacked by insults and false accusations."losing argument" I never knew this was an argument. I thought this was a debate. Guess I was wrong. I feel I have provided the evidence, I tried to answer all the posts though it is overwhelming since the majority seem to be evolutionists.The only "argument" lost here is the macroevolution/microevolution which you haven't even acknowledged yet. Why don't you show me evidence to support your claims when it isn't that difficult?.<-------Doesn't it upset you when people write like this?------------------
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. (?evolution?) Romans 1:22-23[This message has been edited by 7, 05-18-2003]

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I don't have to find a school because my school uses Haeckel's drawings hence my reasoning in creating a thread dedicated to the topic of Haeckel's drawings. Theres your answer.

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My answer? You're the one asking the question! Why don't you ask your school why they use Haeckel's drawings?Seriously, you're telling us that you opened a topic on Why do schools use Haeckel's drawings, you give nothing but some cut and pasted quotes and a list of textbooks, and it takes you 37 posts before you say that your school uses them! I think readers could be forgiven for being extremely skeptical of your good faith or your claim. However, I like to think the best of people, so I'll assume for now you were just being a little naive and I'll assume for now you are telling the truth about your school. I am sure you can forgive me these little assumptions.Now, if you asked your original question in good faith - Why are Haeckel's drawings being taught in school - why not ask your school rather than us? After all, It would appear that you are in the best position of anyone on this forum to ascertain the answer. Having asked, you can come back to the forum with some really interesting and original information rather than a boring old cut and paste job from a creationist website which many of us have seen and discussed dozens of times.

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1. Just because you didn't use one part of a textbook doesn't mean that someone else didn't.

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Indeed, and nothing in my post suggested otherwise.

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2. No i did not make any assumption that a school uses an entire textbook. Nor does the school have to mention anything about Haeckel's drawings. If the textbook contains them. a student can find them when he or she is using the textbook as study material.

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But then the school is not teaching the drawings, is it? I'm still not sure what that means, but it seems to make sense to you, so I suppose I can continue with it.

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3. Don't jump to conclusions and make up liable comments.

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What conclusions? What is a liable comment? Perhaps you mean libellous? I fail to see how my comments could be construed as libellous.

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4. I question your assumption of my assumption that i did not make.

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You claimed that schools teach Haeckel's drawings - the only evidence you presented was a list of textbooks. From the evidence you presented, the implication was that you assumed that being in a textbook equates to being taught.Obviously, I made the wrong assumption - I would better have assumed you hadn't presented a reasoned argument from evidence! How am I to know if you miss out information relevant to your chain of thought?

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I question your assumption that it is difficult for me to find a school to back my claims. Once again you have made accusations and made liable comments in an attempt to create defamation of my character.

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In what way did I attempt to defame you? I suggested you had difficulty finding a school that taught evolution - a quite reasonable suggestion under the circumstances as at that point you had failed to produce one. Now that a deus ex machina in the form of your school has appeared to rescue your argument, I naturally am very pleased, and look forward to hearing what they have to say, and seeing the discussion proceed with direct information from the coalface of education, rather than secondhand cut and paste quotes from partisan websites.

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Oh and the teacher that used Haeckel's drawings as evidence of evolution was fresh out of teacher's college. I know she knows that Haeckel's drawings were false which leaves me to wonder why she would use fradulent material to teach evolution.

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Why wonder? Why not ask her? Why not ask the Principal if the school authorities are aware that teachers are knowingly using fraudulent material.

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Note: forgive my lateness in reply. I will try to find time in between weeks to answer your questions. I look forward to the upcoming "conversation."

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No problem. Good luck at school.

Are you in the US? If you are, I think you will find that there is woefully little correlation between a person's recent graduation from a teacher's college and their knowledge of up-to-date biology. Or do you have independent evidence of this teacher's knowledge of Haeckel's drawings? I'd bet she knows nothing at all of the "Haeckel controversy."
And, by the way, what text did you use? The link to NCSE above showed that Wells was lying about most of his ten: is your school system's budget as bad as Oklahoma's, where you are stuck with decade-old texts?

And you think that his attitude constitutes libel? Simply ridiculous.To prove libel, you have to demonstrate direct, fallacious, malicious comments that have a negative impact on your percived character. That is to say, they can't just make you feel bad; you have to prove that your reputation among your community was harmed.Since, to a large degree, we're posting anonymously (to each other), none of us know who you are. Nobody reading the comments knows who you are - so how could you argue that your reputation has been harmed? There's actually no difference. Debates are arguments - there's generally percieved to be a winner and a loser at the end because each participant is defending a specific position. Maybe you're thinking of "discussion", where participants work together to solve a problem. That's not what we're doing. Creationists don't seem to stick around here for long; they can't generally defend their arguments. Of course, we always welcome new members, regardless of position... Which claim was that? Do you want me to demonstrate that these terms are not widely used by biologists, or my claim that the distinction between the two is largely semantic? What was the specific claim you thought I was making? Just to be sure. To the contrary; asking someone to support their assertions with evidence is a perfectly reasonable request in a debate.