Haeckels' Drawings Part II

Yes I thought the encyclopedia entry was excruciatingly precise. There are at least two other online encyclopedias that give the exact same discussion word for word. Probably more than that.Von Baer's view is clearly differentiated from Haeckel's I thought so I'm not following you there.It appears that, as this discussion has progressed, objections have come up against the idea of "gill slits" claiming that it is now considered obsolete. If it's still considered legitimate as you seem to be saying I suppose you'd have to bring it up with others here. Sounds like this whole area is far from resolved.

The term "gill slits" is misleading and is becoming obsolete. The structure the term refers to remains - and it is the structure that is evidence of evolution, not whatever name is applied to it.

No, but that isn't the purpose of a slogan. It's to impress the idea on the student's little head as it is taken to be a fact they should learn well. Yes, it does. All they truly observe however is the variations on the theme of a species by all these mechanisms. I'm content just to point out that similarity of design is all that is observed and that in itself offers no support for the idea of descent -- and that descent in fact has no real evidence, just this kind of extrapolation from observations that are just as easily explained by design.But of course I'm a YEC, so for further explanation I take it back to God's creation of the kinds. No further mechanism is needed. What we are seeing genetically is the playing out of the potentials for variation of the species/kind originally built into the genome of each species/kind, brought to the fore (phenotypic expression) by the "mechanisms of evolution" such as natural selection or gene flow or genetic drift or bottleneck etc. The original genome of a kind/species has been severely depleted in allelic possibilities over time so that its variability is much reduced from the original. Except when severe selection pressure isolates a type and threatens it with extinction (which often get called new species ironically enough), a fair degree of variability remains. But I'm not trying to discuss that here, only mention it to give an alternative view from evolution's.

OK.

Actually I have my doubtsd about the use of "biogenetic law" to describe Von Baer's ideas. That's one of the reasons I placed quotes around the ter when using it to refer to anything othr than Haeckel's ideas. Otherwise the Columbia entry seems to be basically sound - at least it does distinguish between Haeckel and Von Baer's ideas.

Or so you claim. In fact Haeckel's theory has been entirely discredited, what is not discredited is that there are numerous similarities between developing embryos and that enumeration of these can produce phylogenetic data consistent with that from other sources. Similarly analysis of the genetic basis of development is highly consistent with the mechanisms held to be important in evolutionary biology. Well that is because all of those online dictionaries take the definition from the same hard-copy encyclopedia, so of course they are going to be the same. That is like the Bellman's fallacy, if the same erroneous material is repeated three times then it must be true.How on earth can you claim that one article in an encylopedia, no matter how often it is parroted, is somehow the 'official representation'?PaulK is welcome to his own opinions, but he seems to be agreeing with me that Von Baer's theories should not be connected to the term biogenetic law. More literal rather than tangible perhaps, to the point where it was clearly wrong, embryonic human pharyngeal arches and pouches never resemble the adult gills of fish. But of course this wasn't neccessarily an ongoing assumption it was an assumption which Haeckel himself made but not one that he was neccessarily simply elaborating, I don't know the exact origin of the usage of 'gill slits' to describe the pharyngeal pouches in all vertebrates, do you? Isn't Webster's a dictionary rather than an encyclopedia? The only encyclopedias that Webster's seem to offer are an encyclopedia of literature and the Encyclopedia Britannica, which doesn't have the same article.

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biogenetic law

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also called Recapitulation Theory, postulation, by Ernst Haeckel in 1866, that ontogeny recapitulates phylogenyi.e., the development of the animal embryo and young traces the evolutionary development of the species. The theory was influential and much-popularized earlier but has been of little significance in elucidating either evolution or embryonic growth.

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Unfortunately I don't have access to the full article. You can still stay it, but it still isn't true and it was never valid to say it, although it may have been thought to have been. But you haven;t posted anything actually refelcting the current status of evolutionary-developmental biology, so all you are doing is producing what Haeckel said and then claiming that that is effectively still what is being said today. Even the one clear distinction that is made in the encyclopedia article, between embryonic and adult stages, is such a significant one that it completely changes the character of the proposition. Well if you claim that all similarities are a result of 'design' then sure, but that is only a tenable argument if there is any reason to favour design over simply evolution, which there isn't. It doesn't stop being evidence consistent with evolution just beacuse you also claim it is consistent with design. Wow, how strange that in the couple of hundred years we have been studying evolution, and the hundred or so we have had some reasonable grasp of genetics and the 60 or so we have had some understanding of the molecular basis of genetics we haven't yet observed any radically morphologically novel species evolving.Do you have any idea how weak an argument that is? What we do see is all these mechanisms in operation and acting to produce discrete species and produce differing morphologies. We also see a number of patterns reflected in the genomes of various animals which form a basis for larger morphological differences and in a number of case seem linked to such evolutionary mechanisms, i.e. gene duplication and neo-functionalisation. As easily perhaps, but not as well.TTFN,WKP.S. Could you fix the quote tags in your post, at the moment it is very confusing.

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However, PaulK thinks "gill slits" is still a correct description of what is seen in the embryo.

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You seem to be missing my use of quotation marks. Doubtless my explicit statement that term is misleading and becoming obsolete was posted just too late for you to see it in time. The term "gill slits" is TECHNICALLY correct, but only as a label - not a description. Hence the use of quotation marks as a sign that I do not fully endorse the term.

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.

Hey randman...Do you see any compelling evidence in the ToE that contradicts Creationism/ID?Further, if there were such evidence, what evidence would suffice for you as contradictory to ID?The reason I ask is because there realy is no reason for discussion if there is nothing you see that could possibly contradict ID.

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

I have already given you a way to falsify the theory of evolution. Namely, if a sequence of fossils were found that showed unambiguously that whales evolved directly from fish. You didn't seem understand how that would falsify ToE.In fact, you stated that the scientists would just claim that whales evolved from fish, and that all the mammals evolved from whales. That you could make such a claim indicates how little you understand the theory of evolution, and all of the evidence that exists that supports it. That is your problem, but now you creationists are bent on making your problem everyone else's problem as well.

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.

...through the following nonsensical statements:

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On the whale example, if evolutionists decided the data best fit with fish to whale transitions, they would argue that, yes.

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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.

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Moreover, there are no series of fossils that show whales evolving from anything but whales.

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By the way, here is a link to a page that describes whale evolution for anyone who wants to know what scientists have to say about it.