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Author Topic:   Why are Haeckel's drawings being taught in school?
hitchy
Member (Idle past 5118 days)
Posts: 215
From: Southern Maryland via Pittsburgh
Joined: 01-05-2004


Message 226 of 306 (221398)
07-03-2005 12:02 AM
Reply to: Message 216 by randman
07-01-2005 4:05 PM


Let's take a look!
Show me where there has ever been a proper use of Haeckel's drawings in textbooks, ever?
Hickman, Roberts, Larson. Integrated Principles of Zoology. 9th ed. Wm. C. Brown Publishers. Dubuque IA. 1995. p. 211.
"Haeckel based his biogenetic law on the flawed premise that evolutionary change occurs by successively adding stages onto the end of an unaltered ancestral ontogeny, compressing the ancestral ontogeny into earlier developmental stages." This section also talks about von Baer and makes the point that he wasn't exactly right either.
Freeman, Scott. Biological Science. Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River NJ. 2002. p. 415.
Freeman doesn't discuss Haeckel or von Baer and never even mentions them in the book. However, he does provide two pictures from Richardson (from Anatomy and Embryology) that show human and chicken embryos clearly having gill pouches and tails. If you feel better, you can call them pharyngeal pouches.
Campbell, Reece, Mitchell. Biology. 5th ed. Benjamin/Cummings. Menlo Park CA. 1999. (Since they are in the 7th edition now, you should probably look there.) p.424.
Again, no mention of Haeckel or von Baer, but shows the similarities between a human and bird embryo. Pictures are from Dwight Kuhn (avian embryo) and Lennart Nilsson (human embryo from A Child is Born). Points out gill pouches and postanal tail. On the following page (425), they talk about how the "theory of recapitulation is an overstatement" and that "many embryologists in the late nineteenth century proposed the extreme view that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". (Italics originally in quotations.)
Johnson, Raven. Biology: Principles and Explorations. Holt, Rinehart, Winston. Austin TX. 2001. p. 288. (This is the biology textbook they give me to use in my hs classes.)
Shows drawings comparing fish, tortoise, chicken and human embryos (by someone named Molly Babich). The drawings are pathetic renditions of actual photographs. They look cartoonish. They only show two stages of development and are not labeled in any helpful way. The text doesn't mention Haeckel or von Baer which might make sense since our biology curriculum is "an inch deep and a mile wide". The paragraph that points to these drawings is equally disappointing. "Each embryo develops a tail, buds that become limbs, and pharyngeal pouches (which contain the gills of fish and amphibians.) The tail remains in most adult vertebrates. Although the structures develop at different rates in different groups of vertebrates, they are homologous. Only adult fish and immature amphibians retain pharyngeal pouches. In humans, the tail disappears by the time of birth, and pharyngeal pouches develop into other structures."
This passage sounds like the old "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" crap. I do like the last sentence however b/c it leads me to what Ernst Mayr says about this topic. (If anyone has a problem with Ernst Mayr's creds, please feel free to speak up.)
...these ancestral structures serve as embryonic "organizers" in the ensuing steps of development. For instance, if one cuts the pronephric duct of an amphibian embryo, there will be no development of the mesonephros. In a similar manner, the removal of the midline stripe of the archenteron roof prevents the development of a notochord and a nervous system. Thus the "useless" pronephros and midline stripe are recapitulated becuase they have the vital function of being embryonic organizers of later developing structures. This is the same reason why all terrestrial vertebrates (tetrapods) develop gill arches at a certain stage in their ontogeny. These gill-like structures are never used for breathing, but instead are drastically restructured during the later ontogeny and give rise to many structures in the neck region of reptiles, birds and mammals. The evident explanation is that the genetic developmental program has no way of eliminating the ancestral stages of development and is forced to modify them during the subsequent steps of development in order to make them suitable for the new life-form of the organism."
"What is recapitulated are always particular structures, but never the whole adult form of the ancestor."
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. Basic Books USA. 2001. p.30.
I have now shown three textbooks that do a great job with the actual info regarding this whole recapitulation stuff. However, only one mentions the problems with Haeckel and von Baer and it is a college level Zoology text. Campbell's Biology is the usual college freshman biology textbook and is used in high school AP Biology classes. Freeman's Biological Science is the textbook I want to use in my high school classes.
I see a problem, that you, randman, have pointed out and I think is a good point--wtf!!! Why is the high school textbook I have to use so worthless on this topic? Someone earlier in this thread made an argument along these lines that I agree with (and if I am wrong, please correct me) that high school textbooks are not thoroughly reviewed and basically churned out for sale. This causes them to rely on old "stock footage" that they just throw in there. The people reviewing these things are made up of high school biology teachers and college professors. Maybe there is pressure to churn these things out without the thorough work necessary for good academics. Clearly, though, the college texts are way better. Why the descrepency?
I think it is money. These publishers are businesses that are out to make a profit. The Holt high school Biology text has a bright shiney cover and plenty of color pictures and an unnecessary 1096 pages! And the cost of refitting a high school with biology textbooks is so damn expensive that they use them way past their expiration date or will not change them even if something better comes along to bite them in the arse!
Anyway, Haeckel and his substitution of a dog embryo for a human is a piece of science history. I will make it a point to provide my pre-AP students with this example of the self-correcting nature of science--as done by scientists, not book publishers.
Have a great Fourth of July! Or as I like to commemerate--Adams, Sr. and T. Jefferson's mutual parting of the ways, and life, in 1826.
(Edited to correct "commemerate")
(Additional edit to correct some "actual"'s and "vertebrate"'s)
This message has been edited by hitchy, 07-03-2005 12:08 AM
This message has been edited by hitchy, 07-03-2005 12:18 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 216 by randman, posted 07-01-2005 4:05 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 227 by randman, posted 07-03-2005 1:21 AM hitchy has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 227 of 306 (221412)
07-03-2005 1:21 AM
Reply to: Message 226 by hitchy
07-03-2005 12:02 AM


Re: Let's take a look!
that show human and chicken embryos clearly having gill pouches and tails. If you feel better, you can call them pharyngeal pouches.
They are not gill pouches, nor pharyngeal pouches. Thanks for posting that, but it just serves to show how deeply rooted the error has been, and how even after 1997 and the subsequent removal of Haeckel's drawings, many textbooks try to maintain some of the same errors, but just watered down.
Points out gill pouches and postanal tail.
Obviously, here is another misrepresentation since humans have no gill pouches, ever, not at any stage of development, but rather what are called gill pouches are simply biomechanical folds having nothing to do with gills whatsoever. As far as tails, sorry, but that's the backbone.
pharyngeal pouches
Again, that's totally bogus since humans never have pharyngeal pouches, nor gill pouches.
I have now shown three textbooks that do a great job with the actual info regarding this whole recapitulation stuff.
I guess if you call misrepresentation "a great job" you could be right. Otherwise, you have shown that they are still highly misleading.
As far as the rest of the post, I think you may not have realized that we were primarily discussing the use of Haeckel's drawings in textbooks up until 1997. After the 1997 Richardson study (but prior to that decades of criticism from creationist), most textbooks started removing that. So quoting textbooks from after 1997 is not that germane to the debate, but what you have shown, imo, is sufficient to show they are still misrepresenting the embryonic data.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 226 by hitchy, posted 07-03-2005 12:02 AM hitchy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 232 by Modulous, posted 07-03-2005 8:21 AM randman has replied
 Message 237 by hitchy, posted 07-04-2005 12:45 AM randman has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 228 of 306 (221413)
07-03-2005 2:17 AM
Reply to: Message 224 by Modulous
07-02-2005 4:53 PM


Re: Manners maketh the man
What evidence of this 'trial' is there?
Modulous, the links I have provided contain the evidence you request, but for sake of brevity, I have not quoted them in their entirety. You need to take some time to review the links, and then ask further questions. Here are some helpful remarks.
"To support his case he [Haeckel] began to fake evidence. Charged with fraud by five professors and convicted by a university court at Jena, he agreed that a small percentage of his embryonic drawings were forgeries; he was merely filling in and reconstructing the missing links when the evidence was thin, and he claimed unblushingly that hundreds of the best observers and biologists lie under the same charge."*Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 120.
...
"[The German scientist, Wilhelm His] accused Haeckel of shocking dishonesty in repeating the same picture several times to show the similarity among vertebrates at early embryonic stages in several plates of [Haeckel's book]."*Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1977), p. 430.
:
In 1868, L. Rutimeyer wrote an article, entitled "Referate," which appeared on pages 301-302 of the Archiv fur Anthropologie (Archives of Anthropology). In that article, Rutimeyer, professor of zoology and comparative anatomy, at the University of Basel, reviewed two of Haeckel's books, Natural History of Creation (Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte), and his Uber die Enstehung and den Stammbaum des Menschengeschlechts, both of which had been newly published the same year that Rutimeyer's review was published: 1868.
"Haeckel claims these works to be both easy for the scientific layman to follow, and scientific and scholarly. No one will quarrel with the first evaluation of the author, but the second quality is not one that he seriously can claim. These are works, clothed in medieval formalistic garb. There is considerable manufacturing of scientific evidence perpetrated. Yet the author has been very careful not to let the reader become aware of this state of affairs."*L. Rutimeyer, "Referate," in Archiv fur Anthropologie (1868).
Rutimeyer then continues on and discusses the fraudulent woodcuts. For example, the dog embryo and human embryo, shown on page 240 of Haeckel's book, are completely identical. Haeckel maintained that he faithfully copied the dog embryo from Bischoff (4th week). Rutimeyer then reprinted the original drawing made by Bischoff of the dog embryo at 4 weeks, and the original of human embryo at 4 weeks made by Haeckel. The originals were very much different!
Then Rutimeyer notes that, elsewhere in Haeckel's book, that same woodcut is used to portray a dog, a chicken, and a tortoise!
Rutimeyer was a well-known German scientist living at that time. He regularly had articles in each yearly volume of Archiv fur Anthropologie, yet his book review was never translated into English nor published in Britain or America!
Wilhelm His, Sr., was another highly respected contemporary German scientist. The first major scientific book on embryology was prepared by His, Sr., and published in 1880. His not only perfected the serial sections technique, so important in embryological studies, but he also pioneered the wax plate method of accurate scale reconstructions from such sections. He was the first to identify the bundle of His in the heart.
Wilhelm His, Sr., wrote a series of letters to Carl Ludwig; these were later published in Leipzig under the title, Unsere Koperform und das Physiologische Problem Ihrer Entstehung. The fourteenth letter in the series dealt with Haeckel's fraudulent activities. As the basis for His' analysis, he used the 5th edition of Haeckel's Natural History of Creation.
Mr. His explained, in detail, the extent of the fake woodcuts and the false claims in the accompanying text. He also noted that, in another book by Haeckel, the Anthropogenie, two figures of human embryos in the blastula stage were shown with the allantois clearly visible, yet the allantois never appears in the blastula stage of growth.
He also discussed the 24 figures in the two-page spread on pages 256-257 of Haeckel's book. He angrily declared them to be gross distortions of reality, and not true to life, and said that Haeckel did it in order to show similarity of form, even though such similarity did not actually exist.
He also pointed out that Haeckel was a professor at the University of Jena, which was noted for having excellent optical facilities. Thus, according to His, there was no excuse for these fraudulent productions. His concluded by denouncing Haeckel as a fraud, and henceforth as eliminated from the ranks of scientific research as a worker.
"When critics brought charges of extensive retouching and outrageous `fudging' in his famous embryo illustrations, Haeckel replied he was only trying to make them more accurate than the faulty specimens on which they were based."*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 206.
Another scientist, who at about the same time also protested against Haeckel's fakeries, was Albert Fleischmann (Die Descenddztheoried, 1901, pp. 101-152).
:
The recent article "Haeckel's Embryos and Evolution" (Wells, ABT, May 1999) isa timely reminder that significant parts of Haeckel's diagrams of embryos were forged, asHaeckel himself publicly admitted in a letter to the Berliner Volkszeitung on 29thDecember 1908 (Assmuth & Hall 1918).
link
Wilhelm His, Sr (1831—1904), a famous comparative embryologist of the day and professor of anatomy at the University of Leipzig, uncovered the fraud.
Prof. His showed in 1874 that Haeckel had added 3.5 mm to the head of Bischoff’s dog embryo, taken 2 mm off the head of Ecker’s human embryo, doubled the length of the human posterior, and substantially altered the details of the human eye. He sarcastically pointed out that Haeckel taught in Jena, home of the then finest optical equipment available, and so had no excuse for inaccuracy. He concluded that anyone who engaged in such blatant fraud had forfeited all respect and that Haeckel had eliminated himself from the ranks of scientific research workers of any stature.15,16 See also Encyclopedic 'truth' ... or wordly wisdom?.
Haeckel's Confession of Fraud
The furor in German scientific circles was so great that Haeckel found it impossible to persist in his policy of silence. In a letter to Mnchener Allegemeine Zeitung, ‘an international weekly for Science, Art and Technology’, published on January 9, 1909, Haeckel (translated) wrote:
‘ a small portion of my embryo-pictures (possibly 6 or 8 in a hundred) are really (in Dr Brass’s [one of his critics] sense of the word) falsified all those, namely, in which the disclosed material for inspection is so incomplete or insufficient that one is compelled in a restoration of a connected development series to fill up the gaps through hypotheses, and to reconstruct the missing members through comparative syntheses. What difficulties this task encounters, and how easily the draughts- man may blunder in it, the embryologist alone can judge.’17
Discerning readers who compare Haeckel’s doctored dog and human embryo pictures with the originals (see photographs), will readily see that Haeckel’s ‘confession’ was itself a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts and essentially an attempt to justify and perpetuate his shameful forgeries.
Developing Deception | Answers in Genesis
"Haeckel's theory, known as the "Law of Recapitulation" and the "Biogenetic Law," was first suggested by Meckel (1781-1883). Karl von Baer (1792-1876) saw the error in Meckel's idea and wrote against it.
Earnst Haekel‘s Lie
von Baer opposed recapitulation. In the second volume of Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere, von Baer set forth a broad argument against recapitulation in the fifth of his six commentaries on the chick embryo. Here von Baer presented many objections to recapitulationism; two of the most damning were that (1) embryological features of lower animals can appear in adult stages of higher animals, and (2) defining characters of higher groups often appear early in the developmental sequence.
.....
von Baer did not accept evolution. Like most of his contemporaries, he gathered data from his observations and drew few inferences. It has been claimed (Wells, 2000) that Darwin's reliance on von Baer is invalid because von Baer did not accept evolution.
Talk Reason: arguments against creationism, intelligent design, and religious apologetics
There is obviously a great deal of other material in this area, but what about these remarks do you question?
It seems superflous to get into a debate about sources, and I genuinely do not understand how you can say I have not provided evidence for any claim when I have provided the above links already on this thread. Plus, the Richardson report not detailed here, and references not detailed here.
For example, you say:
Did he do the kind of research I was talking about? Show me the way. All I see is that Van Baer criticized the recapitulation theory. That's not in question here.
Read the whole link I provided. If you had looked into it, or were familiar with Darwinism, you would know that von Baer did in fact do a great deal of study and detailed his views on embyonic development as a response to the idea of recapitulation.
Moreover, Darwin used von Baer's ideas, and evolutionists still do today, to make the claim of a phylotypic stage. That's one reason why evolutionists sometimes make the mistake of calling von Baer an evolutionist, but von Baer, as the links on this thread (not all listed here) amply state did not consider his observations as evidence for Darwinism at all, and was severely critical of Darwin and Darwin's use of his ideas, and devoted much of the end of his life opposing Darwin.
You need to read the links, and take some time to learn the facts on this. The reason I am frustrated with this discussion is you say things like all you see is von Baer being critical of recapitulation.
Let me quote a little more from the partisan evolutionist site, talkreason, which hopefully you will agree is not trying to put a creationist spin here, but most likely is doing the opposite.
By the early 1830s, the scientific approach toward the study of development had taken place largely due to Karl Ernst von Baer. After meticulous examinations, in 1828 von Baer presented his concept of differentiation in detail in Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere (Animal Development). Von Baer's critical claim was that all early animal embryos appear similar and tend to look less so as time passes, and they develop specialized structures, with modification usually coming at the end of development. Members of close taxonomic groups tend to resemble one another longer through the developmental period. Species that differ according to phylum will differ early in embryology. Those that are in the same phylum but different classes differ later in embryology. Species that are in the same family are differentiable later still, and so on. The Linnaean hierarchy captures this temporal order of development and remains the strongest, most robust empirical support for the theory of descent from a hierarchy of common ancestors.
During von Baer's time, two overlapping schools of morphologists prevailed: a German Naturphilosophie school and the French transcendental morphologists. These movements asserted that organisms are organized in a chain of higher and lower types, and that this chain appears in embryological recapitulation. Formally introduced by the Naturphilosophie school (but with vestiges in writings of Aristotle [Gould, 1977]), recapitulation holds that organisms pass through developmental sequences including fully formed, adult stages of lower organisms. According to this scheme, human embryos, high on the scale of nature, sequentially look like the adults of fish, frogs, reptiles, and birds, before they acquire human morphology. Here "higher" and "lower" have no evolutionary meaning, but instead referred to improvement. (Some, even today, might erroneously see "improvement" as a natural consequence of evolution.)
von Baer opposed recapitulation. In the second volume of Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere, von Baer set forth a broad argument against recapitulation in the fifth of his six commentaries on the chick embryo. Here von Baer presented many objections to recapitulationism; two of the most damning were that (1) embryological features of lower animals can appear in adult stages of higher animals, and (2) defining characters of higher groups often appear early in the developmental sequence. The first point, today understood as paedomorphosis, is strictly incongruous with the notion that higher animals are improvements of lower animals. A good example of the second point is the amnion: Amniotes are defined by their possession of a derived trait, the amniotic sac of the egg. But, of course, this trait is found at the very beginning of the developmental sequence. In order for recapitulation to be correct, all lower animals should have an amnion as well. von Baer summarized his thoughts on development in his famous laws of development (as cited in Gould, 1977, 56):
The general features of a large group of animals appear earlier in the embryo than the specialfeatures.
Less general characters are developed from the most general, and so forth, until finally the most specialized appear.
Each embryo of a given species, instead of passing through the stages of other animals, departs more and more from them.
Fundamentally therefore, the embryo of a higher animal is never like [the adult of] a lower animal, but only like its embryo.
von Baer's laws, including their explicit rejection of recapitulation, formed the basis for Darwin's discussion of embryology in Origin.
Darwin Relied on von Baer
Darwin was heavily influenced by von Baer in forming his theory of natural selection (see review in Gould, 1977). Some choice quotes readily reveal this. Darwin refers to von Baer: "Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when I was at work on the Origin as the explanation of the wide difference in many classes between embryo and the adult animal, and of the close resemblance of the embryos within the same class" (cited in Gould, 1977, 1971). He wrote in 1860 in a letter: "Embryology is to me by far the strongest single class of facts in favor of change of forms" (cited in Gould, 1977, 1970).
von Baer did not accept evolution. Like most of his contemporaries, he gathered data from his observations and drew few inferences. It has been claimed (Wells, 2000) that Darwin's reliance on von Baer is invalid because von Baer did not accept evolution.
Talk Reason: arguments against creationism, intelligent design, and religious apologetics
If we are to continue this discussion, it is incumbent on you to spend some time reading the material and learning, and maybe even doing some googling and other research on your own. The folks running this site will not allow the level of cutting and pasting here to prove everything to you that I have put in my own words. If I reference a site with a quote, I probably do not agree with everything on that site, but you should go there and read a little and familiarize yourself with the topic because, once again, we are not allowed to continually make the type of lengthy posts in quotes that you demand.
You have to take the time to read it through.
In post 152, I wrote regarding Richardson's subsequent comments:
I read Richardson's comments and was frankly surprised, and wondered if he was reacting to the fall-out of going public with the error.
....He also says Haeckel's early critics did not give "persuasive evidence", but it seems like they did offer very persuasive evidence. On the whole, those comments just seemed out of place.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 224 by Modulous, posted 07-02-2005 4:53 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 231 by Modulous, posted 07-03-2005 7:53 AM randman has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 229 of 306 (221414)
07-03-2005 2:29 AM
Reply to: Message 225 by RAZD
07-02-2005 5:40 PM


Re: Goal post moving?
I did google "Van Baer creationist" and could find no link that showed he was a creationist, rather than a scientist who may (or may not) have been a christian
You need to read the thread because I already showed where the partisan evolutionist site states von Baer was a creationist.
von Baer opposed recapitulation. In the second volume of Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere, von Baer set forth a broad argument against recapitulation in the fifth of his six commentaries on the chick embryo. Here von Baer presented many objections to recapitulationism; two of the most damning were that (1) embryological features of lower animals can appear in adult stages of higher animals, and (2) defining characters of higher groups often appear early in the developmental sequence.
.....
von Baer did not accept evolution.
Talk Reason: arguments against creationism, intelligent design, and religious apologetics
As far as Karl von Baer's claims, they rightly carried significant stature considering he practically founded embryology, and he was a an adament opponent of Darwin, the more so because Darwin relied on von Baer's observations.
It is true then that the claims of a phylotypic stage stemmed from von Baer, and this is why evolutionists often claim von Baer was an evolutionist.
But it may be von Baer did not fully claim a phylotypic stage. He felt what he had observed in embryos contradicted evolutionary theory.
But regardless, evolutionists made the claim that he had made the claim of a phylotypic stage, and ever since have preached either the phylotypic stage, or at times Haeckel's ideas, but irregardless, neither claim has ever been proven, and there is considerable evidence against both claims.
That, of course, never stopped evolutionists from insisting otherwise before the whole world.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 225 by RAZD, posted 07-02-2005 5:40 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 235 by RAZD, posted 07-03-2005 12:43 PM randman has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 230 of 306 (221415)
07-03-2005 2:42 AM


some helpful reading
In September 10, 1860, Charles Darwin wrote to his friend, the Harvard biologist Asa Gray, "Embryology is to me by far the strongest class of facts in favor of change of forms." This statement is remarkable in that it had been assumed that embryology provided evidence against evolution, and another Harvard biologist, Louis Agassiz, indeed was using embryology against Darwin's hypothesis. How could Darwin say that embryological evidence supported evolution? The key was the embryological law of Karl Ernst von Baer, a law that was supposed to be against the transformation of species.
When von Baer proposed his law of animal development in 1828, it was thought of as anti-evolutionary.
....
Thus, von Baer argued against transformationism, the evolutionary hypothesis of his day. Indeed, to his dying day (and he died long after Darwin wrote The Origin of Species), he did not reconcile himself to evolution.
...
However, his work became central to Darwin's evolutionary biology. As historian Dov Ospovat (1981) concluded:
Von Baer perceived nature as a combination of diversity and underlying unity, with stringent limits placed on the extent to which such unity could be traced. In this perception, which received its clearest expression in his description of of development, von Baer laid down the main lines of the branching conception of the organic world
...
So strongly were von Baer's views taken up by evolutionary biologists, that certain evolutionary biologists presented their data in such a way as to try to make their non-Baerian embryological ideas fit into von Baer's framework. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the work of Ernst Haeckel, a German evolutionary biologist who attempted to synthesize Darwin's biology with the old linear-chain transformationism. Although his ideas were precisely the ones ridiculed and disproven by von Baer, Haeckel praised von Baer and actually listed von Baer as one of his supporters! For more about this episode, click here.
Sorry, no page could be found at this address (404) - Learning Link
Please note for any mods that this lengthy cut and paste is provided in response to demands that questioned my words here.
Von Baer's work formed in Darwin's mind the strongest evidence for evolution. Von Baer disagreed, and never accepted evolution. In a sense, this was the first "moving of the goal-posts" by evolutionists.
Nevertheless, as I have shown elsewhere, von Baer was either wrong or misunderstood concerning evolutionists claims of a phylotypic stage, something evolutionists asserted early on and maintain as "evidence" but something they have never proven.

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 231 of 306 (221420)
07-03-2005 7:53 AM
Reply to: Message 228 by randman
07-03-2005 2:17 AM


Re: Manners maketh the man
Is a secondary source.
Says that Rutimeyer noticed the woodcuts were copy/pasted. I've never denied this...indeed I've referenced it several times. It goes on to say that His was a critic of Haeckel and called him a fraud, and criticized the some specifics of the diagrams (this is nothing to do with a fraud trial, but it is closer to the other evidence I was asking for earlier).
letter to the Berliner Volkszeitung on 29thDecember 1908 (Assmuth & Hall 1918).
Which is a letter to a newspaper, not a fraud trial.
Once again discusses His denouncing Haeckel as a fraud, and has Haeckel writing to a media publication. Nothing about a trial.
Anything to do with the trial?
It seems superflous to get into a debate about sources
Which is why I said it was irrelevant. All I was doing was showing that there was some doubt about the existence of a fraud trial.
and I genuinely do not understand how you can say I have not provided evidence for any claim when I have provided the above links already on this thread
I have said nothing of the sort. I have frequently pointed out that you have provided evidence for some claims, just not the central claims you are making.
Read the whole link I provided. If you had looked into it, or were familiar with Darwinism, you would know that von Baer did in fact do a great deal of study and detailed his views on embyonic development as a response to the idea of recapitulation.
Which link? I assumed it was the talkreason one. I am not disputing that Baer did a great deal of study, and I explicitly said that he criticized recapitulation.
Moreover, Darwin used von Baer's ideas, and evolutionists still do today, to make the claim of a phylotypic stage.
I assume you read the talkreason link you listed, where it discusses this. You may also note that the phylotypic stage is not a falsified claim.
If we are to continue this discussion, it is incumbent on you to spend some time reading the material and learning, and maybe even doing some googling and other research on your own.
I have done this, do not insult my intelligence. You will note I have linked to several sources myself, some of them papers - and indeed I have read the papers you have shown, and provided excerpts from them. That you haven't noticed is shocking.
The folks running this site will not allow the level of cutting and pasting here to prove everything to you that I have put in my own words.
I'm not asking you to, just provide links, and summarize how they support your claim, perhaps with a small relevant excerpt.
You have to take the time to read it through.
No shit. I already warned you about your attitude and it's conduciveness to debate. If you question my dedication to solving this riddle once more in such a manner, I will simply stop trying to see your point of view and do something more constructive with my time. I have been polite and well-mannered throughout this discussion, and I have told you exactly what it would take for me to be convinced that you have a point. Don't get frustrated at me if I happen to have higher standards of evidence than you do.
Since it seems you have decided to drag the tone of this debate down, let me make a suggestion. You briefly outline the claims you are making, with one or two sources that back up them up. From what I have learned so far:
1. Haeckel 'copy/pasted' his diagrams
Agreed.
2. Haeckel fudged his diagrams to make them conform to his recapitulation theory
Agreed.
3. The diagrams that appeared in schools were either the copy/pasted diagrams, or they were the fudged diagrams
Not agreed on the copy/pasted ones, though we know that the latter is true.
4. The magnitude of the fudging of the diagrams in school was common knowledge and Richardson's work simply covered old ground, perhaps unveiling some new information - creationists had been pointing out that the diagrams were inacurate for decades
I don't know if the fudging of the school diagrams was common knowledge, and I believe that Richardson did some good work. Creationists say a lot of things, the crux is whether or not they showed it, and explained it in detail to the relevant people.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 228 by randman, posted 07-03-2005 2:17 AM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 232 of 306 (221423)
07-03-2005 8:21 AM
Reply to: Message 227 by randman
07-03-2005 1:21 AM


Pharyngeal pouches
Richardson does not deny the existence of these pouches in his 1997 study, so I assume you are referring to a different study here? If not it's quite confusing because you discuss the Richardson 1997 study later in your post. Either way, let's see what Richardson actually said about these things in his 1997 study:
quote:
However it is not clear precisely which stage of development this represents, since pharyngeal pouches appear over an extended period of development.
quote:
Pharyngeal pouches are clearly indicated in most species [of amphibian] but are not perforate.
quote:
We have reviewed the morphology of vertebrate embryos at the tailbud stage, which is generally considered to be resistant to evolutionary change, if not invariant. A wide range of clades has been considered, and the possible phylogenetic relations among these clades are indicated in Fig. 9. Vertebrates show many common features at this stage. These include the presence of somites, neural tube, optic anlagen, notochord and pharyngeal pouches. However, these and other prominent features of the vertebrate body plan show considerable evidence of evolutionary modification when the embryos of different species are compared.
quote:
Most embryos at the tailbud stage are also pharyngulas, defined by Ballard (1981) as embryos having a series of paired pharyngeal pouches, but in the zebrafish the branchial apparatus does not appear until after the tailbud stage (Kimmel et al. 1995). Thus it is difficult to accept that the tailbud stage and pharyngula both represent a conserved stage for vertebrates.
There is no highly conserved embryonic stage in the vertebrates:
implications for current theories of evolution and development, Richardson et al, 1997
Perhaps this might also help dispel the myth that I don't read sources . If you aren't referring to Richardson, I'd like to know who you are referring to so that I might read that source.
This message has been edited by Modulous, Sun, 03-July-2005 01:44 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 227 by randman, posted 07-03-2005 1:21 AM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
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edge
Member (Idle past 1706 days)
Posts: 4696
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 233 of 306 (221436)
07-03-2005 10:23 AM
Reply to: Message 231 by Modulous
07-03-2005 7:53 AM


Re: Manners maketh the man
Since it seems you have decided to drag the tone of this debate down, let me make a suggestion. You briefly outline the claims you are making, with one or two sources that back up them up. From what I have learned so far:
1. Haeckel 'copy/pasted' his diagrams
Agreed.
2. Haeckel fudged his diagrams to make them conform to his recapitulation theory
Agreed.
3. The diagrams that appeared in schools were either the copy/pasted diagrams, or they were the fudged diagrams
Not agreed on the copy/pasted ones, though we know that the latter is true.
Good post, Mod. Of course, you know the punishment for making a concise explanation of the issues and a devastating argument against one of YECdom's favorite points. I'm sure that Rantman will now simply remount the soapbox and rail against Haeckel's forging of evidence, as if it has anything to do with the modern understanding of evolution.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 234 of 306 (221444)
07-03-2005 11:17 AM
Reply to: Message 233 by edge
07-03-2005 10:23 AM


Re: Manners maketh the man
Or he will simply deny plain physical evidence:
They are not gill pouches, nor pharyngeal pouches.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 235 of 306 (221452)
07-03-2005 12:43 PM
Reply to: Message 229 by randman
07-03-2005 2:29 AM


another unsubstantiated assertion
randman, msg 229 writes:
You need to read the thread because I already showed where the partisan evolutionist site states von Baer was a creationist.
FROM your link: Iconoclasts of Evolution:
Haeckel, Behe, Wells & the Ontogeny of a Fraud(click)

Wells says that as von Baer was not a proponent of evolution, so Darwin's use of his embryological contributions in support of evolutionary theory is in fact misuse.
Hopefully you can see the logical fallacy of Wells' argument. As noted in the above article:
von Baer's rejection of Darwin's paradigm is immaterial because his empirical data support Darwin (as happens commonly in science).
Evidence does not belong to people only to use in their theories, evidence applies to all, that is what objective evidence means.
Now, when you quote the article by saying:
randman, msg 229 writes:
von Baer did not accept evolution.
This does not make him a creationist, but a scientist that rejects the (to him) brand new (then) theory of evolution.
I see absolutely no reference to von Baer being a creationist. I do see reference to his being a scientist investigating the differentiation of species during development.
What the term "creationist" would mean then would also be very different from what it means today, imho, and thus is not very relevant anyway, but you can't just assume that anti-evolution equals creationist. This is like saying the sky is green because it isn't yellow.
Specifically and to the point, the article does NOT state that von Baer was a creationist as you claimed.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

This message is a reply to:
 Message 229 by randman, posted 07-03-2005 2:29 AM randman has replied

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hitchy
Member (Idle past 5118 days)
Posts: 215
From: Southern Maryland via Pittsburgh
Joined: 01-05-2004


Message 236 of 306 (221552)
07-04-2005 12:34 AM
Reply to: Message 232 by Modulous
07-03-2005 8:21 AM


Re: Pharyngeal pouches
Thanks for the back up, Mod.

This message is a reply to:
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hitchy
Member (Idle past 5118 days)
Posts: 215
From: Southern Maryland via Pittsburgh
Joined: 01-05-2004


Message 237 of 306 (221558)
07-04-2005 12:45 AM
Reply to: Message 227 by randman
07-03-2005 1:21 AM


Re: Let's take a look!
Obviously, here is another misrepresentation since humans have no gill pouches, ever, not at any stage of development, but rather what are called gill pouches are simply biomechanical folds having nothing to do with gills whatsoever. As far as tails, sorry, but that's the backbone.
And the tailbone is the terminal end of the backbone. I suppose, then, that all of the humans that were born with tails were fakes!?! By your understanding, are there any such things as homologous structures?
And yes, those are called gill pouches or pharyngeal pouches and I believe Mayr gave a good explanation for their existance in the vertebrates that you might want to read again.
Take care.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 227 by randman, posted 07-03-2005 1:21 AM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 238 of 306 (221570)
07-04-2005 1:29 AM
Reply to: Message 231 by Modulous
07-03-2005 7:53 AM


Re: Manners maketh the man
You may also note that the phylotypic stage is not a falsified claim.
That's the problem with evolutionists. Evolutionists have taught the phylotypic stage for well over a 100 years, and when evidence is put forth that indicates it is a false claim, you guys insist it's not falsified.
So what?
Imo, it is falsified, but it doesn't really matter. Evolutionists have still created a lie by claiming it is a proven piece of data when it is not.
On a civil tone, I suggest you reread your own posts as well!
Moreover, quit misrepresenting my claims here, please.
4. The magnitude of the fudging of the diagrams in school was common knowledge and Richardson's work simply covered old ground, perhaps unveiling some new information - creationists had been pointing out that the diagrams were inacurate for decades
I am not sure the magnitude was known at all. What I am sure is that evolutionists should have known their claims they presented for decades were false. There is no excuse in that, especially since plenty of people showed the claims were false.
Now, did they know the magnitude of how false the claims and drawings were?
All I can say is they knew and stated it was very false, faked data, without any real coorealation to the facts at all.
But Richardson curiously seems to almost defend Haeckel at times while detailing, perhaps, even more ways in which his drawings were fraudulent.
I guess it's like an organized crime figure busted for several murders, decades ago, and then long after his death someone does more research and finds he was worse than imagined.
How that equates to a defense of the evolutionist establishment is frankly beyond me. Imo, there is no valid defense for the way evolutionists continually used, and still use, deceptive data in this area.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 231 by Modulous, posted 07-03-2005 7:53 AM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 247 by Modulous, posted 07-04-2005 8:44 AM randman has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 239 of 306 (221571)
07-04-2005 1:34 AM
Reply to: Message 232 by Modulous
07-03-2005 8:21 AM


Re: Pharyngeal pouches
Modulous, this came from post 122.
Perhaps you didn't read it?
Or do you claim that early human embryos do not have tails and gill pouches?
Yes, in fact I do deny that, as anyone that is educated on the subject should. The so-called tail is the backbone forming, and the so-called gill slits are "biomechanical flexion folds, caused by the embryo's head growing around the heart".
For example, extensive studies of early humanembryos (Blechschmidt 1978) have shown that the folds on the ventral side of theembryo's head-neck region have nothing whatsoever to do with gills; the same applies tothe chick and pig embryo. They are simple biomechanical flexion folds, caused by the embryo's head growing around the heart to which the neural tube is anchoredbiophysically via tension-bearing blood vessels. Such folds occur throughout life on theflexion side of all bends in the body, no matter whether the body belongs to an embryo oran adult.
link
I realize you see gill slits when in reality it is simply folded tissue there, but that's because the deception through the use of Haeckel's false depictions is such that it is hard for evolutionists to let go of the story, the myth, even when it is shown to be factually wrong.
Humans never have gill slits. That's just wrong. You believe it because you were taught that, and never really looked into the evidence for yourself.
This is the longer section of the quote, which expressed my sentiment on how improper wording colors the data here.
Even the subsequent letter to your journal (Sonleitner, ABT, September 1999),criticizing the May article, persists with the erroneous terminology of "branchial" (i.e.,gill) arches for a mammalian embryo. Here I am not merely nit-picking overterminology: when our language is based on fraudulent concepts, then our thinking isclouded and a discipline cannot progress. For example, extensive studies of early humanembryos (Blechschmidt 1978) have shown that the folds on the ventral side of theembryo's head-neck region have nothing whatsoever to do with gills; the same applies tothe chick and pig embryo. They are simple biomechanical flexion folds, caused by theembryo's head growing around the heart to which the neural tube is anchoredbiophysically via tension-bearing blood vessels. Such folds occur throughout life on theflexion side of all bends in the body, no matter whether the body belongs to an embryo oran adult. To retain the generic term "branchial" for the head folds of all embryos is toconceal the special nature of the folding in any one animal.Today, all we need to know of Haeckel's "law" is that it is false and that it cannotbe rescued by subtle rewording, or by claims that it is only partially true. Once thismental straightjacket is cast aside, along with its inaccurate concepts and terminology, itis possible to open our students' minds to the unique ontogeny of each species, and torecast evolution in a totally different and exciting framework.Brian FreemanSenior Lecturer in Anatomy, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia 2038(b.freeman@unsw.edu.au)ReferencesAlberts, B., Bray, D., Lewis, J., Raff, M., Roberts, K. & Watson, J.D. (1994). MolecularBiology of the Cell (3rd ed.). New York: Garland Publishing.Assmuth, J. & Hull, E.R. (1918). Haeckel's Frauds and Forgeries. Bombay: ExaminerPress.Blechschmidt, E. (1978). Anatomie und Ontogenese des Menschen. Heidelberg: Quelle &Meyer Verlag.Freeman, B. (1987). Zur Diskussion. Naturwissenschaften, 74, 348.[published in: American Biology Teacher 63, 2001, 230]
This message has been edited by randman, 07-04-2005 01:37 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 232 by Modulous, posted 07-03-2005 8:21 AM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 240 of 306 (221572)
07-04-2005 1:45 AM
Reply to: Message 235 by RAZD
07-03-2005 12:43 PM


Re: another unsubstantiated assertion
Whatever. Let's not play word-games here. Von Baer was an adament and vocal opponent of early evolutionary theory, transformationalism, and also of Darwin and his theory. He was an anti-evolutionist, and in general that makes him a creationist, or maybe an ID theorist, or something along those lines, but he was clearly against Darwin and evolution.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 235 by RAZD, posted 07-03-2005 12:43 PM RAZD has replied

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