Why are Haeckel's drawings being taught in school?

I never said that "Campbell changed and quit using Haeckel's drawings." That would imply that he used them to begin with. Have you ever looked at any of the editions of Campbell's Biology texts?I called you on a mistake. I hardly call that ranting. By the way, my name is hitchy.

Hitchy, my mistake. I thought you were referring to a different textbook.Nevertheless, as WK's post illustrates if you look at the pic, Wells is correct to blast Campbell's illustrations on page 424 because they make the false claim of human gill pouches.Humans never have gills so they can never have "gill pouches." Tha language of "gill pouches" is straight out of various recapitulation schemes and is blatantly misleading, and imo, deserves severe criticism so that the practice will end.

Only if the drawings are accurate, and even laying out pictures but mislabelling them as "gill pouches" is wrong.Look, I am glad some limited progress has been made to hold evolutionist's feet to the fire with these textbooks, but let's face it, the primary vehicle for correction is criticism, and this whole saga shows how hard it is for evolutionists to exercise proper self-criticism, and how well evolutionists ignore and build up false defense mechanisms from criticisms "outside the camp" so to speak.There is no rational excuse for evolutionists to have used faked evidence for so long, and to continue to mislabel in a deceptive manner, calling bio-mechanical folds "gill pouches" when they are never gills in any form whatsoever.Continuing to do these things when told repeatedly with credible evidence that these are overstatements is, imo, a form of lying. Z quoted these sources, and may have mistaken the source he quoted since not all use Haeckel's drawings, but are still misleading.Nevertheless, it does not matter since we have already established earlier on the thread that most textbooks prior to the Richardson study did contain erroneous drawings based on Haeckel's drawings.The fact that after 1997, some removed these, but still maintain other false things like claims of "gill pouches" still serves my point.I also want to add for anyone reading, that Richardson is not my primary source, and I was made aware of this 10 years prior to Richardson's study. I am glad he did it. I doubt any evolutionist journals would accept the same criticism from creationists, but there is no doubt creationists pointed out the same basic errors, although the depth of the Richardson study may have uncovered more of them, and added more insight into the range of differences in embryos.

Humans have structures that develope into gills in fish and into jaw, ear etc in humans. "Gill pouches" seems to be as reasonable a name as any. It is perfectly reasonable to point out this relationship between the developement of mammals and the developement of other animals. Having learned a little more about it (thanks to you) I think it should be emphasized more rather than being ended.

Exactly why is it wrong? What are the things labeled as gill pouches? What are "biomechanical folds"? What relationship do this structures have to gills in fish? How dissimilar and similar are these structures in the early stages of human and other embryos? Did we? Where did we do that? It has become clear that just using drawings laid out like Haeckel's is not a problem. We have asked for specific examples of diagrams that are wrong and what is wrong with them. I don't recall that they were forth coming.In addition, it you have to be careful which textbooks you pick. Highschool textbooks are not likely to be written by evolutionary biologists. Higher level textbooks probably are and should be held to a higher standard.

Btw, I have not "agreed", and you once again equate similarities with similar paths.Why?Try to imagine the similarities existing without common descent, and maybe you can shake that misinterpretation of what I am writing.Similarities do not equate common descent. That's your argument, and basically the primary evolutionist argument.My point is similarities do not necessarily equate common descent.For example, sometimes people from different families can look alike. The fact 2 people look alike could mean they are in the same family, but often people look alike that are not related.You seem to read "similarity" as "similar paths", and I am not, nor ever am, suggesting that "similar paths" is the only explanation.So when I read an evolutionist paper stating something evolved from such and such species or common ancestral species due to such and such similarities, I call BS on that reasoning.You have to show a heck of a lot more than that.The reason you do is because there are other explanations for why these similarities exist. Before you can claim a "similar path", you need to discount all of the other possibilities.Let me also point out a false way evolutionists do that. Evolutionists will say it is highly unlikely that such similarities can exist independently, but that's hogwash because evolutionists are basing that on a faulty assumption of random mutations.They base their models on that, and then say, well assuming random mutations, this is highly unlikely to evolve independently.But assuming non-random mutation, it isn't highly unlikely.What could cause non-random mutation? Well, what causes random mutation? Until we really understand the process, we cannot make dogmatic claims.Plus, what if an intelligent agent causes the mutations?What if physics principles cause the mutation?What if the mutations did not create evolution, but common design is the answer, and these species were created by a common designer independently?I've listed these questions and a bunch of others earlier, and unless studies can rule these other hypotheses out, and better explain the degrees of non-randomness in mutations, and issues like that, all this talk of evidence for evolution is totally bogus since the same evidence can support a variety of claims.

Ok, now read this very slowly: "I am not arguing for common descent here. As I have stated that is for another thread. What I am discusing is the similarities themselves." I think one source of confusion is the word paths. In this case I am refering to he development paths of different embryos. I am not, in any way, refering to evolutionary developements.In fact, the post you are replying to only uses paths in one sentence: Now how did you get your interpretation of "paths" out of that?Perhaps you would like to go back, read more slowly, and try a different post?

No, they don't. Humans never have the same structures as fish, and that's the point. Take DNA samples of the human "gill pouches" or any other evidence, and you will see the flesh and so-called pouches are not the same as the same structure of a fish.It's not just that human embryos don't recapitulate adult forms, but they don't recapitulate at all.That doesn't prevent one from making the argument that via the long process of evolution, these significantly differing structures indicate (or don't indicate) a possible evolution from earlier forms due to some similarities, but what you have to do, if you are going to be honest, is not overstate your case.You cannot say it is the same structure that develops into gills with fish because that's a lie. It's not the same structure. At best, you can argue it is similar to the structure that develops into gills with fish.Calling them "gill pouches" is essentially lying, and moreover trying to use propoganda methods to convince people of the argument by misleading labelling is not the way to educate people.For an illustration, let's take a murder trial where the murder weapon was a bat, but no one knows where the bat came from. The prosecutor argues this was the defendant's bat and tries to submit "the defendant's bat" as evidence.Well, he cannot do that. He has to enter it as the murder weapon, not "the defendant's bat" because he is arguing that it is the defendant's bat. To label it the defendant's bat is to taint the process and pre-judge the matter.Same here. You can't call it "gill pouches" as if the issue is settled.Moreover, they are not gill pouches. That's a scientific fact. They are not even "the same structures" that develop into gills with fish. At best, you can argue they resemble in certain ways the structures that develop into gills, and even that has to be proven.

OK. I thought you were referring to similar evolutionary paths. I don't really see such similarity in embryonic paths myself, except some general similarities, but that's true across the board, seeds becoming plants, etc,...I really don't see such general patterns as strong evidence for common descent, and in general think species have pretty big differences in embryonic development.In fact, the earliest stages are significantly different. The idea is they come together in a phylotypic stage and then diverge (the hour-glass model), but even that is a dubious claim, but still debated.

All the references I have found including the one I gave you originally
(homolgous structures) seem to disagree with you.The structures in humans called "gill pouches" are the same structures that, in other animals, develop into gills. That means the name is reasonable though perhaps "pharyngial arches" is a better name.It is the same based on the list of informtion given in the reference above. While you may want every single gene involved in the developement there is, in my mind, more than enough to support the commonality of the structures.There is certainly enough to say that you can not make dogmatic statments that they are not the same structures. There is reasonable evidence that they are.And again, you didn't need to bring up ID, convergent evolution or created kinds as an explanation unless they are the same structures.The issue is settled enough for me. There are a number of different, independent pieces of evidence pointing in the same direction. All you have to counter that is: "but maybe....". Well, when your maybe is supported by some specific evidence then you have a reason to call people frauds. In the meantime it might be an idea to hold your tongue and be more tentative in your statements.The current view of science always settles on the current best explanation for something. That these structures are the same is a reasonable current explanation. We never wait for absolute proof as it is never forthcoming.You have offered 3 alternative explanations. If you wish to support one of those I suggest that you open a thread.This thread is about whether calling them the same structure is a fraud or not. It is not! There is reasonable evidence to support (but perhaps not "prove") that statement.

Except the fact that no matter how hard evolutionists insist to the contrary, they are NOT the same structures.That's an uncontestable fact. Just the fact the flesh contains DNA of 2 different organisms is proof of that, even if they were were virtually identical otherwise, which they are not.The truth is they are just "flexion folds" of the developing neck, parts of the facial and head region due to the heart and head being pressed together.The fact that you can cite articles that call them gill pouches or assert they are the same structures is just more evidence of the fraudulent nature of how evolutionary hypotheses are presented.What I think you and they mean to convey, but overstate for whatever reason, is that these 2 different structures resemble one another and thus descent, in your opinion, from a common ancestral form.Correct?But they are not the same structures, and to start off calling them the same structures is deceptive, and even more so to call them "gill pouches" which they are not. This is why to appears to me that evolutionists were caught and forced to recant on the use of Haeckel's drawings but still otherwise are up to the same game-plan of deceit, in some respects.Why the deceptive use of terms and labels? I don't know. I think maybe such use of overstatements was so ingrained in evolutionary theory and the way it was presented early on, that evolutionists genuinely have a hard time seeing they are doing anything wrong.That's about the only explanation I can see that holds water.Personally, it baffles me how seeming intelligent people could defend the use of referencing something from a human embryo aa a "gill pouch" in a scientific discussion when we know for a fact that it is not a gill pouch.I've tried to explain why people like myself who once believed in evolution quit accepting it based on such overstatements, but it seems there is more of a circle the wagon, the creationists are on the move, mentality holds sway.This message has been edited by randman, 07-08-2005 01:28 AM

Btw, don't these ridges develop into part of the face, ear bones, and parts of the endocrine system?I don't see most of that as particularly related to gills.I realize evolutionists are picking out one small part of that, the parathyroid and perhaps the thyroid, but honestly, that seems a very large stretch, unless you are already inclined to accept it.How did facial expressions, for instance, evolve from gills?And ear bones?How are they related to gills?Lymph nodes?Heck, I am an artist among other things, and with enough imagination, you can just about link anything, but since these so-called gill pouches are actually the early stages of parts of the head not related in the faintest way for the most part to gills, the claims of sites like PandaThumb seem just like more trying to resurrect the myth of recapitulation.

You know, I'm starting to come around to Randman's way of thinking, but I have found a much more egregious and long standing problem.Forget 'Gill slits', what we really need to get rid of is the 'Adam's Apple'. This scurrilous creationist propaganda has been common usage for far too long and is pervasiv in any number of medical and anatomical textbooks.Not only is this not an actual 'Apple', as creationists persistently claim by their very use of the term, but they then further compound their crimes by trying to tie their misrepresentations of anatomy into their contrived account of man's origins.TTFN,WKP.S. Did you ever consider that some aspects of terminology have a historical basis which doesn't neccessarily match the current state of knowledge about their function?

Now that is just a downright stupid argument. My brain and yours both contain DNA of 2 different organisms, therefore you don't have a brain. Does that sound like a sensible argument? Presumably Fish don't have brains either due to not having the same DNA as me.They may not have exactly the same DNA but they share an astonishingly large amount which also happens to share an astonishing degree of functional similarity to those seen in the development of other organisms.Why don't you stop just stating ridiculous arguments and start providing some evidence. Instead of calling on us to provide more and more common markers why not come up with some unique markers which are found in the branchial arches of fish but not in the mammalian pharyngeal arches. At the moment you seem to have a complete inability to do actual research and a total failure to be able to even read the references which are handed to you on a plate.At the moment you have nothing other than the somewhat bizarre claim that just because they are a 'biomechanical fold' which occurs in a similar position in a number of different developing embryos the structures are not therefore homologous. Using a similarity to suggest that these structures are disimilar just seems ass-backwards.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 07-08-2005 02:39 AM

These ridges do develop into those structures, and they develop into the craniofacial structures, elements of the endocrine system and jaw bones in fish as well, what do you know, another similarity.Do you just want us to change the name? Oh wait, biologists already mostly use branchial and pharyngeal so I guess we already did. You mean apart from the way that the structures in fish and amphibians which express many of the same specific molecular markers and give rise to the same tissues go on to give rise to gills, temporarily in the case of most amphibians. There is actually a lot of research out there about this, why not show us you can actually do some and provide some references for it yourself.TTFN,WK