Great Debate: Nuggin v. Randman

Hey there,Noticed that Moose and Faith are trying to do a 1 on 1. I'd like to do the same with Randman.Often when Rand posts a point he gets shouted down with (unreasonable?) demands, and "answer my question" posts. Which usually (inevitably) leads to the thread spiraling off topic.While I disagree with Randman on many things, he's at least willing to engage in debate, and his points have a basis in reality (ie he's talking about science, as opposed to talking about religion).So, I'd like to make this offer: I'd like to have a civil debate on anyone of the many topics that Randman frequently gets shouted down about - Web footed whales, Giant skulls, Dinos and People living together, Neandertal v. Cro-magnon, etc.Your choice Rand I'm game for anything.I'd like to keep it to just us two, so we can at least make a go of it being on topic.What do you say?

Hey all,
In case you're wondering. Been talking to Rand off board. We're both having busy real lives at the moment. Expect the debate to kick off maybe sometime next week.

Sounds like a good topic. Lots of info here. Let's address this in two ways.The first is the scientific/historic aspects of "ontologeny recapitulates phylogeny". Which, I promise, I will address in due time.The second is the teaching/textbook aspect of this, which I'll touch on now.Your complaint seems to be that this theory, which for the time being we'll assume is utterly false, is being taught in textbooks. And that the Haeckel drawings are being used to teach it. Further, that this is somehow a part of the evolutionist movement at large.While I agree that textbooks in general should not teach false science (or history, or grammar, etc), the forces which drive textbook creation and selection are often opposed to the forces the drive science.The local committees which select textbooks are often doing compair and contrasts to other books on sale, or their remembered education. If the Haeckel drawings help the publisher sell their book, it's a good bet that the Haeckel drawings are going to stay. It has little or nothing to do with the publishers desire to express evolutionist views.Now, on a more specific scale, there are times when teaching false information in textbooks is useful. It is unlikely that a 3rd grader is mentally capable of understanding the genocidal history of the European conquest of the Americas - instead they get the storybook version of Thanksgiving which has little or nothing to do with the reality. Why? Because one of the things that early education does is prepare the child for their role in society. Many people never get any deeper into American history than the Thanksgiving story. And, it has little to no effect on their lives as Chemists/Plumbers/Architects/whatever.Similiarly, the broad concepts behind evolution help prepare those students for theories which will come along later in education. So the 6th grader (I'm guessing) that learns about Haeckel's drawings is being preped for later, more complex, and sometimes contradictory theories further down the line. Those that don't pursue the education are no more hurt by Haeckel than the plumber who doesn't know about the real Thanksgiving.Again, your point that this could be lies on top of lies is taken, and will be addressed in an upcoming post.

Not necessarily. For example - the "Face on Mars" was considered by many to be strong evidence for the existance of extra-terrestrial life. However, a closer look reveals that it is nothing more than a collection of rocks and shadows.This revelation about "the face" doesn't make ETs and UFOs less likely. It just means that this particular thing is not evidence for them.While you are correct that the drawings and theory have been used in the teaching of evolution, they are not the only source of data. If the embrionic evidence turns out to be completely useless, it doesn't necessarily contradict other sources of evidence.Again, haven't had time to find sources / links for the debate on the validity of the actual debate here - whether or not embrionic evidence supports evolutionary theory - we're still just talking about the surrounding issues.

Help me out, RandI've been looking around for a biology textbook which is being used in schools that mentions Haeckel other than as a historical reference. I'm having trouble finding any that mention him at all. (I'm neither a parent nor teacher, so I don't have easy access to this stuff). I've also jumped around the web a bit. There seem to be a lot of sites putting down Haeckel, or explaining the theory in a historical context, etc. But I'm not finding legitimate sites that put Haeckel's theory forward as proof of evolution.I didfind an anti Haeckel site that showed the full chart. I don't think I've ever seen the full scale Haeckel chart before only bits and pieces of it. That chart is silly. I'm refering to the one with the chicken and the pig on it. I'd hate to think that that was in modern text books as I think that most kids would simply laugh at it.Remember that Haeckel's theory predates sonograms by quite a bit.I'm wondering if this is a moot point? If Haeckel's theory is not being taught at evidence for evolution, what's the problem.Which beggers the question - "Should this theory be taught at all?"I'm going to say yes and here's why:Haeckel's theory was an important contribution not only to biology (where he was misleading) but to the many other fields who bought into the theory. Psychology, politics, sociology - many fields were effected by this theory. It's important to teach the history of science as you teach the science.Also, while Haeckel is clearly reaching with his theory, he's not entirely insane. When you look at an adult chicken, an adult human and an adult pig, they are very easy to distinguish. When you look at the embryos of each, it's not so easy. How can three very different things grow from such similiar looking embryos? That's a very good question - and one that Haeckel's limited understanding of fetal-biology (did I just make that term up?), genetics, etc. couldn't possibly answer.So, if you can find a textbook that points to Haeckel as proof of evolution - I'm with you in the "let's edit this" committee. But, if it's just using Haeckel-ish drawings of fetuses to show where the eyes/hands/wings/tails would be, I think that's a little easier to get across to a 10 year old than a fuzzy gray picture of a blob of cells.

No prob. I'm busy, too. I'm trying to find books in real life since the online stuff isn't much help. Too hard to tell what's really being used vs. what's old news rehashed

Nice post. Clearly outlined. Let's take it a piece at a time -On Darwin: Darwin's initial theory of evolution was not based on a study of embryology, but on the differences he saw in adult animals. The fact that he felt embryology supported evolution doesn't change where the theory itself comes from. Let's assume that embryology holds absolutely no evidence for evolution (I'll cover that later) and that Darwin was completely wrong in siting embryology as evidence for evolution - that wouldn't change evolution as a theory.Here's an extremely silly example: What if Newton had said, "Clearly, apple cider is important proof of gravity." Obviously, apple cider, stemming from falling apples, is not support of gravity. But the fact that it doesn't support gravity doesn't mean that gravity doesn't exist.I don't know for certain what the state of embryology was in 1860, but I suspect it consisted primarily of bearded men staring at glass jars full of alcohol and fetuses.On Haeckel:
There are three things going on with Haeckel.The first is a catch phrase. "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is catchy, if wrong. "The proof is in the pudding" means nothing, but it's catchier than "the proof of the pudding is in the tasting" which is the original phrase. People like catch phrases, then tend to live well beyond their usefulness. It's hard to stomp put this one because not only is it catchy, it also makes you sound smart.The second thing is a man who is over reaching. Haeckel made his theory without enough observation (or by falsifying observation). His diagrams are good evidence of this. While some of the pictures are accurate dipictions of various stages of fetal development, others are clearly works of pure fiction. He had a theory, he falsified data to prove his theory, he got caught.The third thing is the real bugger - Haeckel isn't 100% wrong. His theory that human fetuses are at one stage piglets is completely bogus. However, the observation that at early stages human fetuses have the same characteristics as pig fetuses (and fish, and newts, etc) is an important one.The fact is that human fetuses have tails. Some babies have tails, though it's rare. Features which were present in more primative forms of our species still make an appearence in the fetuses.Note: I don't know about the fish gill thing, I think that's over reaching. But, I'm not a fetus expert either.On Wikipedia:Actually Wiki says that Haeckel's theory has fallen from favor in it's first sentence on the subject. It then goes on to make the point that parts of his theory are still valid. (See my above paragraph for the thinking on that).On modern textbooks:I disagree with textbooks saying that the fetuses have gill slits. I think that's over reaching. I think it's a result of the fact that the people doing the embryological research are not the people who are writing textbooks. The textbook writers are regurgitating what they picked up in school back on the page. It's just like other textbook myths about George Washington, or Columbus, etc. I agree whole heartedly that we should do our best to stomp out the stuff that's factually incorrect.However, the tail part of that paragraph is accurate. Unlike the gill slits, you can see the tail. I can see the tail. There's a tail.On your broader point:The thrust of your argument, as I understand it, is that evolution is a chair build one a couple of legs and that "recapitulation" is one of those legs. Therefore, take away the leg, the chair doesn't stand as firmly.I disagree on a number of fronts.First is that, even though Haeckel was reaching, the theory of recapitulation isn't 100% wrong.Second is that, in my opinion, embryology is not a strong part of the evidence of evolution - meaning, when I try to explain evolution to someone, I don't talk about embryos. In fact, even if recapitulation didn't occur at all -(ie if all embryos were just tiny perfectly formed adults), evolution could still be active, selecting for the DNA which made those tiny adults.Third, evolution is a chair with many, many legs. If you took a leg off a three legged bar stool, that'd be a problem. But evolution has legs to spare - some thicker than others.

It really isn't "primary evidence". The primary evidence is observable similiarities and differences between species. That's something easily observable, accessable to the layman and easy to understand (ie different shaped beaks, hands versus hooves).I'm willing to discuss embryology, and I'll even agree that embryology was/is part of the discussion of evolutionary theory. However, let's not put too much weight on the subject. Embryology is not the backbone of evolutionary theory. I think you misunderstand me, or I am misunderstanding you. I do not believe that our embryos pass through a stage where they are fish, etc. I do believe that looking at the human embryo and looking at a chimp embryo you can see features in both which are expressed in chimps but not expressed in humans.As for a "highly conserved stage", I assume that refers to a point where all vertibrates share a common form during the embryo process. I would suggest, mostly to be a pill, that for quite a few days from fertilization through to the 100,000 cell mark you'd be hard pressed to sort out the humans from the deer. Obviously, you're not a Kevin Costner fan. He's got gill slits in Waterworld. Seriously, the gill slits thing is, in my opinion, bad. I agree. The fact that the embryo of a dog and the embryo of a human both have the same feature which becomes a tail in a dog and our tiny stub of a tailbone pretty much sums it up. You peg your number way low there. There are maybe 100 photographed, but 100 EVER claimed? Come on, people have been around a long time.As for mutation/recapitulation/etc. here's how it works: The term "mutation" casts a very wide net. What I'm refering to is a change in instructions.Encoded in the DNA are instructions to build a baby out of the one fertilized egg. At some point there are a bunch of cells. At some later point, there is a heart. Something organized those cells into a heart. That "build a heart" instruction is probably just about the same for every animal that has a heart, since they all go from just a bunch of cells to having a heart. I think we can both agree on that.Similiarly, encoded in the DNA, there are instructions for "make a nose". Clearly elephants have very different instructions there than we do.Now, lets take the instructions for "build a spine". Part of that set of instructions is grow the neck part X long (giraffes) grow the tail part Y long (tigers). In humans, the Y part is very short. If that's where the mutation occurs, then the Y part sticks out.What evolutionist are saying is that those instructions are what has mutated. The fact that they can switch back and produce a tail (something a relatively close ancestor had) is good evidence for the tree of common decent. The fact that we never see a human with an elephant trunk is good evidence that that switch wasn't in our common descent.If we never had tails and were never meant to have tails, then why is it that as our embryos form the spine juts out to far? There's no reason for it to happen. There really isn't. Same bones, same structure growing along the same pathway. It's not like I'm saying - look the jaw is curved and the hipbone is curved. Clearly the tail is an extension of the spine. No problem. Reads as spirited debate to me.Off to bed, it's wicked late.

Well, two things there. First, "strong evidence" is not an exclusive or quantitative term. There can be hundreds of examples of "strong evidence" for something, all of them being equally important.Second, the embryotic evidence is strong evidence. Yes, Haeckel was reaching. Yes, some of the stuff that's being printed in textbooks is outdated. But, the fact that all embryos develope so similiarly, and the closer the two species are related, the more alike the embryos develope is strong evidence.If all the animal groups in the world are truly seperate creations with no mixing/no macro/no evolution - then there is absolutely no reason for fish embryos and kangaroo embryos to ever look anything alike at any stage. You are right that Darwin put stock in embryonic evidence.
You are right that some of what Darwin was saying about embryonic evidence was wrong.
You are right that a lot of what Haeckel was saying about embryos was wrong.
You are right that there were people who put a lot of weight in what Haeckel was saying - Not all of them evolutionists, by the way. His theories profoundly effected psychology, sociology, etc. (which beggers the question, did Haeckel create his theory, or did societies thought on race and human nature create the theory in Haeckel?)But, all of those rights does not make embryonic evidence completely useless.They based their theories on what was observable at the time. As technology advanced and more data was collected, the theories were refined. Our current thinking reflects the best understanding of the data. As we collect more data, our current thinking will be further refined. Again, you're spinning into some sort of conspiracy theory.If a book publisher prints a textbook and the Springfield school board votes it in, and that textbook has some Haeckel drawings in it, how is that part of some vast evolutionist conspiracy?The book publisher is not "pushing evolution", he is pushing books. He likely believes in evolution, but that's not what's motivating him.As for books using Haeckel, I haven't seen it. Been looking.I'm sure there are books out there that have 1-2 of Haeckels sketches from the chart, but I seriously doubt there are any that print the whole chart - at least not recently.And, even if there are, I think they should be changed to reflect modern thinking.But then, I think that history books should be changed to reflect modern thinking about Columbus, and no one is out there throwing a fit about that? So, what do I know? This is just a silly statement. Who are these "evos" you are talking about? Honestly, I've had hundreds of conversations with people about evolution and Haeckel just doesn't come up.This kind of generalization about the other side doesn't do any good.Besides, you are thinking about this all wrong. Take Columbus' map - it shows a round world, but not North America. Is Columbus a forger? No. He's got the right idea, he's just wrong about it.Now take a history book which publishes a piece of that map - say the lip of Africa - and talks about the world being round.The fact that the whole map was wrong doesn't make the world flat.
The fact that a piece of the map was used in the book doesn't make all historians and cartographers part of some vast conspiracy to trick the flat worlders.
The world is round. The map is famous. The publishers crib off each other. End of story.I'd love to turn the tables on you and point out the forgeries used by IDers to bolster their claims, but there's a problem. It's not that the IDers aren't willing to forge data. It's that they are not willing to present any at all.

But, all you are saying here is that everything we see around us is evidence for design, because everything we see around us is designed.That's circular.You complain that evolution supporters are doing the same thing (plug in the word evolution for design) but we've shown mechanisms, we shown examples.If you want me to seriously believe that all the animals that have spines, have spines because they were all specifically created to have spines, then you need to show some evidence that supports this.What evidence do we have for design?
What explaination do we have for things which are obviously poorly designed?You've gotta connect the dots here. It's not enough to just say - "Hey, a turkey is a turkey because it was made that way. It's completely unrelated to an eagle."Why aren't turkeys and eagles related? Or if they are related, why are isn't either one of them related to Archaeoptryx?As for "Haeckel forgaries", I have a problem with this term. It may in fact be that Haeckel drew pictures that he intentionally knew to be false and did so with the intention to mislead. But, you haven't shown that. And even if he did, and if you could show that, you haven't shown that all people since Haeckel have been aware of his deceipt and have maintained it will malicious intent, which is what you are implying.You probably know as much as I do about the Tea Pot Dome scandel (which is to say, not very much). You get your information from a history book, like I do. If neither of us goes to the original source material, you can't expect us to have a better understanding of the history than anyone else.You point to the whole Haeckel thing as if there were some conspiracy of evolution supporting embryologists who are in charge of writing all the textbooks in the nation. It's just not the case.Mistakes have been made. Some have been corrected. Some have yet to be corrected. Some have yet to be made. That's science. It's self correcting.The alternative is fundamentalist Creationism - where mistakes are impossible, as is the advancement of knowledge. All information that ever was or will be known was written down 2000 years ago and it can never, will never, should never change.

Well, I think the "some evos on other threads" was also me. But, yeah, this guy should have known better. Though, I doubt that he wrote the entire textbook from scratch, or by himself. I wouldn't be surprised if whole sections were cribbed / ghost written by students. Additionally, unless he's specifically studied the embroyology aspect of biology, the mere fact that he's a biologist, even a Brown biologist, isn't entirely damning.For example, I have a degree in Anthropology focusing on Archaeology. Yet, I fully admit, I know next to nothing about Egyptology. I find Egypt incredibly boring. If you want to talk about when humans first got to North America, I'm your man.Now, if I were to write a textbook on Archaeology, I would be smart to double check the Egypt areas to make sure my facts are right. But if I failed to do so, it wouldn't be because I'm secretly trying to hide information/mislead people.I would suggest that this guy from Brown honestly believes what he put in the biology textbook - even though it's been shown to be wrong.This leads us to a second question - why have people ignored the Creationists who have been pointing out that this is wrong for 100 years.Here are some other common statements from Creationists:1) Adam and Eve lived alongside T-Rex.
2) There never were any dinosaurs, the fossils were created as fossils.
3) There was a Great Flood just as it was described in the Bible.
4) All mankind is decended from Noah and his wife.
5) The rate of radioactive decay in the past was radically different than it has been for the last 100 years.I'll stop at 5, but I promise you that if this were an open debate, someone would jump in with another 100 or so.It's hard for reasonable people to drown out the noise and cherry pick the one or two valid points that are coming from that side of the fence.

People have been pointing out that there are things in the Bible that are factually wrong for a lot longer than 100 years.Try having that discussion with Faith and see how far you get.

Nice pictures - but a couple of things1) Notice how remarkably similiar that pig/human/chicken first pictures are?
2) That ability to take/reprint these photos has been around 10, maybe 20 years tops. Before that, you'd have to use drawings. Either Haeckel's or something Haeckel-like. Yes, some of Haeckel's drawings were crap, but some were accurate depictions of a particular stage of developement.
3) While the fish here does look different, we're getting only 3 pictures and I don't know which type of fish. Who knows if a scaled up image of a shark embryo looks more like the pig than a scaled down image of a neon embryo.4) And this one is a doosey, hence the space. Look at that last human image. Notice how STRIKINGLY different it is. That's because that last image is NOT a photograph. It's a computer generated image. Notice that it's in 3D while the others are flattened. Notice it has directional lighting. Did they jam a lamp up some lady's hoohoo?Is it an accurate image? I suspect it is. But that doesn't change the fact that it is a forgery. Further, the site you linked in the earlier post has some color sketches on it. The last human sketch is a drawing of this picture. It's a forgery of a forgery.Now, does the fact that this guy faked that one picture completely negate what he's trying to prove? No. Does the fact that the website you linked features not one but 2 forged images negate all the information on that site? No.I take the information with a grain of salt. As should anyone.If embryology was the ONLY thing that supported evolution, I'd have known a hell of a lot more about Haeckel at the start of this conversation than I do right now.The fact of the matter is, I knew just about nothing about Haeckel when you picked the topic. Why? Because Haeckel's theory was not important to my belief in evolution.In fact, Haeckel and all embryology could be struck from textbooks, I don't think it'd make a lick of difference in the explaination of evolution.Embryology is too conceptual. We, as people, don't have hands on experience with embryos the was we have hands on experience with dogs and birds.

Again, though, you keep going back to this term "forgery" implying that people are intentionally misleading others.Haeckel's drawings (or drawings like Haeckel's) are going to appear in any book which addresses embryology because Haeckel's drawings are of embryos. Yes, he put some drawings in sequences where they don't belong, but you are ruling out all drawings of embryos as Haeckel-like drawings.Additionally, the concept itself isn't completely wrong. You don't believe it. You think it points to something else. But you've given me nothing to evaluate your idea against.You suggest that the fact that embryos look similar is evidence for similiar design - but what are the mechanics of ID? I still don't know how these designer are done or produced. It's hard for me to believe that people can look at a finished product and infer a process of creation that they themselves can't imagine.

So the world is 6k years old? And everyone in it descended from Noah and his wife, creating cultures that date back to before the time of the flood?There's no proof that "The Cat in the Hat" is factually wrong. Neither you nor I was there when this particular cat showed up. But we can evaluate what is being suggested. We can evaluate what we know to be true. We can check the two against each other.