Great Debate: Nuggin v. Randman

You keep asking the question. I keep answering it. Don't attack my integrity simply because you had bad source material.If your question is: Has there ever been a book published which held up Haeckel as being 100% true? Sure. His book would be a great example.But what you are trying to imply is that all books therefore hold up Haeckel as being 100% true. Simply not the case.

Yeah, good thing I presented evidence of vestigial legs to help clear that up.I'll flip your quote for you.If it does bud into bone or flipper, or at least make some substantial progress in that direction, then claiming it isn't a bud for bone or a flipper is just a blatant disregard of the facts.

You are completely wrong. The design contains variations that are not always present, and there is considerable leeway for various features to emerge even without mutations.I think you fail to realize the level of variation without mutation, and frankly, you can include mutations too. It doesn't change the fact one whit Haeckel forged his data, and that evos created a myth surrounding that false data and don't want to come clean about.Mutations or no mutations, it matters not at all to me. I have no theory to defend on this thread.As far as YECers, which I am not, they beleive that kinds can evolve in multiple species with multiple features, and have a whole realm of study of what the limits of kinds are called bariminology.For me, I am less ambitious. I note that whales have been known to breed across genera, and by some classifications, across sub-families. Imo, then there are polytypic species of whales that show massive differences in features that can exhibit within one polytypic species. I don't know if they can develop hind flippers, but it wouldn't change anything in regard to recapitulation if they could, and certainly, we know they can develop bones inwardly past the pelvis. A fairy tale, but having little to do with the debate either way. Another collection of unsubstantiated claims. No hind limbs but barely a bump, a tiny protrusion, hardly vestigal hind limbs, or no, hind flippers. Also the whole mutation that doesn't trigger is just so much hogwash. First, I don't think you can substantiate that whales are ever borne with protruding limbs even if deformed with excessive mutation. Secondly, once again, it is a moot point and a worthless argument because it would have to be a mutation to cause this, not the lack of a mutation kicking in. The evo claims here are fairy tales not based in real science, just as Haeckel's drawings were fakes. That's not my counter proposal so it's not worth responding to.Here are some questions. Please answer.Are Haeckel's drawings frauds or not?Also, if you think the bumb is the beginning of a hind flipper or some such, why wouldn't this just be the whale evolving a new feature? Why is it "vestigal"? I mean you guys claim new features evolve, and something like a wing or leg has to evolve slowly.So there must be millions upon millions of years with something like a bumb growing into a bigger bump and then a leg, flipper or wing, right? So this could just as easily, if you are right (which you are not) be evidence of something new, and not something old.It's just bias to call it vestigal. I write this to show you that it's a dumb argument. It's very weak, and probably just a bumb like other areas of the embryo, and if somehow the evos guessed right, and it was a flipper trying to form, it could just as easily be something new as something old. So it's a losing argument for you all the way around.

It could grow into a full-blown hind flipper, and it still wouldn't b evidence of recapitulation. There is no reason to think it wouldn't be something new evolving, or part of the variation potential existing. There is absolutely no evidence to show it is vestigal rather than evolution, and frankly, it just isn't a good argument for even being something significant at all.

You continually misrepresent the source material. Twice I posted pics from textbooks that have nothing to do with the history of evolution, and the one source you claim did, still maintained the same stance that the drawings were accurate, and I also posted a bunch of other references, and quoted evos admitting that not only were his drawings included in textbooks, but were the primary source material for evo claims in scientific research and peer review articles.Yea, I am questioning your integrity at this point for suggesting I have only provided one source. [qs] But what you are trying to imply is that all books therefore hold up Haeckel as being 100% true. Simply not the case.

You continually misrepresent the source material. Twice I posted pics from textbooks that have nothing to do with the history of evolution, and the one source you claim did, still maintained the same stance that the drawings were accurate, and I also posted a bunch of other references, and quoted evos admitting that not only were his drawings included in textbooks, but were the primary source material for evo claims in scientific research and peer review articles.Yea, I am questioning your integrity at this point for suggesting I have only provided one source. Nuggins, every single one of the textbooks I cited held up his drawings as true.Why can't you admit this?

No, it wouldn't. All it would show is that whales under certain mutations might could mutate a deformed extension. That's it.I suppose you could argue it could keep mutating into a viable flipper or something. That would fit evolution, although it's hard to see how half limbs and wings, as evos claim, were useful enough to survive to the next mutations, but that's your claim.The idea it means whales were once 4-legged is totally unsubstantiated. Can you show how physical deformities are caused and that deformities are usually the result of backwards evolution to some sort of state from millions and millions of years ago.I don't think you can do with most mutations that cause physical deformities and as such, evos are just presenting just-so stories as facts.

BTw, you got a citation for this? Or is this another fish-story? urban myth?

I already have. Hardly. Your complain is that recapitulation is being taught in schools. If recapitulation is fact, then it should be taught in schools. If Haeckel's drawings work as teaching aids, as Richardson suggests, then they should be used to teach the theory.You can't have it both ways, Randman. You can't say that whales have legs and don't have legs. You can't say that Richardson is the expert on the subject of Haeckel and then disregard his later quote. Then what is your counter proposal. I'm not trying to paint you as a YEC, but you're being dodgy and hard to pin down. You have asked this 12 times now, and I've answered it over and over again. Haeckel's drawings contain mistakes that Haeckel should have known about.I'll even go you one further and bring up a point that Richardson makes in my link and that you haven't been making.In many cases, the images of "Haeckel's work" found in textbooks are degraded from the original or copies of copies of people cribbing of Haeckel. Both of those changes have introduced additional problems (mistakes?) that weren't in Haeckel's work. So, even if Haeckel was 100% accurate, which we agree that he was not, the images currently in use still wouldn't be 100% accurate.Satisfied?That still doesn't change the question - "Do these images have worth as teaching tools for the theory of recapitulation, theory of evolution, history of biology, etc?" You have said yourself that whales have submerged hind flippers. Given that, why do you think that the limb in the photo is not related to the hind flipper? You would be right if there were never any fossils. Unfortunately for your theory, there are.Given the fossil record, we can look at the scope of changes and make evaluations about a feature being vestigial or not.For example, snakes have vestigial legs. There are snake fossils that have more the tiny 1mm spurs that snakes of today have. These fossils are not from the future.

There is fossil evidence which clearly shows that earlier forms of what see now see as whales had hind legs.What there is no reason to believe is the hypothesis that each and every animal in the fossil record spontaneous popped into being as is.Clearly these forms are related. Clearly there is a progression of time. Clearly that progression shows hind legs falling out of use, shinking and disappear. Clearly the image I posted shows hind leg development still present in the embryo.The fact that you don't accept any of the data, doesn't change that data.

I am not, but you posted a link that you claimed was a book teaching Haeckel as fact. I went to the link and read the quote and it was not doing as you suggested. In fact, it discussed the problems people had with Haeckel's theory.You have completely discounted ever single thing I've linked simply because you don't want to believe it.Have you linked anything to dispute the 1958 account? No.
Any links to dispute the hind limb on the whale embryo? No.
Any links to dispute the fingers on the dolphin? No.I don't think you falsely represented the link you posted, I just think you didn't read it carefully enough.

Damn I wish I could post pictures that weren't thumbed on other sites. You'll have to deal with links I'm afraid.Philip D. GingerichNote figure 5, the nearly complete fossil of a Dorudon atrox. Clearly related to the whale. Clearly showing tiny hind legs. Also note that I am saying LEGS here not flippers. The fossils show feet and toes.(I think you'll also get a kick of the image of the Pakicetus with all the ? marks for limbs) though that's not the point of the link.

I posted it in Message 112 but here it is again.Hind Limb Rudiments on Modern Whales Example OneThe information is in the 1st sentence.For someone who's attacking me on the grounds that I haven't read all of the 100s of pages worth of text you're linking, you'd think that you might bother to read the first sentence of something I linked.

Let's try to get something straight.Do you believe Haeckel's drawings were widely used and relied on as factual, both for textbooks and among evolutionist scientists, until at least 1997?Do you believe they were faked as His, Rutimeyer, various creationists, and finally some evos such as Richardson admitted?

The problem with your questions is that the vocabulary you are using can be misconstrued. I will do my best to answer what you ask. Do I believe that Haeckel's drawings were widely used? Yes.Do I believe there were in textbooms until at least 1997? Yes.Do I believe they were "relied on as factual"? It depends on what you mean. This is an illustration of the orbital paths of some of our planets. Is it "factually" correct? Well, look at the relative size of the moon and the sun. Obviously the scale here is radically off.But does this illustration convey information? Yes. If I was trying to express the idea of planetary orbits in a textbook, I might use this illustration to demonstrate what I mean when I say something like "Mercury's orbit in inside of the Earth's orbit"Would I use this to demonstrate the relative size of the heavenly bodies? No.So back to your question, were Haeckel's works relied upon as factual? Yes, within a context.Second question Do I believe they were "faked"? It depends on what you mean by "faked".I consider the Cardiff Giant to be faked. Its a large manshaped block of concrete crafted by people deliberately trying to pull a fast one.Did they believe that the Cardiff giant was real? No.Did Haeckel believe his theory to be correct? Yes. So, clearly his work does not fit into this definition of "faked".Further, it's not as though Haeckel were drawing pictures of fairies. He's drawing embryos. He may be drawing those pictures in correctly, but I think we both take it for granted that there are in fact pig embryos in existance.Let's rephrase the question to this: "Was Haeckel's data incorrectly altered (intentionally or unintentionally) to better support his theory?" Yes. I believe it was.But here are the follow up questions-Do Haeckel's drawings do a good job of conveying the concept of recapitulation?Would it be easier to teach the concept with no drawings at all?Although Haeckel's work contains flaws, is the theory he postulated correct? How has his theory changed over time? What is the current understanding of the theory? Does the current understanding of the theory fit with data we see around us?Theories change over time. Data is re-evaluated.Jumping back to the solar model I posted - at one time people believed that Venus, Mars and Mercury orbitted the Earth. They offered up images to support this. Their core concept proved wrong:
Do Venus, Mars and Mercury orbit the Earth? No.But that doesn't change the fact that these points are correct:
Do Venus, Mars and Mercury exist? Yes.
Do Venus, Mars and Mercury orbit? Yes.
Do all three orbit the same object? Yes.You seem to want to throw out the baby with the bath water.Again, I'm reading into your use of certain words in your questions. Maybe I'm wrong about what you are implying. Maybe not. That's for you to explain
The fact that the original theory was