Refuting Haeckel's embryo scam
I found this:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=1224
From what I can see it shows that the original embryo drawings were widely inaccurate. The new ones show completely different proportions don't they?
Quizzlestick wrote:
"The new ones show completely different proportions don't they?"
That Haeckel's drawings are fraudulent appears not to be controversial, even among Darwinists. Eugenie Scott acknowledges they are fraudulent, and in his so-called documentary called "Flock of Dodos" apparently Randy Olson acknowledges they are fraudulent. These drawings have been known to be fraudulent for 100 years, or thereabouts.
If there was any question as to whether the drawings were fraudulent, Randy Olson would have attempted to defend the drawings' authenticity in his film Instead, he acknowledges that they were fraudulent but accuses Jonathan Wells of fraud when Wells claims in his book "Icons of Evolution" that the drawings are still used in modern textbooks. Whether the fraudulent drawings appear in modern textbooks is the issue that Randy Olson focuses on, claiming in the film that the drawings do NOT appear in modern textbooks. Trouble is, as Discovery Institute's video shows, Randy Olson is flat wrong. Worse than that, it appears for all the world like he intentionally and knowingly included false claims in his stupid film.
Seems silly for any Darwinist sympathizer to attempt to defend the authenticity of Haeckel's drawings. The "leading" Darwinists admit they were faked.
I completely agree. This subject has been falsified by both sides of the debate, and for anyone to continue to try and use it for or against is just incorrect. There is no doubt that Haeckel did not make very good drawings, and I'd say that most likely it was to support both his science and evolution in general. Since the main problem in them was oversimplification, I suppose it's possible that he just had a really really bad microscope, very poor samples quality wise or he actually deluded himself due to his wanting it to be true, but those are much less likely than the simple explanation that he just doctored them to support what he wanted them to. In fact he had other ideas that were also incorrect, including the development of societies being parallel to development in individuals, once again a vast oversimplification of a much more complex relationship. This is in the category of things that should just be thrown out of the debate completely and left as another example of something that was incorrect, which I'd say the history of humans has more than enough of that it won't feel lonely :)
I have a random number of biology books on the shelf behind me TroutMac. You pick some from your shelf, I'll pick some from mine and we'll see what they have to say about haeckel?
Troutmac opined "Seems silly for any Darwinist sympathizer to attempt to defend the authenticity of Haeckel's drawings. The "leading" Darwinists admit they were faked."
Quite right
Troutmac said ". Whether the fraudulent drawings appear in modern textbooks is the issue that Randy Olson focuses on, claiming in the film that the drawings do NOT appear in modern textbooks. Trouble is, as Discovery Institute's video shows, Randy Olson is flat wrong. Worse than that, it appears for all the world like he intentionally and knowingly included false claims in his stupid film."
The funny thing is that a few books do have the drawings in question in them. The issue is not that they appear or not. The dishonest part is the spin put on it by the Discovery Institute - the drawing DO appear in the books but almost always only to say "and this is an issue and here was one attempt (that failed) to explain it" So even where they have the drawings they are not pointing to them as proof of anything, just talking about attempts to find theory's for observed data. So the letter of that the DI are saying is true, but the spirit is false. The picture is in the books but as an example of how not to do it. So why 30 odd pages in ICONS about such a minor issue?
Have you seen the film then to say it's stupid?
So why 30 odd pages in ICONS about such a minor issue?
The only reason it's even an issue is because students are often compelled into initial acceptance of Darwinism by using these drawings and other things that are easier to believe than modern Darwinism. This occurred to me back in college.
Although I do remember reading books that supported the drawings (note that many books are revised over the years and the current editions may no longer offer explicit support) at the same time I believe this is more of an issue with the teachers (education system) than the books.
I was looking at the diagram here
http://uk.geocities.com/simon_balfre/embryo.htm
and it does seem as if there is commonality between surprisingly diverse species at this very early stage, at least visually eh? I cannot identify the species, so after looking at those actual photo's rather then drawings what can we say?
Patrick said "students are often compelled into initial acceptance of Darwinism by using these drawings and other things"
I think it's been established that very few, if any, students have been exposed to the raw power of haeckel's original drawings in an uncritical context. So I don't agree that "often" can apply here. And you say "compelled to accept Darwinism"? Don't you think that that's perhaps a bit condescending to students to think that they uncritically accept anything given to them? Last I heard you could not compel the typical student to do anything whatsoever.
Also, you mention "these drawings and other things" - do you have examples of the other things, which I presume you would contend are dishonestly presented?
Patrick said "current editions may no longer offer explicit support"
Are you saying they are still supporting haeckel then, but not overtly? In what way? Just by supporting evolution in general you mean?
Patrick said "things that are easier to believe than modern Darwinism"
What specific part of darwinism is it that you cannot accept? All of it, every last bit or just a small part of it? Evolution in general? Natural selection? Random Mutation? When you say darwinism I simply do not know what you mean.
peterfinch wrote:
"but there are significant similarities between early embryos"
I'm sure there are similarities. Obviously the closer you get, in looking at embryos, to the just-fertilized egg, the more similar different organisms are to each other. After all, is there any such thing as an egg, from any organism that produces an egg, that's any shape besides ellipsoidal? So what, exactly, does that prove?
TroutMac said: : "that comparing embryos at the earliest stages across several species yielding very FEW similarities.
The drawings depict something that is simply not reflected in reality whatsoever. Thus, they are fraudulent and therefore they shouldn’t be used at all except as an example of what NOT to do or, of course, and example of the desperate tactics that Darwinists must employ in order to make their case."
TroutMac said"I'm sure there are similarities. Obviously the closer you get, in looking at embryos, to the just-fertilized egg, the more similar different organisms are to each other"
There's no point in talking to you, I won't be posting again at this forum.
Thanks for the somewhat interesting discussion patrick.
Peter f
Troutmac said "After all, is there any such thing as an egg, from any organism that produces an egg, that's any shape besides ellipsoidal? So what, exactly, does that prove?"
Absolutely right! See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.
RobertK wrote:
"TroutMac, don't you have any response to Peter Finch's apparent display of you hypocrisy regarding what you said on one forum, and what you said on this one? Just surprised you'd let that stand without rebuttal!"
The main reason I did not respond is this comment:
peter finch wrote:
"There's no point in talking to you, I won't be posting again at this forum."
Naturally, I figured "What's the point?"
Now, reading my quotes, I can only guess as to what peter finch had a problem with. But since you've asked, I'll try to react based on what I suspect he had a problem with.
About the only thing I can see that I could have written more clearly, is when I wrote:
"Obviously the closer you get, in looking at embryos, to the just-fertilized egg, the more similar different organisms are to each other"
Now, I should have written this better just to head off any confusion at the pass. It's odd to use the word "similar" right next to the word "different." But I think any reasonable person can see what I'm referring to and fortunately for me, the two words are relative in nature and not absolute. Different organisms can be "similar" and "different" at the same time.
But let me clarify things a bit more: The fraudulent Haeckel drawings reflect certain similarities that are contrived. Invented. And yet, they reflect other similarities that are authentic. For examples, it's obvious that many embryos have an overall shape or appearance that could be called "similar"… like if you looked at each one with your eyes thrown out of focus so that you couldn't see the details. And yet, it's obvious that there are important differences between the assorted embryos when the proper stages are compared photographically. This reveals Haeckel's fraud.
Hopefully that explanation helps explain any perceived contradiction in my earlier post.
All that aside, the bottom line is that Haeckel's drawings are fraudulent and no one denies this. They do not reflect reality, and yet they are still used in various textbooks.
I'm curious as to whether the fact that these drawings have been found to fraudulent is ever divulged in the textbooks. If the caption under the drawing said something like "Ernst Haeckel produced these fraudulent drawings in a failed attempt to demonstrate evolution," then perhaps we would have nothing to complain about.
I'm betting that there's no mention of this. And providing I'm right about that, then to continue using them (without disclosing that they are fake) is itself fraudulent.
TRoutMac
Intelligent (Graphic) Designer
RobertK wrote:
"And what's your understanding of what this all means anyway?"
The differences and similarities don't demonstrate anything conclusive at all about macro-evolution. And that's pretending for the moment that Haeckel's drawings were valid. The fact that they're invalid, well, just means that Haeckel wanted to show a certain result.
RobertK wrote:
"Why [do] you care so much one way or the other?"
Why do I care that textbooks are using drawings which are known to be fake without explicitly informing the readers of the fakery? Are you kidding me? Apparently you're comfortable with lying to students. Well, I'm not comfortable with that. I want textbooks to have solid, reliable and truthful information in them. Do you think that's unreasonable?
If the drawings appear in any textbooks without explicit disclosure of their fraudulent nature, then those textbooks are themselves fraudulent in my "book."
Now I have a question (or two) for you… Do you think it matters that these drawings are faked? What do you think that says about the evidence for macro-evolution? Do you admit that it smacks of a certain amount of desperation?
Unfortunately deleting a troll causes comments that were made in reply to be deleted as well. But I copied Bob Mort's reply:
Will you not even acknowledge that your criticisms have been addressed? If you dont think the document on this link addresses your questions, we can discuss why!
After reading that tragic attempt to back-pedal from Evoloution's most absurd claims I almost fell of my chair laughing. I acknowledge that the rabid darwinist who wrote it made an effort to refute some of darwinism's obvious problems, but it only shows how muddled they are.
So often with evolutionists I think you will find that they say one thing and mean almost exactly the opposite. For example I will agree most of those books refute the idea of Haeckel's recapitulation theory, and if a "EvoDevo" biologist were put under oath they would probably deny it as well, however any time I debate the evolution controversy it always comes up. Why else would ID proponents like the Discovery institute have to spend so much of our valuable research time refuting it?
I only wish that evolutionists would abandon these old, discredited arguments. How many times have they tried to teach our kids that man evolved from monkeys? How many times have you heard an evolutionist explain that inanimate matter like dirt can transform by an inexplicable mystical process into Homo-sapiens?
Dembski has calculated the probability of this occuring by natural processes, and it is astronomically improbable, yet the evolutionists still argue that this happens all the time. If evolution theory was correct then a frog would turn into a goat?
I'm inclined to agree with Kent Hovind that before we can expect society to really understand the subtle complexities of advanced ID theory we must first destroy these more preposterous beliefs.
Bob
For whatever it's worth, here's Eugenie Scott's own words regarding the validity of Haeckel's drawings:
"It's clear that Haeckel may have fudged his drawings somewhat to look more like his ideal than they actually are."
Hopefully I don't have to explain that Eugenie Scott is not a supporter of Intelligent Design.
TRoutMac
Intelligent (Graphic) Designer
Well done for spotting and getting rid of that troll post. I do think that the level of these anti ID posts speak for themselves, and often (as with Hoax of Dodos), the Evolutionists are their own worst enemies.
The article that the troll was trying to get us to read was here. I provide this information for reference only and utterly refute it's conclusion.
The author confesses that "Textbook in Educational Biology" by H. C. Skinner, T. Smith and F. M. Wheat contains an "uncritical" treatment of Haeckel's theory. What more evidence do you need?
I do not think I need to justify this nonsense with any further rebuttal, other than to point out that Haekel's recapitulation theory has been described by many scientists as Evolution's central organisational principle. Anybody who claims that this is a straw-man argument knows nothing at all about Evolution.
I was trying to disillusion some friends of mine who still insist in believing in the discredited theory of neo-darwinian evolution. As if on cue, the evolutionists brought up Haeckel's forged embryo drawings. He even presented me with a recently published text book which had used obviously doctored photos to re-create something approximately like Haeckel's original drawings.
Obviously I explained that these diagrams had been proved bogus, and I mentioned that the Discovery Institute had produced it's own versions in order to correct Haeckel's mistakes. Unfortunately I did not know the URL where I can find the corrected versions of those drawings. Please point me to the right web-page so I can win this argument.
Thanks
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