"Natural selection is the only mechanism of adaptive evolution"

[bikerdruid]

i find it very amusing that this discussion continues.
randman is a trooper.....
arguing for the science of creationism is a losing battle, kinda like sisiphus with his boulder.
randman will never get his boulder to the top of the hill.
creation science is an oxymoron.

 

[dafydd]

 

[truethat]

He's trying to set up the argument to suggest that "something needed to be filled" so that he can steer the direction towards "Intelligent plan"


Maybe I'm wrong but I think this is looking at evolution backwards. Animals do not evolve in a vacuum. An ecosystem evolves and this plays out in an organic way. Long term changes to the environment creates different ecosystems, so do sudden changes.

The way the conversation has been going is looking at it as it is NOW and then figuring out how it got that way.

This is why it looks like a plan randman. You know what the end result is.

All you have demonstrated as far as intelligence goes, is the intelligence of man in figuring out the way it unfolded.

This is not the same thing as Intelligent design.

randman is a trooper but these kinds of discussions educate people who are lurking and not participating in the discussion. So it is important to address randman's misconceptions.

By doing this we educate.

 

[randman]

Richardson himself told you why. You even quoted him.

Gould was a rather extreme anti-Haeckelist, and his views about the complete excision of Haeckel from everything are not shared by other scientists (such as Richardson himself).



Gould didn't say that, actually. The fact that you say that is how I know you didn't bother to read any of the original papers and essays, and instead just cut and paste what Creationist websites say they said.

As for what Richardson's 1997 paper said, the clue to what his problem with Haeckel was came in the title of the paper itself: Richardson was complaining specifically about the use of the drawings to show the conserved phylotypic stage as compared across embryos. He was well aware that there were plenty of in-depth studies of individual animal embryos (his 1997 paper is packed to the gill arches with cites to them). What he was complaining about was the use of Haeckel for cross-species comparison because there were so few similar studies, and lamenting the fact that the lack of such comparisons throughout embryologic history was too limiting.



This, of course, Richardson attributes to the fact that comparative embryology basically was a moribund discipline for almost that entire time period described above: in other words, there was no study after Haeckel, because scientists weren't looking at the same thing Haeckel was (by textbooks, Richardson is referring not to basic high school and college texts, but advanced study texts - for instance, the Huettner book mentioned above, Fundamentals of Comparative Embryology of the Vertebrates, was intended for use by veterinary school students and as a reference manual for "the more advanced worker who wishes to refresh his knowledge." The Ruth Bellairs book, Developmental Processes in Higher Vertebrates, was a graduate-level text for developmental biology students).

It's only after the re-development of the idea of a phylotypic stage within the last 4 years (from the perspective of Richardson writing in 1997) that motivated scientists to look for previous comparative studies, thus re-encountering Haeckel.



Strangely, while Richardson's 1995 paper on heterochrony makes a passing allusion to Haeckel's later drawings being inaccurate, he doesn't elaborate, and his 1997 paper focuses solely on Haeckel's 1874 originals.

Am I going have to give another history lesson? Maybe I should post it in the thread on Haeckel and textbooks.

ANT, Gould did say that. The facts I have posted are incontrovertible. You can spin it any way you want but all you are doing is discrediting yourself.

There is a reason Richardson said it was "fake" and "one of the biggest fakes in all biology", etc, etc,....But hey this has been going on for 130 years.

It's not surprising you can't give it up. It's just surprising you still call it science.

 

[A'isha]

ANT, Gould did say that. The facts I have posted are incontrovertible. You can spin it any way you want but all you are doing is discrediting yourself.

No, Gould did not say that. Gould never said that he was aware of at least 50 bio textbooks that used Haeckel's drawings.

Do you, in fact, know who did say that?

 

[Perpetual Student]

We have an interesting choice here.
Accept a scientifically evidenced theory for the diversity of life or accept the notion that a mysterious IDer with a magic wand caused it all to happen. The telling thing here is that the notion of this creating spook is so embarrassing to the ID proponents that they will not attempt to describe its nature or discuss its existence in any scientific context. My supposition is that they will not attempt to discuss the existence of this creating spook because they really do know it's nonsense and prefer to nit-pick the fossil record and the nuances of natural selection.
Now, randman does have the opportunity to show me that I am wrong by describing this creating spook in scientific terms.
Still waiting....

 

[Reality Check]

i find it very amusing that this discussion continues.
randman is a trooper.....
arguing for the science of creationism is a losing battle, kinda like sisiphus with his boulder.
randman will never get his boulder to the top of the hill.
creation science is an oxymoron.

Actually randman is not that dumb. He must know that creationism is a not science.
So what he is doing is that slightly less dumb tactic of trying to show that evolution is wrong . His ignorance of the large amount of evidence of evolution makes that a futile task. So he is obsessing with the inconsequential stuff like Haeckel's drawings being used in textbooks when Haeckel invalid theory is discussed.

 

[Belz...]

Actually randman is not that dumb. He must know that creationism is a not science.

I love this. A "not science". I'm going to use that.

 

[randman]

No, Gould did not say that. Gould never said that he was aware of at least 50 bio textbooks that used Haeckel's drawings.

Do you, in fact, know who did say that?

Here are some comments from Gould where he quotes a private letter from Richardson. So Gould says Richardson stated the number of at least 50.

Here is what Stephen Jay Gould had to say, including a quote from Michael Richardson:

"We should therefore not be surprised that Haeckel's drawings entered nineteenth-century textbooks. But we do, I think, have the right to be both astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, if not a majority, of modern textbooks! Michael Richardson, of the St. George's Hospital Medical School in London, a colleague who deserves nothing but praise for directing attention to this old issue, wrote to me (letter of August 16, 1999):"

"If so many historians knew all about the old controversy [over Haeckel's falsified drawings], then why did they not communicate this information to the numerous contemporary authors who use the Haeckel drawings in their books? I know of at least fifty recent biology texts which use the drawings uncritically. I think this is the most important question to come out of the whole story."

http://darwinianfundamentalism.blogspot.com/2007/06/abscheulich-atrocious-stephen-jay-gould.html

http://darwinianfundamentalism.blogspot.com/2007/06/abscheulich-atrocious-stephen-jay-gould.html

Of course, creationists, IDers and some evolutionists had been communicating this for 130 years. They are still trying to whitewash it a bit, imo, but at least they admit, unlike you, that Haeckel's faked drawings were still being used.

What's worse is haeckel's ideas being used, the whole myth of the biogenetic law, the phylotypic stage (hour-glass model), recapitulation, human gill slits, etc,....Of course, they have more "modern" versions of the same myth or maybe even not that different from what Haeckel actually claimed.

Face it. You guys keep promoting a myth, which was based on faked data.

 

[A'isha]

Here are some comments from Gould where he quotes a private letter from Richardson. So Gould says Richardson stated the number of at least 50.

In other words, you were wrong when you attributed those statements to Gould. And you don't even have the decency to admit it.

And I've already long since explained the textbook issue, recapitulation, the phylotypic stage, and everything else to you.

 

[randman]

In other words, you were wrong when you attributed those statements to Gould. And you don't even have the decency to admit it.

And I've already long since explained the textbook issue, recapitulation, the phylotypic stage, and everything else to you.

I was wrong not to have all the details correct, but Gould passes on Richardson's comment and so says it too.

You, on the other hand, are still trying to defend or deny the widespread use of Haeckel in textbooks.

For example, you originally stated they had not been used for decades. I showed you they had fom the 30s to 60s from one study and from personal experience including specific citations they were still being used in the 70s and 80s.

You admitted they were being used in the 90s.

So how is your argument that textbook writers began dropping Haeckel's depictions and then put them back in the 90s....how is that a sound argument for evo integrity?

Specifically, if they dropped Haeckel as you erroneously claimed, why would they go back to using fakes?

Isn't that even worse for the evo side here than saying they were just ignorant all those years despite so many showing the drawings were faked?

And why do textbooks repeat the scam "ontogeny recapitulates progeny", a false assertion based on faked data? Isn't the mere use of the term and others like the biogenetic law false?

Changing out some pictures does nothing to change the false allegations, and once again, why would you go back to faked data after you knew it was false?

 

[Dinwar]

Any website that uses "darwinfundamentalism" in its URL is immediately disqualified as a valid source. Not because we can't quesiton evolution, but because 1) modern evolutionary theory IS NOT Darwinism (as has been explained) and 2) anyone confusing science with fundamentalism is hopelessly lost in this conversation, and most likely willfully ignorant.

What's worse is haeckel's ideas being used, the whole myth of the biogenetic law, the phylotypic stage (hour-glass model), recapitulation, human gill slits, etc,....

This is just truly bizar. I know people who had tails when they were born. I've SEEN the pharyngial stage of a human embryo (well, a photograph, but still). Human embryos have gill slits at a certain stage of development--it's a direct observation, not any sort of interpretation. Which makes this the equivalent of saying that we're basing our concept of astronomy on a myth because objects don't fall down! We also know from experiments with emus that you can shut off/turn on genes during certain stages of development and get things like teeth, scales, long tails, etc., which means we have a mechanism (something randman's idea completely lacks). While we can argue about ontogeny and phylogeny till the cows come home the simple fact of the mater is that there ARE relict morphological features on embryos, Haeckel IS useful in discussing this (from a historic perspective, as a simplified model, as a means to show what not to do, etc), and we have known for a long, long time that his drawings were wrong.

The telling thing here is that the notion of this creating spook is so embarrassing to the ID proponents that they will not attempt to describe its nature or discuss its existence in any scientific context. My supposition is that they will not attempt to discuss the existence of this creating spook because they really do know it's nonsense and prefer to nit-pick the fossil record and the nuances of natural selection.

You're more generous than I am. I believe that ID advocates (at least the big names driving the movement) are fully aware that they're talking about the Christian God, and are attempting to force us to accept ID so that later it can be Creationism, then Biblical Literallism in general, then total theocracy down the road. After all, they've stated as much. randman is either deluded, or knowingly trying to harm science and secular education in general. Neither of which make his arguments any more convincing (I'd say they hurt his credibility, but any rational person would have long ago realized that he doesn't have any credibility to begin with, what with the accusations of fraud, misquotes, and outright lies he's told in these threads).

 

[Resume]

randman is either deluded, or knowingly trying to harm science and secular education in general. Neither of which make his arguments any more convincing (I'd say they hurt his credibility, but any rational person would have long ago realized that he doesn't have any credibility to begin with, what with the accusations of fraud, misquotes, and outright lies he's told in these threads).

I would say he's all of these things.

 

[A'isha]

I was wrong not to have all the details correct, but Gould passes on Richardson's comment and so says it too.

Does that mean that every time you quote my words, you're passing on my comment and thus saying my arguments as well?

For example, you originally stated they had not been used for decades. I showed you they had fom the 30s to 60s from one study and from personal experience including specific citations they were still being used in the 70s and 80s.

You admitted they were being used in the 90s.

No, you gave us a source that proved my point (about when and why Haeckel was originally used, and how references to him faded away).

And I told you why 90's era books used him (and why the 90's era studies cited by Richardson used him).

So how is your argument that textbook writers began dropping Haeckel's depictions and then put them back in the 90s....how is that a sound argument for evo integrity?

Specifically, if they dropped Haeckel as you erroneously claimed, why would they go back to using fakes?

For the same reason that Newton is mentioned in physics textbooks.

Isn't that even worse for the evo side here than saying they were just ignorant all those years despite so many showing the drawings were faked?

No, because I (and Richardson) told you why no one cared in the intervening years.

And why do textbooks repeat the scam "ontogeny recapitulates progeny", a false assertion based on faked data? Isn't the mere use of the term and others like the biogenetic law false?

No. Read some Gould.

Changing out some pictures does nothing to change the false allegations, and once again, why would you go back to faked data after you knew it was false?

Because what was fake about them wasn't what they were being used for (in one set of cases), and was being used as a springboard to discuss all the mountains of non-faked evidence (in the other cases).

 

[truethat]

I was wrong not to have all the details correct, but Gould passes on Richardson's comment and so says it too.

You, on the other hand, are still trying to defend or deny the widespread use of Haeckel in textbooks.

For example, you originally stated they had not been used for decades. I showed you they had fom the 30s to 60s from one study and from personal experience including specific citations they were still being used in the 70s and 80s.

You admitted they were being used in the 90s.

So how is your argument that textbook writers began dropping Haeckel's depictions and then put them back in the 90s....how is that a sound argument for evo integrity?

Specifically, if they dropped Haeckel as you erroneously claimed, why would they go back to using fakes?

Isn't that even worse for the evo side here than saying they were just ignorant all those years despite so many showing the drawings were faked?

And why do textbooks repeat the scam "ontogeny recapitulates progeny", a false assertion based on faked data? Isn't the mere use of the term and others like the biogenetic law false?

Changing out some pictures does nothing to change the false allegations, and once again, why would you go back to faked data after you knew it was false?

Defending and explaining are two different things. A friend of mine works at Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt. The people who put the text books together are NOT SCIENTISTS.

I do agree that science needs to get it's head out of the laboratories and into the public discussion. But any scientist worth his salt knows that the diagrams are wrong, fakes etc.

You are confusing as I have said ENDLESSLY in this and other threads, the attempts to educate the layman about evolution with the actual science.

No one is saying that mistakes are not made EVEN DELIBERATELY but that doesn't change evolutionary theory one whit.

Here is an example
http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/archives/archive50/newposts/307/topic307675.shtm


Guess who busted them? Was it ID scientists? Or was it evolutionary scientists?

 

[randman]

Defending and explaining are two different things. A friend of mine works at Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt. The people who put the text books together are NOT SCIENTISTS.

I do agree that science needs to get it's head out of the laboratories and into the public discussion. But any scientist worth his salt knows that the diagrams are wrong, fakes etc.

You are confusing as I have said ENDLESSLY in this and other threads, the attempts to educate the layman about evolution with the actual science.

No one is saying that mistakes are not made EVEN DELIBERATELY but that doesn't change evolutionary theory one whit.

Here is an example
http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/archives/archive50/newposts/307/topic307675.shtm


Guess who busted them? Was it ID scientists? Or was it evolutionary scientists?

Your comment:

A friend of mine works at Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt. The people who put the text books together are NOT SCIENTISTS.

But the Brown Biology professor is a scientist. Scientists included the faked data too.

How do you explain that?

But any scientist worth his salt knows that the diagrams are wrong, fakes etc.

Then why did they use them? And why wouldn't professors in college point out the drawings were faked all these decades they were being used?

 

[randman]

Does that mean that every time you quote my words, you're passing on my comment and thus saying my arguments as well?



No, you gave us a source that proved my point (about when and why Haeckel was originally used, and how references to him faded away).

And I told you why 90's era books used him (and why the 90's era studies cited by Richardson used him).



For the same reason that Newton is mentioned in physics textbooks.



No, because I (and Richardson) told you why no one cared in the intervening years.



No. Read some Gould.



Because what was fake about them wasn't what they were being used for (in one set of cases), and was being used as a springboard to discuss all the mountains of non-faked evidence (in the other cases).

Except they were not being used for strictly historical purposes. Otherwise, men like Gould wouldn't be so upset over it. They were being used as evidence.

You've been told that repeatedly, and yet you pretend they were just used as historical references. You've been shown where they were not. Yet you continue to deny such a basic fact.

And people wonder how the fraud continued for so long and still continues in one form or another.

 

[Dinwar]

And why wouldn't professors in college point out the drawings were faked all these decades they were being used?

They do. Textbooks are only one aspect of any course.

 

[A'isha]

Except they were not being used for strictly historical purposes. Otherwise, men like Gould wouldn't be so upset over it. They were being used as evidence.

No, they were being used for a purpose for which even Richardson thinks they were perfectly suited for, for reasons that Richardson himself knew. You just don't understand what Richardson's beef was, nor what "textbooks" he actually was referring to at different points (the ones in his letter were not the ones in his paper).

Gould and Richardson agreed on many things, but the continuing role of Haeckel in the wake of the 1997 paper was not one of them.

 

[randman]

Let's see how an Ivy League professor, an evolutionist used at trial even, used Haeckel in his textbooks in the 90s to test your idea it was merely for historical purposes.

First, read what Miller & Levine's 1994 version of Biology: The Living Science stated:

Darwin and his contemporaries knew that early embryos of many animals look nearly identical and that the earliest stages of development in "lower" animals seem to be repeated in the development of "higher" animals such as ourselves (Fig. 8.15). Darwin realized that the similar developmental paths followed by animal embryos make sense if all of us evolved long ago from common ancestors through a series of lengthy evolutionary changes.

These striking embryological similarities led some of Darwin's contemporaries (though apparently not Darwin himself) to believe that the embryological development of an individual repeats its species' evolutionary history.

Why, then, should the embryos of related organisms retain similar features when adults of their species look quite different? The cells and tissues of the earliest embryological stages of any organism are like the bottom levels in a house of cards. The final form of the organism is built upon them, and even a small change in their character can result in disaster later. It would hardly be adaptive for a bird to grow a longer beak, for example, if it lost its tongue in the process.

The earliest stages of the embryos life, therefore, are essentially "locked in," whereas cells and tissues that are produced later can change more freely without harming the organism. As species with common ancestors evolve over time, divergent sets of successful evolutionary changes accumulate as development proceeds, but early embryos stick more closely to their original appearance.

(Joseph S. LeVine & Kenneth R. Miller, Biology: Discovering Life, pg. 162 (2nd Ed., D.C. Heath, 1994), emphasis added)

The caption on Haeckel's drawings further implies recapitulation theory, reading:

"During the earliest stages of development, all these embryos have gill pouches and a tail--remnants of structures needed by our aquatic ancestors." (pg. 162)

Clearly Miller was promoting Haeckel's famous idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, because he argues that "the embryological development of an individual repeats its species' evolutionary history," and that animals evolve by simply tacking on new stages of development to old ones, which are locked in.

Before Darwinists object by claiming that Miller is merely discussing the history of evolutionary thought, I point out two important facts:

(1) The quoted text comes from a section titled "DATA SUPPORTING THE FACT OF EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE" (emphasis in original) and a sub-section titled "Similarities in Anatomy and Development." (pg. 162)

(2) There is no indication whatsoever, anywhere in the text that any of these ideas are wrong or that they are no longer believed. The reader is left with the clear impression that this is how vertebrate development works.

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/03/ken_millers_evolving_position003367.html

Btw, maybe we should just stick to the Haeckel thread for this....I admit I deviated in some respects on this one. But we're now making duplicate or nearly duplicate posts.