Ernst Haeckel's embryological diagrams and biology textbooks

[Belz...]

A distinction that people like randman still don't seem to get, a century after those words were written.

Indeed, this has been amply established in the recent Randman threads, by just about everybody. Theists love to focus on public figures of evolution, rather than on the science itself, which they can't understand, much less disprove.

 

[dafydd]

Indeed, this has been amply established in the recent Randman threads, by just about everybody. Theists love to focus on public figures of evolution, rather than on the science itself, which they can't understand, much less disprove.

Why are they so convinced that they understand the science when they so obviously don't?

 

[Kotatsu]

It ends by quoting a Professor Kellogg of Stanford University

Who, unless I am entirely mistaken, is the same Kellogg that was, in his day, the foremost expert in the world on the group of chewing lice on birds I work on, and who described, together with Chapman, two of the species in the genus am revising now, and one of the species in the one I'll be tackling when this revision is finished.

It was a small world, biology, at that time.

Also: thank you a lot for your links and your information! Absolutely wonderful!

 

[Belz...]

Why are they so convinced that they understand the science when they so obviously don't?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

 

[Lowpro]

Following some parallel arguments within the "Dear evolutionists..." thread I decided to post some pictures here as well, though I doubt I can migrate the exact arguments themselves. I'll leave them here as something else to take home within this particular thread:

Raven Johnson "Biology 7th ed." Notice how they do not use any Haeckel drawings, but they mimic the Haeckel style, but that's all. They just place developing embryos side-by-side. That is about as close to Haeckel's drawings...in other words, they are nothing at all to do with Haeckel's drawings at all. To be fair, on the side it refers to "pharyngeal pouches" as gill slits. It's common knowledge now that the two are interchanged often. But they are most commonly known in embryology as pharyngeal gill slits, and all vertebrate embryos express them early on. This is embryonic homology. If you want to learn more, buy a textbook =P

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo324/chipkimble/DSC_0400.jpg

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo324/chipkimble/DSC_0401.jpg
copyright

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo324/chipkimble/DSC_0402.jpg

 

[Lowpro]

Edited by Tricky: 

Editing images to links.

From another book: "Evolutionary Analysis 4th. ed" commonly called the "Freeman Herron book" I recommend it.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo324/chipkimble/DSC_0403.jpg

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo324/chipkimble/DSC_0404.jpg
copyright

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo324/chipkimble/DSC_0405.jpg
There is a blerb in this book, and it absolutely bears repeating in order to understand the argument. Haeckel is dead. Homology doesn't require him, it hasn't since he was debunked. The drawings DO show up, in one form or another. Is this evidence that evolution is pushing false data on our students? Hardly, as this blurb may allow you to understand how homology is understood now:

"Darwin's interpretation of homology has become deeply embedded in biological thinking. So deeply, in fact, that the interpretation has become the definiton. Under Owen's definition, homology referred to curious similarity in structure despite differences in functions. Now many biologists define homology as similarity due to the inheritance of traits from a common ancestor...(insert diagram box that you don't get to see...) In other words, much of the modern biomedical research is founded on the assumption that humans are related to the rest of the Earth's organisms by descent from a common ancestor. The tremendous successes of this research effort can thus be taken as powerful evidence for evolution." (Evolutionary Analysis pp. 59 "The Modern Concept of Homology")

 

[randman]

ANTpo, you made the following comment on another thread.

Because, I told you way back in March what happened. Haeckel's drawings faded from prominence as comparative embryology faded. He never disappeared completely, but non-Haeckelian topics and drawings certainly dominated things (contrary to the way you think things were, with Haeckel being everywhere).

In the 80's, comparative embryology reappeared. Since it hadn't really been a part of evolutionary study or focus since World War I ended except in the most minor way, the field basically had to start in the modern era at an early-20th-century level. And, since Haeckel's original drawings were the last comprehensive and purportedly scientific data set about the subject (as opposed to small drawings in textbooks that just fine for getting general concepts across but were useless for actual scientific study) to really have been produced, Haeckel's drawings were dusted off and re-examined.

So which decade are you claiming Haeckel was not used and relied upon? It appears you are admitting in the 80s and 90s that Haeckel's faked data was not only used but relied upon by scientists. You have been shown Haeckel's faked data being used in textbooks in every decade.

So what is your claim?

Was Haeckel's faked data used in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s?

Which decades are you saying Haeckel was not used in textbooks?

 

[randman]

Do I really need to transport all the other examples and pictures of Haeckel's drawings from other threads to this one?

Would it not be more honest for you guys to do it instead of trying to create a false impression by pretending most or all textbooks did not use Haeckel?

 

[randman]

Haeckels' faked drawings next to drawings from Raven and Johnson's textbook edition of "Biology" in 2002.

http://www.evolutionnews.org/haeckelraven1.jpg


An overlay of the 2 showing the latter are colorized and stylized versions of Haeckel's drawings:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/haeckeloverlay.jpg

Removed hotlinked images and replaced with regular links. See Rule 5.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LashL

Here you can see an animation that overlays Haeckel's drawings with the 2002 textbooks drawings if that would be helpful.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=1224

These pics taken from the following link:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/05/the_textbooks_dont_lie_haeckel_1003664.html

So you guys care to retract your claims Haeckel isn't being used anymore?

 

[Lowpro]

Do I really need to transport all the other examples and pictures of Haeckel's drawings from other threads to this one?

Would it not be more honest for you guys to do it instead of trying to create a false impression by pretending most or all textbooks did not use Haeckel?

I actually requested our parallel arguments of the Dear Evolution thread would be moved to this thread but it seems that's not going to happen. Suck it up champ.

Anyways, I took pictures from Evolutionary Analysis (the "Freeman Herron book") but found a PDF of the same book though I don't know the edition.

http://esminfo.prenhall.com/science/ucriversideevolution/pdf/FreemanHerron02.pdf

 

[A'isha]

ANTpo, you made the following comment on another thread.



So which decade are you claiming Haeckel was not used and relied upon? It appears you are admitting in the 80s and 90s that Haeckel's faked data was not only used but relied upon by scientists. You have been shown Haeckel's faked data being used in textbooks in every decade.

So what is your claim?

Was Haeckel's faked data used in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s?

Which decades are you saying Haeckel was not used in textbooks?

What part of "He never disappeared completely, but non-Haeckelian topics and drawings certainly dominated things (contrary to the way you think things were, with Haeckel being everywhere)" in the post you quoted for your reply above was unclear to you, randman?

What about anything I said in this post, and what was said in the posts and articles linked in it, was unclear to you, randman?

 

[Dinwar]

So you guys care to retract your claims Haeckel isn't being used anymore?

I know that at one point someone explained to you that Haeckel's stuff wasn't accepted by serious researchers, but was still used to illustrate (NOT to prove, but to provide a cartoon illustration of) embryological evidence for evolution in introductory textbooks. The fact that you aren't posting peer-reviewed literature demonstrates your inability to find a serious researcher who still thinks that Haeckel was right. Textbooks ARE NOT, and NEVER HAVE BEEN the state of the art of any field; they show the widely accepted ideas, and that's it.

 

[Lowpro]

Ideas like the homology of vertebrate embryos...

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

No where in my college education on Anthropology was I ever exposed to the Haekels diagrams. This is not how evolution is taught at the college level. Crap that gets into grade school text books doesn't count -- I've had to correct both scientific and historic misconceptions that are STILL being taught.

http://xkcd.com/843/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

 

[RandFan]

No where in my college education on Anthropology was I ever exposed to the Haekels diagrams. This is not how evolution is taught at the college level. Crap that gets into grade school text books doesn't count -- I've had to correct both scientific and historic misconceptions that are STILL being taught.

http://xkcd.com/843/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

You are missing the salient point, history and science are false. Your own examples prove it.

 

[A'isha]

I know that at one point someone explained to you that Haeckel's stuff wasn't accepted by serious researchers, but was still used to illustrate (NOT to prove, but to provide a cartoon illustration of) embryological evidence for evolution in introductory textbooks.

That was probably me, when he crowed about Richardson's apparent "backtracking" in his 2002 paper about what could be salvaged from Haeckel's theories and drawings.

The fact that you aren't posting peer-reviewed literature demonstrates your inability to find a serious researcher who still thinks that Haeckel was right. Textbooks ARE NOT, and NEVER HAVE BEEN the state of the art of any field; they show the widely accepted ideas, and that's it.

Plus, you gotta love how he uses a drawing from a 2002 edition of a textbook that has long since been excised and replaced by photographs to "prove" how everything we've ever said about Haeckel and textbooks over the past century is therefore totally wrong and he was right all along.

 

[Lowpro]

Plus, you gotta love how he uses a drawing from a 2002 edition of a textbook that have long since been excised and replaced by photographs to "prove" how everything we've ever said about Haeckel and textbooks over the past century is therefore totally wrong and he was right all along.

He totally ignored the fact that the pictures which to him were offending in no way were discussed in the text as part of Haeckel's theory. The text then goes to homology, particularly molecular homology but when it comes to Hox genes it peters out. This to me means the book is highly devalued but you can't teach students everything in one book I guess >.<

 

[randman]

So ANT, you refuse to answer and ignore the facts.

Which decade were Haeckel's faked data not used?

Also, Richardson wrote in a peer-reviewed publication that emryologists still largely relied on Haeckel's data for the claim of the phylotypic stage and had never substantiated the claim with any studies outside of Haeckel.

Saying it didn't happen does not make this go away.

 

[RandFan]

So ANT, you refuse to answer and ignore the facts.

Which decade were Haeckel's faked data not used?

Also, Richardson wrote in a peer-reviewed publication that emryologists still largely relied on Haeckel's data for the claim of the phylotypic stage and had never substantiated the claim with any studies outside of Haeckel.

Saying it didn't happen does not make this go away.

Let's assume the premise. Haeckel's drawings were used in textbooks (not all). What is it that this is supposed to prove? Are scientists using Haeckel to advance anything? Is Haeckel needed? No. Ant deserves a hell of a lot of credit to show that textbooks are being used that don't advance Haeckel. Haeckel isn't needed so it's hardly a conspiracy. And for goodness sake, you document that evos have accepted that mistakes were made. How is that proof of your thesis?

 

[A'isha]

So ANT, you refuse to answer and ignore the facts.

Which decade were Haeckel's faked data not used?

You do realize that there are more options than "Not Used" and "Used Everywhere", right? Such as "Used, but Hardly Ever".

Also, Richardson wrote in a peer-reviewed publication that emryologists still largely relied on Haeckel's data for the claim of the phylotypic stage and had never substantiated the claim with any studies outside of Haeckel.

Science has long since shown Richardson to be incorrect in that regard.