Ernst Haeckel's embryological diagrams and biology textbooks

[Dinwar]

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.

Yeah....I mean, Haeckel's diagram is really the only way to illustrate embryology that has any hope of being valid (not his pictures, but the structure of his diagram): You have species on one axis, and developmental stage on the other. Creationists/ID advocates/front loaders have never stopped to ask WHY the diagrams look the way they do--it seems they simply see a diagram with that structure, slap a "Haeckel" label on it, and count it as evidence of dishonesty on the part of scientists.

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

And more reasons to include something in a textbook than "this is what the data support". Textbooks are pedagogical tools, NOT scientific literature. Textbooks are meant to teach students, which means 1) they use models that are easy to understand, even if they're less than accurate (the Bohr model of the atom, circular orbits, sphereical Earth, convection driving tectonics, etc), and 2) the people who decide what to include in textbooks aren't scientists (here's a discussion by one author).

And for goodness sake, you document that evos have accepted that mistakes were made. How is that proof of your thesis?

It's the religious mindset: any change disproves the entire structure. So religious people (remember, Creationism is entirely religious and ID is the product of Creationism's attempt to sidestep a court ruling) think that any change in a theory is an admission that it's completely wrong, and any adjustment of a theory to fit facts is "changing your story". randman has accepted this view whole-heartedly.

 

[RandFan]

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



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

My hat's of to you ANT. You've done a remarkable job in the face of unreasoned obstinance.

 

[RandFan]

It's the religious mindset: any change disproves the entire structure. So religious people (remember, Creationism is entirely religious and ID is the product of Creationism's attempt to sidestep a court ruling) think that any change in a theory is an admission that it's completely wrong, and any adjustment of a theory to fit facts is "changing your story". randman has accepted this view whole-heartedly.

Agreed, and never mind they have no working theory used to make medicine and unite disparate disciplines and make and verify predictions like Tiktaalik.

 

[Dinwar]

Agreed, and never mind they have no working theory used to make medicine and unite disparate disciplines and make and verify predictions like Tiktaalik.

To be fair, this isn't entirely true. Catholicism (where Creationism in the USA got its start) has the Chain of Being, which makes very precise predictions and which can be used to accomplish some few tasks. It's just that it's not good at much, and a vastly superior theory superceded it (chemistry, atomic theory, evolution, and a few others).

Religion, or at least Christianity, does have a theoretical framework. It's simply wrong.

 

[RandFan]

To be fair, this isn't entirely true. Catholicism (where Creationism in the USA got its start) has the Chain of Being, which makes very precise predictions and which can be used to accomplish some few tasks. It's just that it's not good at much, and a vastly superior theory superceded it (chemistry, atomic theory, evolution, and a few others).

Religion, or at least Christianity, does have a theoretical framework. It's simply wrong.

You've lost me. Can you give me an example of a prediction made as a result of Christian theology that was confirmed?

 

[Cainkane1]

Edited by Tricky: 

Editing images to links.

Over in this 30-page monstrosity of a thread in the Religion and Philosophy section, one of the arguments advanced against modern evolutionary theory (and the scientists who practice it) was that the drawings of Ernst Haeckel at the end of the 19th century comparing the similarities in the embryos of various vertebrate species were especially problematic.

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/antpogo/Haeckel-1874.jpg
The particular claim stated that Haeckel's specific drawings, not just comparative embryology in general, were really the only evidence for similarities in vertebrate embryos indicating a common descent, and when embryologist Michael Richardson first noticed a problem with Haeckel's drawings in 1995 and made a formal accusation of fraud in Haeckel's drawings in 1997, the fact that evolution was essentially based on lies was laid bare for everyone to see. Even worse, the claim continues, Haeckel and his drawings are still relied on as evidence even now, in the wake of Richardson's revelations, showing just how much evolution is built on lies.

Of course, things are, in reality, a lot more complex than that. While Richardson did indeed think that Haeckel's original drawings (Haeckel himself revised them many times during his lifetime, correcting problems identified by his contemporary critics) showed evidence of fraud, or at least severe error, Richardson doesn't in anyway think that his papers do anything to harm evolutionary theory one bit. And while there has been a reassessment of Haeckel and his drawings in recent years (Richardson himself in 2002, a much stronger one from Robert J. Richards in 2009), the science of comparative embryology has basically gone beyond simply looking at pictures to see similarities, and instead focused on genomic evidence: see this 2004 paper and this 2007 paper, for instance, neither of which mention Haeckel. The 2007 paper even cites Richardson's 1997 work.

As an adjunct to the above claims, the assertion that American high school and college biology textbooks all mentioned Haeckel, reproduced his drawings, or both, was advanced to support the claim that Haeckel's work was a foundational prop of evolutionary theory, without which evolution could not stand.

The claimant provided this article and its associated database of textbooks, from the website Textbook History, as evidence for that claim. However, neither of them say what the claimant apparently thought they said. The article itself is a fairly good rundown of where and why Haeckel's diagrams were used in early textbooks, and how once working biologists got together to form the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study at the end of the 50's to reassess just what textbooks were teaching kids about science and evolution, Haeckel and his diagrams started fading from the scene.

I happen to live in Birmingham, AL, home of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, one of the leading medical and life science schools in the country. One of our libraries has an extensive archive of biology textbooks, including quite a few of the ones mentioned in the Textbook History article. The depiction in the Textbook History article of a completely new comparative embryology diagram, not taken from Haeckel's work, and including developmental stages and animals he never showed in his famous drawings, and that piqued my interest:

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/antpogo/BlueGrid.jpg

The following posts, reproduced from the thread linked above, represent the result of my curious forays into seeing just what textbooks actually do say about Haeckel. This first attempt was very haphazard, with the main objective of examining the 1968 edition of the BSCS Blue Book, and the other information I found was basically the result of random shelf selections.

I am planning to make a return trip, better planned this time, too. So if you have any suggestions or requests that you think might help my planning, please let me know. I've also ordered a copy of the original 1963 edition of the Blue Book, and will show everyone here what I learn from it when it arrives.

Any other discussion about Haeckel and his role in both science and in textbooks, is welcome.

I've seen these drawing before. Being 64 I'm sure I've been exposed to many scientific inaccuracys. Are these drawings entirely incorrect? Is there at least an element of scientific truth displayed in these drawings? I was taught that human embryonic developement was an example of evolution in mineature with the human fetus going from a single cell to multiple cells to a fishlike developement followed by salamander like developement all the way to a primate developemental stage eventually going to the human stage of developement. What I thought i was seeing was an illustration of this process. Is this totally wrong?

 

[Lowpro]

I've seen these drawing before. Being 64 I'm sure I've been exposed to many scientific inaccuracys. Are these drawings entirely incorrect? Is there at least an element of scientific truth displayed in these drawings? I was taught that human embryonic developement was an example of evolution in mineature with the human fetus going from a single cell to multiple cells to a fishlike developement followed by salamander like developement all the way to a primate developemental stage eventually going to the human stage of developement. What I thought i was seeing was an illustration of this process. Is this totally wrong?

Yes, that's basically Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny that the embryo of a contemporary species passes through many similar embryo stages of its ancestor. Haeckel took this to a literal extreme with his diagrams, however that's not the case. There are embryonic homologies which all vertebrate embryo's have and they are indicative of a common ancestor but it is NOT recapitulation, it's homology. It's evidence for evolution in that new systems are built on from existing systems with their functions sometimes being something altogether different (And it doesn't necessarily mean an increase in complexity for some organisms they simplify...mentioned just in case a common argument raises its ugly head -.-) Homology is fundamental to evolution and development.

The pharyngeal slits (gill slits in some books) of vertebrate embryos are always expressed early in the embryo stage but they become vastly different systems per species; for fish the slits become the actual gill slits (whether they're part of the gas exchange system itself I don't know) for humans they're part of gland/duct formation. Interestingly the gas exchange system for humans does not originate from the pharyngeal slits but from the "gut" such as larynx/pharynx.

(Anyone who knows better feel free to correct me, I didn't feel it necessary to use embryonic jargon...)

 

[RandFan]

What I thought i was seeing was an illustration of this process. Is this totally wrong?

Like Lowpro my understanding is that it is not totally wrong. It's rather a complex issue with no simple answer. There is very good reason to conclude that Haeckel was not involved in fraud. There is reason to conclude that Haeckel was not rigorous in his drawings. The basic fundamentals were correct but some of the specifics were not. I'm not an expert so I'll let others go into the detail. What's important is that the basic ideas stand to this day with mountains of empirical data. randman wants to have his cake and eat it to. Focusing on when the experts take exception with Haeckel but ignoring when they agree and the considerable evidence that supports those specifics. It's by no means a discredited idea. Look at the actual photos provided by ANT and the Haeckel's drawings. Pretty remarkable if you ask me. Still, intellectual honesty would dictate that we concede that the drawings are far from perfect or definitive. And they should be taken out of textbooks, that they are not hardly means that students are learning discredited science. That's just red herring by creationists who have no science or data.

This is just my observations. I claim no expertise nor would I be surprised if I flubbed something.

 

[Cainkane1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haeckel Ok Haeckel is described in wikipedia as a eminent biologist but a child of his times. Intelligent nad groundbreaking though his work was he died early in the 20th century and many of his ideas are bound to be outdated.

 

[randman]

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?

So was this textbook author and Brown professor of Biology wrong when he said this?

However, his drawings nonetheless became the source material for diagrams of comparative embryology in nearly every biology textbook, including ours!

http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/embryos/Haeckel.html

That was in 1997. Richardson wrote Haeckel was relied upon even among working scientists and that he was widely used in textbooks in 1997.

Gould said he had the impression Haeckel was widely used in 2000 and knew of at least 50 textbooks using Haeckel in 2000.

So do you admit you were wrong to claim Haeckel was rarely used after 1980?

What gives here, ANT? The evidence is overwhelming. You claimed Haeckel was rarely used after 1980, but the facts say otherwise. Others here had the impression that Haeckel was not in textbooks on a widespread basis since the 60s.

Exactly which decade are you claiming Haeckel was not widely used in textbooks?

 

[randman]

I've seen these drawing before. Being 64 I'm sure I've been exposed to many scientific inaccuracys. Are these drawings entirely incorrect? Is there at least an element of scientific truth displayed in these drawings? I was taught that human embryonic developement was an example of evolution in mineature with the human fetus going from a single cell to multiple cells to a fishlike developement followed by salamander like developement all the way to a primate developemental stage eventually going to the human stage of developement. What I thought i was seeing was an illustration of this process. Is this totally wrong?

Yes, it's totally wrong.

 

[Cainkane1]

No its partly wrong. Incorrect though some of his ideas were his basic premise that embryos go through a process that reflects the evolutionary process is correct.

 

[randman]

No its partly wrong. Incorrect though some of his ideas were his basic premise that embryos go through a process that reflects the evolutionary process is correct.

No, that's incorrect as well. They do not go through a process that reflects the evolutionary process. Just 100% wrong.

First, there are huge differences early on, which Von Baer rightly pointed out disagreed with Darwinism. Evos never even properly dealt with his arguments over 100 years ago.

He did believe in a phylotypic stage but that it was evidence against evolution. However, Richardson in 1997 correctly pointed out evos accepted the concept of a phylotypic stage due to Haeckel's faked data. The hour-glass model where there is a stage of shared similarities turns out to be untrue as it doesn't happen across the board. Even the cherry-picking of some species to show it is highly debatable. Looks like another fantasy by evos.

But it never supported evolution in the first place, and it doesn't exist.

Keep in mind there is no reason for embryonic development to share similarities under Darwinism in the first place. Darwin thought it did, but when you break it down, if it were true and it is not, it would be more evidence of Lamarckianism.

So the illogic, deception, fakery as is typical with evos lines up so that you have one false claim or fallacy built up upon another.

 

[shadron]

To be fair, this isn't entirely true. Catholicism (where Creationism in the USA got its start)...

Just for my own edification, Dinwar, can you give me a cite for that? It's not what I would expect from what I know about early religionism in the US.

 

[Lowpro]

Yes, it's totally wrong.

The drawings we see now, though based on Haeckel's sketches, do not have the content Haeckel was pushing (the theory he faked the drawings to prove) so at this point they're just pictures. If they put photographs in the book without changing the text it doesn't change the book's integrity. If this is a scandal it's hardly worth getting your panties in a bunch over.

 

[Cainkane1]

No, that's incorrect as well. They do not go through a process that reflects the evolutionary process. Just 100% wrong.

First, there are huge differences early on, which Von Baer rightly pointed out disagreed with Darwinism. Evos never even properly dealt with his arguments over 100 years ago.

He did believe in a phylotypic stage but that it was evidence against evolution. However, Richardson in 1997 correctly pointed out evos accepted the concept of a phylotypic stage due to Haeckel's faked data. The hour-glass model where there is a stage of shared similarities turns out to be untrue as it doesn't happen across the board. Even the cherry-picking of some species to show it is highly debatable. Looks like another fantasy by evos.

But it never supported evolution in the first place, and it doesn't exist.

Keep in mind there is no reason for embryonic development to share similarities under Darwinism in the first place. Darwin thought it did, but when you break it down, if it were true and it is not, it would be more evidence of Lamarckianism.

So the illogic, deception, fakery as is typical with evos lines up so that you have one false claim or fallacy built up upon another.

You're calling us illogical? Even if what you say is true the evidence for evolution is so overwhelming that the embryo evolution is unneeded.

 

[randman]

The drawings we see now, though based on Haeckel's sketches, do not have the content Haeckel was pushing (the theory he faked the drawings to prove) so at this point they're just pictures. If they put photographs in the book without changing the text it doesn't change the book's integrity. If this is a scandal it's hardly worth getting your panties in a bunch over.

Wrong. Do you actually know what Haeckel was actually trying to show or are you just taking evos word for it?

Here's a hint for you. Do any of Haeckel's depictions of embryos actually look like adult forms fully formed? Was he not basically showing embryos reflect their evolutionary history and faked the data to push that idea?

Haeckel specifically tried to show all embryos pass through a phylotypic stage, something evos are still claiming in many instances, often using Haeckel's faked data.

 

[Lowpro]

No, that's incorrect as well. They do not go through a process that reflects the evolutionary process. Just 100% wrong.

First, there are huge differences early on, which Von Baer rightly pointed out disagreed with Darwinism. Evos never even properly dealt with his arguments over 100 years ago.

He did believe in a phylotypic stage but that it was evidence against evolution. However, Richardson in 1997 correctly pointed out evos accepted the concept of a phylotypic stage due to Haeckel's faked data. The hour-glass model where there is a stage of shared similarities turns out to be untrue as it doesn't happen across the board. Even the cherry-picking of some species to show it is highly debatable. Looks like another fantasy by evos.

But it never supported evolution in the first place, and it doesn't exist.

Keep in mind there is no reason for embryonic development to share similarities under Darwinism in the first place. Darwin thought it did, but when you break it down, if it were true and it is not, it would be more evidence of Lamarckianism.

So the illogic, deception, fakery as is typical with evos lines up so that you have one false claim or fallacy built up upon another.

Hardly randman because you're again misrepresenting data as if it's a a complete reflection of the facts.

However, Richardson in 1997 correctly pointed out evos accepted the concept of a phylotypic stage due to Haeckel's faked data.

Almost completely false (I'm sure there are some aberrations) the discussion of a Haeckel's phylotypic stages do not crop up in textbooks. The closest it comes to that is just the drawings itself but not many textbooks use this anymore, CERTAINLY not many evolutionary theories now.

First, there are huge differences early on, which Von Baer rightly pointed out disagreed with Darwinism. Evos never even properly dealt with his arguments over 100 years ago.

There are huge differences, there are also some similarities in embryological development. This is homology, it's an accepted theory and support evolution. More than just developmental homology molecular homology exists as well. Haeckel doesn't even get considered because the evidence is beyond the scope if his claims.

Keep in mind there is no reason for embryonic development to share similarities under Darwinism in the first place.

Do you try to ignore homology? I mean why put the effort to ignore this?

 

[A'isha]

So was this textbook author and Brown professor of Biology wrong when he said this?



http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/embryos/Haeckel.html

Possibly. I'd like to see his textbook survey data for the time period in question.

Gould said he had the impression Haeckel was widely used in 2000 and knew of at least 50 textbooks using Haeckel in 2000.

No, he didn't. I've told you this multiple times now.

So do you admit you were wrong to claim Haeckel was rarely used after 1980?

No, because you're chopping out the rest of what I've always said (which is that in the late 80's and early 90's an interest in Haeckel and his drawings resurged), in order try and score some silly "points" in this debate.

Exactly which decade are you claiming Haeckel was not widely used in textbooks?

You are aware that "not widely" doesn't mean "never", right?

 

[Lowpro]

Wrong. Do you actually know what Haeckel was actually trying to show or are you just taking evos word for it?

Here's a hint for you. Do any of Haeckel's depictions of embryos actually look like adult forms fully formed? Was he not basically showing embryos reflect their evolutionary history and faked the data to push that idea?

Haeckel specifically tried to show all embryos pass through a phylotypic stage, something evos are still claiming in many instances, often using Haeckel's faked data.

I sense you definitely don't understand it randman, so read this and come back with a bit more understanding of why we don't take your argument seriously.

Haeckel specifically tried to show all embryos pass through a phylotypic stage, something evos are still claiming in many instances, often using Haeckel's faked data.

I'm sorry but Evo's are not claiming Haeckel was correct or use his fake data. They may be saying "Haeckel had something, but he was off otherwise" which is a far cry from cramming Haeckel's theory down your throat. The general concensus seems to be that Haeckel's theories are NOT being used in contemporary literature or taught in the classroom and the few aberrations you find aren't indicative of a conspiracy; it's indicative of people not getting with the times.

Treat em' like Behe until they correct themselves. All Behe needs to say is how far down the path of wrongness he chose to tread and all is well...