Blind Guides

_{Cornelius Hunter
July 27, 2010

Intelligent Design

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Intelligent Design}

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Biology textbook authors George Johnson and Jonathan Losos are leaders in the life sciences. They are accomplished researchers and professors from leading universities—they are also blind guides. In their otherwise well written and highly produced textbook The Living World ((Fifth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2008), Johnson and Losos badly misrepresent science and make fallacious arguments when they present evolution to the student. It is yet another example of smart people spreading lies and foolishness. Read more

Comments

SAR: Kindly read onward remarks from 177 on in the thread above. (Sorry that the remarks have to be in the context of correcting M.) Also, cf here, noting the summary of embryological development. Also, go to the section of Icons of Evo from pp. 92 - 100, try the sample at Google Books for a start, for far more details and revealing pictures. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 10, 2010
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Hi! I'm back. Miss me? I see there is a better picture in comment 179. The embroyos look very similar, as did the ones in bmy bio book. Can someone point out the differences for me? KTHXBAI.San Antonio Rose_{August 10, 2010
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PS: Onlookers, you may find the remarks here and here on embryology and its abuses in the cause of creating an icon of evolution over the past century, interesting.kairosfocus_{August 4, 2010
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Molch: You are playing at ad hominem laced strawman again, specifically ducking the historical context of the cite, and the loaded impact of the term "gill slits" in light of Haeckel's fraud and the continued use of that fraud down to textbooks within the past few years and decades. Observe my onward remarks, which you have artfully omitted:
You will observe the obvious tension between the repeated “synonym[ous]” term “gill” and the actual functions and development being described. In short, the term is highly misleading, is inviting of making the precise error Haeckel made, and plainly is linked to the history and influence of Haeckel’s deception and fraud . . . . the evidence of the complex integrated organisation and information involved points strongly to design that uses a library of parts and procedures, with adaptations to particular cases. For instance, we have vertebrates so the head and backbone are central in embryological development, and pharyngeal pouches are associated with development of particular throat-region structures. Not to forget, Haeckel plainly did wish for his readers to see the “gills” as evidence of descent, and exaggerated resemblances in that cause; to the point of fraud. Similar to how he manipulated drawings of people by race, associated with apes and monkeys.
Given that context, there is little excuse for the continued use of a highly misleading term, and that term certainly carries the connotations I have pointed out. Given that context, your onward remarks are again completely out of order. Good day, sir. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 3, 2010
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Beautiful, kairofocus!!! I could not have found a better witness for my position that “Gill slit or gill pouch is a commonly used synonym for pharyngeal slit/pouch/arch. [...] A gill pouch is not a gill.[...]" than you just did! And of course then you joined Stephen in his brilliant logical tactic of claiming that the cited reference proves the exact opposite of what it states. And to top it all off you vaguely accuse me of setting up a strawman, of course without getting specific, to detract from your brightly burning pile of ashes! Congratulations - I'll leave it to the onlookers to follow Stephen's recommendation from 121: "It is not our business to convince irrational people about anything. Rather it is our task to expose their irrationality to onlookers in order to save the latter from that very same descent into intellectual quicksand–one from which they, like our adversaries, will likely never be able to extricate themselves."molch_{August 3, 2010
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Molch: Sadly, it is you who are setting up and knocking over strawmen, and resorting to turnabout accusations to distract attention from the fact. I shake my heard as I have to lay out a hostile witness on the point, Wiki, to show the popular level understanding as promulgated in the biogenetic law, first of all:
Haeckel formulated his theory as "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". The notion later became simply known as the recapitulation (OED: 'a summing up or brief repetition') theory. Ontogeny is the growth (size change) and development (shape change) of an individual organism; phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a species. Haeckel's recapitulation theory claims that the development of advanced species passes through stages represented by adult organisms of more primitive species . . . . For example, Haeckel proposed that the gill slits (pharyngeal arches) in the neck of the human embryo represented an adult "fishlike" developmental stage as well as signifying a fishlike ancestor. Embryonic pharyngeal arches, the invaginations between the gill pouches or pharyngeal pouches, open the pharynx to the outside. Such gill pouches appear in all tetrapod animal embryos: in mammals, the first gill bar (in the first gill pouch) develops into the lower jaw (Meckel's cartilage), the malleus and the stapes. At a later stage, all gill slits close, only the ear remaining open.[8] But these embryonic pharyngeal arches could not at any stage carry out the same function as the gills of an adult fish. Haeckel produced several embryo drawings that often overemphasized similarities between embryos of related species. These found their ways into many biology textbooks, and into popular knowledge.
You will observe the obvious tension between the repeated "synonym[ous]" term "gill" and the actual functions and development being described. In short, the term is highly misleading, is inviting of making the precise error Haeckel made, and plainly is linked to the history and influence of Haeckel's deception and fraud. Finally, at no point hacve you or anyone else provided a credible empirical basis for the implication that embryological development algorithms and the programs by which they are outworked originate on chance plus necessity. Apart form the impact of a priori materialism. Instead, the evidence of the complex integrated organisation and information involved points strongly to design that uses a library of parts and procedures, with adaptations to particular cases. For instance, we have vertebrates so the head and backbone are central in embryological development, and pharyngeal pouches are associated with development of particular throat-region structures. Not to forget, Haeckel plainly did wish for his readers to see the "gills" as evidence of descent, and exaggerated resemblances in that cause; to the point of fraud. Similar to how he manipulated drawings of people by race, associated with apes and monkeys. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 3, 2010
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177: thanks for letting me know that I "crossed a serious line" by pointing at the strawman you were burning. I'll keep that in mind next time you accuse others of the same :) ... and thanks for admitting to your strawman by your writhing around the issue with expressions like "gills as they superficially seem to be". Which part of "Gill slit or gill pouch is a commonly used synonym for pharyngeal slit/pouch/arch. [...] A gill pouch is not a gill.[...] None of the books that were discussed claim that a gill pouch is a gill or that human embryos have gills." do you not understand or have contrary evidence for? 179: thanks for finally providing a somewhat more high-res photo of the embryos in question - which, lo and behold, show EXACTLY the features that the textbook auhtors used for comparison (with exception of the fish embryo, which is too fuzzy a picture and half covered up by the egg mass to make out much of anything): gill slits/pouches / pharyngeal slits/arches/pouches, enlarged head region, tail - all there! And wow - they DO look remarkably similar compared to later stages of the same embryos and compared to embryos of non-vertebrates!molch_{August 3, 2010
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K: A very brief note. We are here looking at an algorithm, of step by step stages of development. Algorithms are instances of FSCI, to be explained. The only directly observed causal source of such FSCI is, as already highlighted, intelligence. And, we have good configuration space reasons to doubt that chance plus necessity can credibly cause such, on the gamut of our observed cosmos. So, while one may make a homology claim as Biologos -- theistic evolutionists -- wish, it does not evade the general problem of the source of FSCI. A novel body plan, including for a 4-chamber heart, requires integrated development process, programmed into the zygote; not just in DNA codes but in regulatory structures and implementing machines. This is not answer to the issue of the failure of homology as a claimed evidence of Darwinian evolution. Again, we know that one way to implement FSCI in a given case is to use and adapt a library of parts and processes, as the whole OO paradigm in programming shows, and as Java libraries show. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 3, 2010
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Mr Kairosfoscus, first of all I'd like to thank you for your detailed explanations. I might not agree with everything, but I appreciate your taking the time. You mentioned "... the possibility that we are looking at a library of parts and processes, adapted to particular cases ...". So your position seems to be that we are observing the same facts and arrive at different conclusions - correct me if I'm wrong. For my part, I found a thread at BioLogos that seemed pretty convincing: http://biologos.org/blog/evidences-for-evolution-part-3a/ which deals with embryiologic development (no images of them :-D) and I guess I'll go on from there.Kontinental_{August 3, 2010
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F/N; Collins English Dictionary 2003, on Observe:
observe [?b?z??v] vb 1. (tr; may take a clause as object) to see; perceive; notice we have observed that you steal 2. (when tr, may take a clause as object) to watch (something) carefully; pay attention to (something) 3. to make observations of (something), esp scientific ones
kairosfocus_{August 2, 2010
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F/N: Here (courtesy NWE and Wiki) is a higher resolution comparison of Haeckel's drawings and photos of embryos at the relevant time of development where there is supposed to have been maximum resemblance, per Haeckel. (Cf, video expose here.) --> Cf NWE article on Haeckel here. --> On Haeckel's racism-promoting drawings cf p. 103 and p. 108 here. (As a man of predominantly African ancestry, I must take strong exceptions to ANY use of work by such a fraud and any attempt to rehabilitate or construct such work as though it were not what it is, inexcusable fraud in service to an agenda that in the end cost dozens of millions their lives through its impact.)kairosfocus_{August 2, 2010
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PS: Molch is obviously counting on the passage of many posts to obscure the evidence put forth in links and citations already, thus improperly shifting the burden of proof; while overwhelmingly the evidence is that Haeckel, ever since 1874, was publicly exposed, and those who followed him down to within the past 10 years have no excuse. Here is Luskin's article yet again, as cited by title in 66 and linked in 67 above, and repeatedly pointed to since. Let us see if Molch can satisfactorily explain the facts in evidence. Luskin's remarks as excerpted are a good summary on the weight of the evidence:
Many Darwinists are scurrying around on their blogs and at movie screenings, trying to rewrite history by claiming that Haeckel’s embryo drawings were never used in modern textbooks. In a contradictory claim, some then concede that modern textbooks have used the drawings but argue that Haeckel’s work was only cited to provide some historical context to evolutionary theory—they assert that Haeckel’s fraudulent drawings have not been used to promote evolution in modern textbooks. They are wrong on both counts. To avoid confusion, let me point out that we are not claiming that Haeckel's embryo drawings and recapitulation theory are the bedrock of evolutionary biology in 2007. Nor are we arguing that every textbook that has used Haeckel’s fraudulent drawings (or some near-identical colorized version) therefore promoted the idea that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” As Jonathan Wells points out in his recent article, The Cracked Haeckel Approach to Evolutionary Reasoning, “Many modern biology textbooks inform students that Haeckel’s dictum, ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,’ has been discredited, but the same textbooks often use Haeckel’s drawings (or modern versions of them) to persuade students that human embryos provide clues to our evolutionary history and evidence for Darwin’s theory.” Therefore, what we are claiming is that various modern textbooks have used Haeckel’s embryo drawings in precisely the manner that Darwinists now deny: # (1) They show embryo drawings that are essentially recapitulations of Haeckel's fraudulent drawings — drawings that downplay and misrepresent the actual differences between early stages of vertebrate embryos; # (2) They have used these drawings as evidence for evolution — in the present day — and not simply to provide some kind of historical context for evolutionary thought; # (3) Even if the textbooks do not completely endorse Haeckel’s false “recapitulation” theory, they have used their Haeckel-based drawings to overstate the actual similarities between early embryos, which is the key misrepresentation made by Haeckel. They then cite these overstated similarities as still-valid evidence for common ancestry. Some Darwinists continue to deny that there has been any misuse of Haeckel in recent times. If that is the case, why did Stephen Jay Gould attack how textbooks use Haeckel in 2000? Gould wrote: “We should... 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!” (emphasis added) Similarly, in 1997, the leading embryologist Michael K. Richardson lamented in the journal Anatomy and Embyology that "Another point to emerge from this study is the considerable inaccuracy of Haeckel’s famous figures. These drawings are still widely reproduced in textbooks and review articles, and continue to exert a significant influence on the development of ideas in this field."
PPS: Observe Wells' remark in the second linked article in the excerpt:
Charles Darwin thought that "by far the strongest" evidence that humans and fish are descended from a common ancestor was the striking similarity of their early embryos. According to Darwin, the fact that "the embryos of the most distinct species belonging to the same class are closely similar, but become, when fully developed, widely dissimilar... reveals community of descent." 2 To illustrate this, German Darwinist Ernst Haeckel made some drawings in the 1860s to show that the embryos of vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) look almost identical in their earliest stages. But Haeckel faked his drawings. Not only do they distort vertebrate embryos by making them appear more similar than they really are (in a way that Stephen Jay Gould wrote "can only be called fraudulent" 3), but they also omit classes and stages that do not fit Darwin's theory. Most significantly, Haeckel omitted the earliest stages, in which vertebrate embryos are strikingly different from each other. The stage he portrayed as the first is actually midway through development. Yet according to Darwin's logic, early dis-similarities do not provide evidence for common ancestry.
kairosfocus_{August 2, 2010
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Molch: You are crossing a line there, a serious line. Haeckel is the one who precisely made claims about fish-stage development with gills: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. And, gills as they superficially seem to be -- in reality a cluster of 5 pharyngeal pouches that become various head-neck region structures in different animals -- have been not only a but often the major point emphasised in the claims about recapitulation. Precisely, because the "gill slits" seem ever so obvious [and are so characteristic of fish and the like], especially in Haeckel's faked drawings or those derived from them. And as the excerpt I took from you highlighted, this still obtains:
[M, 164:] From the texts of the same books you listed, here is a list of the features, illustrated in the drawings, that the authors name as examples for shared features among embryos upon which similarity/relatedness/common ancestry is judged: Gill slits/gill pouches, enlarged head region, tail, two-chambered heart, aortic arches (the latter two are illustrated by a different set of schematic drawings) So, in order to finally settle the question if the authors are lying, I’d like you to point out which ones of these features, although present in the illustrations, are really NOT present in the embryo.
Onlookers, cf, my point by point rebuttal in 168, which Molch wishes to evade by the dismissive term schtick. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 2, 2010
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Yup, still, nothing new, no engagement of the evidence... ...and the vague allusion that I alledgedly did not address "Lustin's numerous examples" does not get you anywhere. examples of what? you have a piece of evidence to bring to the table? Bring it!molch_{August 2, 2010
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Molch: There is more than enough evidence presented above in the primary case, just, the further evidence is that above you and others have refused to face it. Indeed, there is sufficient demonstration from your behaviour above to raise the question of the fallacy of the ideologised willfully closed mind. To draw upon just one aspect, let us cite Johnson and Losos, courtesy CH:
It is important not to miss the key point of the result you see illustrated in figure 17.3 [a picute of a line of artistically reconstructed fossils starting with a horse-like animal and going on to Rhino-like animals on a timeline of about 50 MN - 35 Mn YA]: evolution is an observation, not a conclusion. Because the dating of the samples is independent of what the samples are like, successive change through time is a data statement. While the statement that evolution is the result of natural selection is a theory advanced by Darwin, the statement that macroevolution has occurred is a factual observation.
In response, Hunter aptly remarked:
A sequence of [artistically reconstructed]fossils [on an equally reconstructed timeline] is an observation of macroevolution? It would be difficult to imagine a more misleading statement than this. And it is not as though this was an unintended mistake that just happened to elude the 100+ reviewers. Johnson and Losos went out of their way to make and elaborate this message, and the army of evolutionist reviewers all nodded their heads.
1 --> As a glance above at 30 will show, it has already been pointed out that there is no way that we can have OBSERVED events 50 - 35 MYA. (NB: I have already addressed the minor problem on PhDs and Piltdown man, that Petrushka tried to make overmuch of, in a turnabout tactic.) 2 --> We were not there [if there was a past on earth 35 - 50 mn years ago . . . as opposed to the model timeline that is commonly presented on that subject], none of our instruments were there, we have no known generally credible records from those who were there, and we have not as yet mastered time travel -- not to mention the problems of travel into the past. 3 --> So, to claim OBSERVATION is obviously and blatantly immediately false, and this exaggeration from inferences to claimed fact is equally plainly intended to sustain an argument that requires that sort of falsehood to support its persuasiveness. 4 --> Moreover, the reconstructed animals are artistic reconstructions on fossils not observations of a real observed line of descent of animals that were seen to look like the pictures in question. 5 --> Worse, such reconstructions and dating games linked thereto have a very very bad history, as this sad example familiar from my experience as a High School science student, will tell. What was done there was indefensible and yet it was trumpeted to the public as though this was indisputable fact. (I need not go through the long history of such artistic reconstructions, all the way back to how Neandertal was originally presented as an ape-man; regardless of Virchow's objections.) 6 --> As this discussion here will show, the timeline of cosmological and earth history often presented to us as indisputable fact is in fact a model of the past as conventionally accepted, based on a tower of inferences and assumptions that interlock in multiple circles of argument. For instance, observe --in a context of various problems with dating systems and schemes including isochrons -- Milton's four concerns on the circularities of dating in a context where science normally operates on paradigms that set frameworks of what is acceptable and what is not, as already were presented above at 30:
[[1 Untestability/ Circularity:] . . . the overwhelming majority of [[radioactive] dates could never be challenged or found to be flawed since there is no genuinely independent evidence that can contradict those dates . . . . [[2 Ballpark thinking:] Any dating scientist who suggested looking outside of [[the standard] ballpark . . . would be looked on as a crackpot by his colleagues. More significantly, he would not be able to get any funding for his research . . . . [[3 Intellectual phase-locking:] . . . all scientists make experimental errors that they have to correct. They naturally prefer to correct them in the direction of the currently accepted value thus giving an unconscious trend to measured values . . . . [[Emphasis original] [[4 Conformity to consensus:] Take for example a rock sample from the late Cretaceous, a period which is universally believed to date from some 65 million years ago. Any dating scientist who obtained a date from the sample of, say, 10 million years or 150 million years, would not publish such a result because he or she will, quite sincerely, assume it was in error. On the other hand, any dating scientist who did obtain a date of 65 million years would hasten to publish it . . . [[Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (Park Street Press, 1997), pp. 50 – 51.]
7 --> In that context, when we see scientists standing up not as working stiffs who work in a paradigm in their time, but as authoritative teachers to tell us about "observations" on the deep past, they have a heavy series of duties of care to meet. 8 --> For instance, there is a duty to inform not only on theories and evidence brought up in support, and models and reconstructions, but also the strengths and weaknesses, assumptions and general capacity and limits of scientific knowledge claims, especially when we project from the present to the deep -- inherently unobservable -- past of origins. 9 --> Johnson, Losos and their reviewers and publishers as a body signally failed in that duty of care of the educator. And, willfully so -- they cannot collectively be THAT ignorant about what an observation is and what it is not. 10 --> But, they dodged that duty of care, in order to doll up a theory they favour, claiming for it the unwarranted aura of observed fact; knowing that most students and teachers would likely be overawed, and that only fools dispute facts. 11 --> So, this is willful and misleading indoctrination in that which is questionable, based on what they knew or should have known is a plainly false declaration of something as an observed fact. _____________ GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 2, 2010
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Nice try, molch, but it won't work. Aguing against you is the tesmimony from a number of heavy hitters on your own side, incliuding Stephen J. Gould, PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott, and others that you apparently do not know about. All agree about the dishonest nature of the enterprise. Arguing against you is the evidence from the website that we provided for you. Included were the offending pictures and quotes from authors who characterized those pictures as evidence for the similairities in question. You did not engage the evidence at all, choosing to say not one word about Lustin's numerous examples. Arguing against you is the fact that modern textbooks are beginning to stop this dishonest practice as the publishers and authors are being exposed to the public. To counter with the claim that the authors and publishers in question were merely trying to clarify the subject matter, or that we must read a liar's mind in order to know that he is lying is, excuse me, ridiculous.StephenB_{August 2, 2010
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kairofocus you can drop that "human embryos don't have gills" shtick. Your little edifice around the false claim that biologists say or imply that human embryos have gills is called a strawman. And you've burned it down plenty of times now. Gill slit or gill pouch is a commonly used synonym for pharyngeal slit/pouch/arch. Just like ear drum is a commonly used synonym for tympanic membrane. A gill pouch is not a gill, just like an ear drum is not a drum. No biologist, and none of the books that were discussed claim that a gill pouch is a gill or that human embryos have gills. So you can stop burning that strawman.molch_{August 2, 2010
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StephenB So, looks like you are reduced to running in circles now, repeating your empty claim that the authors are lying. Obviously you feel that if you repeat that often enough, people will just buy it. Yup, Stephen, I know the definition of lying. We all do: "To present false information with the intention of deceiving." But repeating it a dozen MORE times still doesn't help your case, because it does absolutely nothing to prove that that's what the authors did. And you obviously haven't done any proving. The one time you tiptoed anywhere close to engaging the actual evidence, you got it devastatingly wrong (remember: “...the authors’ intent was [...] to mislead readers into believing that the same similarities that occur later in the process are also present earlier in the process.” ?) Heck, I even did half the work for you and compiled and quoted the actual evidence. But since you failed to engage the evidence every step of the way, I conclude, for once in agreement with you: case closed!molch_{August 2, 2010
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Dr Hunter: Where has Fig 17.3 gone, why? Especially as you were making plainly fair use? GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 2, 2010
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Stephen Sobering. I have always found revivalist Charles Grandison Finney's definition of what a lie is clear, clean and crisply challenging: any species of calculated deception. Am H Dict backs that up, and backs you up: ________________ >> lie 2 (l) n. 1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood. 2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression. v. lied, ly·ing (lng), lies v.intr. 1. To present false information with the intention of deceiving. 2. To convey a false image or impression: Appearances often lie. v.tr. To cause to be in a specific condition or affect in a specific way by telling falsehoods: You have lied yourself into trouble. Idiom: lie through one's teeth To lie outrageously or brazenly. [Middle English, from Old English lyge; see leugh- in Indo-European roots.] Synonyms: lie2, equivocate, fib, palter, prevaricate These verbs mean to evade or depart from the truth: a witness who lied under oath; didn't equivocate about her real purpose; fibbed to escape being scolded; paltering with an irate customer; didn't prevaricate but answered honestly. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. >> ________________ Not much wiggle room there, once we see what has been done since the 1860's by Haeckel and those who have followed him, sadly, down to our time. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 2, 2010
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---molch:" "And by the way, I never said that I don’t agree with PZ Meyer and Eugenie Scott that Haeckel’s drawings should no longer be used in biology books." You are underplaying what they said, ignoring the point that they all agree that it was, and is, a dishonest enterprise. You really have no case here, you really don't. ---"I clearly stated “The fact that Haeckel exaggerated certain features in his illustrations and then used these illustrations to draw conclusions that were mostly based upon the claimed absence of other features is indeed a good reason not to use these illustrations any longer.” Irrelevant. With respect to this issue, there are only two classes of people: Those who condemn the lie and those who celebrate it. Gould and Myers condemn it, Scott celebrates it. You rationalize it. ---"But what we are discussing here is NOT if it is a good idea to use the illustrations, but your charge that the authors who are using these are lying about their content or implication." Clearly, I am right. To knowingly mislead is to lie. lie [the nonverbal definition] Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression. To present false information with the intention of deceiving. To convey a false image or impression: Appearances often lie. You have no case.StephenB_{August 1, 2010
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Onlookers: I am of course not SB, but could not help noticing Molch's latest attempt to rehabilitate what Gould acknowledged a decade ago is the inexcusable (now that it has been plainly documented that books from over the past 10 - 20 years do in fact still used Haeckel and Haeckel-like drawings, which had earlier been denied by Darwinist objectors above):
[M, 164:] From the texts of the same books you listed, here is a list of the features, illustrated in the drawings, that the authors name as examples for shared features among embryos upon which similarity/relatedness/common ancestry is judged: Gill slits/gill pouches, enlarged head region, tail, two-chambered heart, aortic arches (the latter two are illustrated by a different set of schematic drawings) So, in order to finally settle the question if the authors are lying, I’d like you to point out which ones of these features, although present in the illustrations, are really NOT present in the embryo.
1 --> The highlighted shows the first and foremost misleading point raised by Haeckel and perpetuated ever since: gills as an embryological repetition of a fish stage of macroevolutionary descent; based on mere location and largely imagined or superficial resemblance. 2 --> As was already pointed out [using Wiki as a hostile witness], pharyngeal pouches are NOT gills or gill slits,though they may superficially resemble them and in the case of fish do develop in that direction:
In the [embryological] development of vertebrate animals, pharyngeal or branchial pouches form on the endodermal side between the branchial arches, and pharyngeal grooves (or clefts) form the lateral ectodermal surface of the neck region to separate the arches. The pouches line up with the clefts,[1] and these thin segments become gills in fish . . . . First pouch The endoderm lines the future auditory tube (Pharyngotympanic " Eustachian " tube) , middle ear, mastoid antrum, and inner layer of the tympanic membrane. [edit] Second pouch * Contributes to the middle ear, palatine tonsils, supplied by the facial nerve. [edit] Third pouch * The third pouch possesses Dorsal and Ventral wings. Derivatives of the dorsal wings include the inferior parathyroid glands, while the ventral wings fuse to form the cytoreticular cells of the thymus. The main nerve supply to the derivatives of this pouch is Cranial Nerve IX, glossopharyngeal nerve. [edit] Fourth pouch * Derivatives include the superior parathyroid glands and ultimobranchial body which forms the parafollicular C-Cells of the thyroid gland. [edit] Fifth pouch * Rudimentary structure, becomes part of the fourth pouch contributing to thyroid C-cells.[2]
3 --> In short, this is an intermediate structure that is associated with the development of various features commonly found in the head-neck-thorax region. 4 --> So, absent a priori evolutionary materialistic question-begging, and absent a superficial inference from simplistic resemblance [aided and abetted by Haeckel's distortions of proportions and sizes, as well as features that are there in photos but would not suggest the degree of resemblance he improperly conveyed by tracing and adapting one sketch to multiple cases that are in fact quite diverse], the obvious conclusion is the use of a common library of parts and processes, with applications to particular cases. 5 --> More fundamentally, there has been a consistent failure to account for the source, quantity and integrated functionality of the increments in bio-information to create novel successful body plans [BTW, notice, too, how all of Haeckel's sketches come from one phylum, chordata, i.e. one basic body plan from dozens]. As Meyer pointed out in his 2004 PBSW paper on the information explosion revealed by the Cambrian fossils [and which, contrary to damage control spin evidently did pass "proper peer review" by "renowned scientists"]:
The Cambrian explosion represents a remarkable jump in the specified complexity or "complex specified information" (CSI) of the biological world . . . the more complex animals that appeared in the Cambrian (e.g., arthropods) would have required fifty or more cell types . . . New cell types require many new and specialized proteins. New proteins, in turn, require new genetic information. Thus an increase in the number of cell types implies (at a minimum) a considerable increase in the amount of specified genetic information. Molecular biologists have recently estimated that a minimally complex single-celled organism would require between 318 and 562 kilobase pairs of DNA to produce the proteins necessary to maintain life (Koonin 2000). More complex single cells might require upward of a million base pairs. Yet to build the proteins necessary to sustain a complex arthropod such as a trilobite would require orders of magnitude more coding instructions. The genome size of a modern arthropod, the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, is approximately 180 million base pairs (Gerhart & Kirschner 1997:121, Adams et al. 2000) . . . . In order to explain the origin of the Cambrian animals, one must account not only for new proteins and cell types, but also for the origin of new body plans [thus for regulated embryological development] . . . Mutations in genes that are expressed late in the [embryological] development of an organism will not affect the body plan. Mutations expressed early in development, however, could conceivably produce significant morphological change (Arthur 1997:21) . . . [but] processes of development are tightly integrated spatially and temporally such that changes early in development will require a host of other coordinated changes in separate but functionally interrelated developmental processes downstream. For this reason, mutations will be much more likely to be deadly if they disrupt a functionally deeply-embedded structure such as a spinal column than if they affect more isolated anatomical features such as fingers (Kauffman 1995:2000)
6 --> In short, you are looking at needing to account for up to dozens of cases of easily 10+ million bits worth of novel integratedly functional bio-information to produce protein-bricks etc and to coordinate their embryological development into a viable organism; requiring co-ordinated mutations that express early in the process. 7 --> Just 1,000 bits of information would specify a config space of 1.07 * 10^301 possibilites, which already swamps the 10^150 Plack-time states of the 10^80 or so atoms of our observed cosmos, across its thermodynamically credible lifespan [50 mn times the 13.7 bn yrs said to have elapsed since the big bang]. In short, the config spaces to get to the islands of embryologically viable function are utterly too large to have forces of undirected chance plus mechanical necessity search enough to make a difference. 8 --> And note, this is not a probability calculation, it is a search space calculation, that shows the problem to be insuperable, unless there is front loading of the information required, i.e. unless nature itself is programmed, whether ahead of time or incrementally makes no difference. 9 --> Coming back, it is evident that it is only because inference to intelligent direction of the emergence of life and of its various forms has been suppressed through a priori materialism and associated question-begging that the [too often exaggerated and even inexcusably distorted] embryological similarities across chordates have been seen as evidence of common descent on chance variation and natural selection etc. 10 --> Put in plain words, the big questions have been begged, and the evidence has been fudged to make things seem even more like what is desired by those committed to indoctrination in evolutionary materialism than is warranted by the facts that we may observe.
(Note, too, that the original issue in the thread has to do with claiming to "observe" macroevolution in the remote past, and to do that glossing over the towers of inferences and circularities required to assign dates and reconstruct fossils, placing hem on a claimed timeline of descent; in the teeth of the simple fact that an observation implies the presence of an observer. The remote past is inherently unobservable to us, and in the absence of reliable records accepted by all, we have no generally accepted historical testimony that would allow us to evaluate the claims of credible observers. So, this is gross and indefensible distortion of origins science capabilities and limitations.)
11 --> Such is inexcusable educational malpractice, and in the case of Haeckel's sketches and derivatives, it is the reason why Gould expressed shame in 2000:
We should… 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! [Stephen Jay Gould, "Abscheulich! (Atrocious!)," Natural History, March 2000, emphasis added]
12 --> Gould of course tried to soften the blow, using "mindless" as a euphemism. He plainly meant that the action is intellectually and educationally unjustifiable, and is sufficiently wrong that one ought to be ashamed of it. ________________ Too much of what goes on above on the part of Darwinist commenters, underscores just why. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 1, 2010
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And if you don't want to pay the 150 bucks for that, you can fork over only 85 bucks and get: http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Living-World-George-Johnson/dp/0077280075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280629462&sr=1-1Mung_{July 31, 2010
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Dear Dr. Hunter, Shouldn't you be commenting on the 6th Edition? http://www.amazon.com/Living-World-George-Johnson/dp/0077280083Mung_{July 31, 2010
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What would be EVEN WORSE is if they (Drs. Johnson and Losos) DID NOT KNOW they were perpetrating a falsehood.Mung_{July 31, 2010
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StephenB I wrote: “So what are biology textbooks using these drawings for? To illustrate the fact that embryos of different vertebrate families show lots of similarities – a lot more similarities than they show to embryos of non-vertebrate organisms.” You answered: "Well, no, not even close. Clearly, the reason for including these drawings was not to clarify, as you naively suggest, but to mislead.” You conveniently left out that I also wrote: the inference that these drawings are supposed to illustrate in modern textbooks – that vertebrate families share common ancestry – is NOT based upon a claim that features not depicted in these illustrations are truly absent, but they are based upon true similarities between the real embryos. You have so far not provided any proof that the intention of the authors was to mislead. You simply claim that “The authors wanted to minimize the differences between early embryo stages to create the impression that they are strikingly similar and, for that reason, appear to share a common ancestor.” So let’s look at the evidence and see what the authors actually SAY in their comments on the drawings. From the texts of the same books you listed, here is a list of the features, illustrated in the drawings, that the authors name as examples for shared features among embryos upon which similarity/relatedness/common ancestry is judged: Gill slits/gill pouches, enlarged head region, tail, two-chambered heart, aortic arches (the latter two are illustrated by a different set of schematic drawings) So, in order to finally settle the question if the authors are lying, I’d like you to point out which ones of these features, although present in the illustrations, are really NOT present in the embryo. Or if there are any other features that were named, which I might have missed, for which this would be true. And by the way, I never said that I don’t agree with PZ Meyer and Eugenie Scott that Haeckel’s drawings should no longer be used in biology books. In 72 I clearly stated “The fact that Haeckel exaggerated certain features in his illustrations and then used these illustrations to draw conclusions that were mostly based upon the claimed absence of other features is indeed a good reason not to use these illustrations any longer.” But what we are discussing here is NOT if it is a good idea to use the illustrations, but your charge that the authors who are using these are lying about their content or implication. “molch: “And I am still waiting for your answer on what you were trying to say with “….the authors’ intent was [...] to mislead readers into believing that the same similarities that occur later in the process are also present earlier in the process.” Well, here I think you have a point. “ I am glad we agree upon something.molch_{July 31, 2010
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PS: You also need to know that Haeckel made a bit of a career out of distorted drawings; e.g. his racist drawings of the different "races," making out a misleading appearance that guess who was the most advanced, and guess who else was but one step from the monkeys. Again, the radical differences between Haeckel's drawings and the originals he used in some cases [cf the original drawing discussed in one of the linked articles], as well as photographs in the relevant stages of embryos is quite clear right on the gross shape level. There is no excuse for textbooks in recent decades using Haeckel's drawings, or adaptations of them, even where there is a shift to suggesting that so-called more advanced creatures add new stages to the embryological development. Ask yourself: why use or adapt drawings that are known -- have been known for over 100 years -- to be willfully misleading? When Gould asked it, he was ashamed. That is telling. And, kindly compare teh Weak Argument correctives, i.e. you will see that this is by no means an isolated case of seeing Darwinists routinely use verbal or iconic or mythological [just-so story] caricatures designed to serve an agenda, rather than a commitment to the accurate truth and to acknowledging the limitations of the case being made. At least Darwin acknowledged some of the difficulties he faced, and so far as I know did not make silly arguments like the claims that evolution is as sure as gravity [not gravitation . . . ] or that he earth is round. Those who say such things simply show that hey do not understand the difference between observed fact and inferences to the inherently unobservable deep past.kairosfocus_{July 31, 2010
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K: You need also to ask yourself why Gould -- an advocate for evolution -- saw the continued use of Haeckel's work (and derivatives) over the past 100 years as an occasion for shame. He used "mindless," but that is plainly a euphemism for indefensible, and immoral. Haeckel is not on trial -- for 136 years he has plainly been guilty. The issue is what is driving a textbook establishment to be still using something that was exposed that long ago, even with mods and slight shifts in emphasis. Gkairosfocus_{July 31, 2010
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K: The matters at stake are already evident in the pics we have. Haeckel manipulated features and proportions to create an exaggerated similarity, suppressing significant variations in the development that were visible. Visible at gross level, and visible in Carl Zeiss optics from Jena circa 1874. When it comes to less visible parts [cell level developments], he is even more off track. Following Haeckel's pics and strategies (even with the "modern" mod that it is similarities of embryological development, not adult features like gills) is unjustifiable. And, the implicit circular argument based on ignoring or suppressing the possibility that we are looking at a library of parts and processes, adapted to particular cases, is fallacious. The second order suppression by distraction from the decisive, unanswered question on origin of digitally coded, functionally specific algorithmic information in cell-based life forms is in some ways worse. And, the attempt in the book being critiqued in the original post [well, linked from it] to assert that inferred timelines and artistically reconstructed in the perceived remote past are observations of macroevolution in action are an outright violation of basic principles of science and even of language. There should be no question that Haeckel did something that was outright fraudulent, as has been exposed since 1874. There is no justification for the various extensions that have built on that wrongdoing over the past 100 years; as Gould acknowledged. Gkairosfocus_{July 31, 2010
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one little error in you comments: “the much older book you boys are arguing about.” I’m a girl. :-D Oops! LOL. You go!San Antonio Rose_{July 31, 2010
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