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Survival of the fakest: Humiliating the loser Texas taxpayers with Haeckel’s fake embryo drawings

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Yes, Darwinists are bringing back one of the most famous fakes in biology: Darwin disciple Ernst Haeckel’s hundred year old fake embryo drawings are scheduled by some publishers for Texas schoolbooks:

In addition, many of these curricula contain glaring scientific errors based on outdated science.For example, three of the proposed curricula (from Adaptive Curriculum, Holt McDougal, and Rice University) use Haeckel’s inaccurate embryo drawings—called fraudulent by multiple evolutionary scientists—to claim that vertebrate embryos are similar in their earliest stages. Clearly inaccurate as well as outdated, Haeckel-derived embryo drawings were previously removed by the TBSOE from textbooks designed for use in Texas during the 2003 biology textbook adoption process; these bogus drawings should not be allowed to re-enter the curriculum.

Also:

A single curriculum, submitted by International Databases, LLC, attempts to follow the 2009 TEKS by encouraging critical thinking, analysis, and evaluation of Darwinian evolution and the chemical origin of life, using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, experimental and observational testing, including examining all sides of scientific evidence. However, this curriculum also includes intelligent design, which is not required by the TEKS, and which Discovery Institute (the leading intelligent design research organization) opposes requiring in public schools.

The latter is to promote a lawsuit if accepted?

Big hat, no battle? Or … is this one just too much? Stay tuned.

This just in: Evidence against the stage that haeckel’s faked up embryos were supposed to represent (2003):

Inverting the hourglass: quantitative evidence against the phylotypic stage in vertebrate development

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 2003 270, 341-34 6

Olaf R. P. Bininda-Emonds*, Jonathan E. Jeffery, and Michael K. Richardson
Institute of Evolutionary and Ecological Sciences, Leiden University, Kaiserstraat 63, POBox 9516, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands (bininda@rulsfb.leidenuniv.nl, jeffery@rulsfb.leidenuniv.nl, richardson@rulsfb.leidenuniv.nl)

The concept of a phylotypic stage, when all vertebrate embryos show low phenotypic diversity, is an important cornerstone underlying modern developmental biology. Many theories involving patterns of development, developmental modules, mechanisms of development including developmental integration, and the action of natural selection on embryological stages have been proposed with reference to the phylotypic stage. However, the phylotypic stage has never been precisely defined, or conclusively supported or disproved by comparative quantitative data. We tested the predictions of the ‘developmental hourglass’ definition of the phylotypic stage quantitatively by looking at the pattern of developmental timing variation across vertebrates as a whole and within mammals. For both datasets, the results using two different metrics were counter to the predictions of the definition: phenotypic variation between species was highest in the middle of the developmental sequence. This surprising degree of developmental
character independence argues against the existence of a phylotypic stage in vertebrates. Instead, we hypothesize that numerous tightly delimited developmental modules exist during the mid-embryonic period. Further, the high level of timing changes (heterochrony) between these modules may be an important evolutionary mechanism giving rise to the diversity of vertebrates. The onus is now clearly on proponents of the phylotypic stage to present both a clear definition of it and quantitative data supporting its existence.

Comments
Are these Haeckel’s embryos, some recapitulation of Haeckel’s mistake, or modern photographs of embryos at matches stages?
They are much larger than the originals. Everything's bigger in Texas, you know.Mung
June 11, 2011
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"However, this curriculum also includes intelligent design, which is not required by the TEKS, and which Discovery Institute (the leading intelligent design research organization) opposes requiring in public schools." I was unaware of that as the official position. Perhaps someone could fill me in on the history of this stance. Does anyone have links to the images in the books? Are these Haeckel's embryos, some recapitulation of Haeckel's mistake, or modern photographs of embryos at matches stages?DrREC
June 9, 2011
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