Fetus' Feet Show Fish, Reptile Vestiges

Discovery News ^ | May 18, 2006 | Jennifer Viegas

[Al Simmons]

I thought this was a fascinating piece of news. Have at it, folks!

[FormerACLUmember]

Developmental Biology 101.

[tallhappy]

Utter nonsense.

[Third Order]

you can call them reptiles, just don't dare call a fetus a baby.

[Caveman Lawyer]

Holy crap, this thread has all the elements, doesn't it?

[tallhappy]

Actually, superstitious pseudo mysticism incorporated in to Biology a century ago that still hangs on.

[Williams]

Study finds??? I've known this since I was a kid, and I'm older than I want to admit. We really are getting dumbed down, aren't we?

[Paleo Conservative]

[prisoner6]

My wife claims I still have the feet and skin of a lizard.

And I DO tend to shed in the Spring.

prisoner6

[Williams]

The fetus visibly passes through these stages, just as the brain develops from a reptilian base to mammalian. I've seen pictures of this 40 and more years ago.

The part of the article that is idiotic, and I guess the basis of the "new study," is the attempt to compare fetal development to specific prehistoric fossils. There is no need and no ability to make such a specific comparison.

[hootiebird]

Exactly, I remember leaning something similar to this back in high school biology in the early 90's. We compared images of developing embryos during different developmental stages and how similar a human embryo was in appearance to a pig or fish embryo at different times.

[editor-surveyor]

This nonsense was exposed for the lie it is a long time ago. Recycled dog feces.

[tongue-tied]

Okay, I'm not even a big evolution guy, but this seems like stupid science to me. And here's why: If at two weeks/months/trimesters gestation human foot bones seem a certain way, and somehow relate to some ancient bird or lizard, who cares?

What did the ancient bird or lizard feet look like at two weeks/months/trimesters? And how, in any way, does that prove anything? If a preborn human somehow resembles a fossil of an adult, fully formed bird or reptile then whoopdeedoo and isn't that neat. But it surely means nothing. Or am I not being scientific here?

[muawiyah]

It's really not news.

In any case, if the bio-system was simply assembled in a factory (somewhere) using appropriate technology, you might well find the exact same process exhibited as a mammal's feet were grown.

It's the height of hubris to look at something like this and conclude that there are magical/mystical/butotherwise unmeasurable forces at work, lurking in the background, deciding that feet should/must develop in this manner.

The simplest solution is the design engineers at the "mammal feet" factory came up with this one because it was more economical, easier, superior to other methods, or they didn't wrap up the job as well as they thought they did.

[PatrickHenry]

Evolution Ping The List-O-Links

A conservative, pro-evolution science list, now with over 370 names. See the list's explanation, then FReepmail to be added or dropped. To assist beginners: But it's "just a theory", Evo-Troll's Toolkit, and How to argue against a scientific theory.

[Junior]

Ping.

[Mamzelle]

LOL! I was taught this crap in junior high--"it looks like a gill, therefore we were fish."

[Cicero]

There were famous illustrations in all the school biology textbooks for many years, showing this kind of fetal development. Most of us probably used one of those textbooks when we were children. They have long been proven to be complete lies.

I would imagine this is yet another example of wishful thinking by some hapless Darwinist.

[4woodenboats]

....and after 63 days they look like a pair of fluffy bunny ears, and only 5 days later resemble band instruments, indicating that we have evolved from softness and niceness and had happy thoughts of music and sugarplums dancing in our heads

[Mikey_1962]

Red Meat...you are evil.