Posted on 04/29/2009 8:29:52 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Jerry Coyne Defends Haeckel's Embryos: Why Darwinism Is False
So evolutionary theory needs better evidence than the fossil record can provide. Coyne correctly notes: “When he wrote The Origin, Darwin considered embryology his strongest evidence for evolution.” Darwin had written that the evidence seemed to show that “the embryos of the most distinct species belonging to the same class are closely similar, but become, when fully developed, widely dissimilar,” a pattern that “reveals community of descent.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at evolutionnews.org ...
What amazes me is that nobody ever talks about the fact that “Darwin considered embryology (read: recapitulation!) his strongest evidence for evolution.”
Hi Metmom,
Don’t have my ping list handy. Would you mind pinging this post to yours?
Thanks a bunch—GGG
Followed by Note: This is Part 4 in a series reviewing Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True.
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Guess I will be forced to read the who series to understand.
Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
Not really, each part makes sense all by themselves.
Thanks for the ping!
That's why I think it is helpful to explain that there is really no reason from an evolutionary viewpoint to think Haeckel was right. Haeckel's conception of evolution (and a common one at the time) was that evolution occurred by adding stages of life.
For example, once upon a time there was a single living cell. But then some cells lived longer and grew into worms. They still started life as a single cell, but developed into something more.
Then some of these worms lived longer and grew into fish. Once again they started as single cells and grew into worms, but then continued on to become fish.
Haeckel and others believed this process continued all the way up to humans. I still see many evolutionists today who believe you start out as a single cell because that's how our ancestors lived, and then we grow into a worm, a fish, an amphibian and so on until birth.
But this was based on a total misunderstanding of genetics, one that is flatly contradictory to Neo-Darwinism. Within modern evolutionism, mutations are responsible for transforming bacteria into humans, not longer lives. And those mutations are just as likely to transform developmental pathways as they are to alter end of life phenotypes. So embryological development has just as much opportunity to change as any other stage of life, and would presumably do so.
Not surprisingly, those skeptical of Haeckel's fraud find innumerable contradictions to this 19th century evolutionary myth in modern embryological studies, yet it captures the imagination and is still a valuable tool for preaching evolution, so it is hard to see it ever being weeded out. And that's sad, not just for biblical creation but for science and truth generally.
All excellent points. What amazes me is the fact that Darwin thought Haekelesque recapitulation was one of the “strongest” arguments for common descent!
Haeckel faked the drawings! And that has been known and admitted to for over 100 years!
But did you know that darwood considered the discredited Haeckeliac recapitulation as one of the strongest arguments for evolution?!?!?
Not to mention the fact that Jerry Coyne is still defending Haeckel!
Once you establish that a literal interpretation of Genesis has to be accepted as a historically and scientifically correct account, and effectively put a religous test on who can and can’t be a scientist, what’s next?
You actually believe that the Earth was created some 6000 years ago?
Kook spam.
No, That would be a bunch of BS, just like evolution and evoloserism.
In fact our living world and local environment may actually ybe six or ten thousand years old, but the Earth viewed as a collection of rocks is somewhat older than that. But not billions of years old. Robert Bass once redid Lord Kelvin’s heat equations for the Earth WITH a maximum possible figure for radioactive elements included and got an upper bound of around 200,000,000 years for the Earth’s age. Evolosers, of course, do not have any OTHER reason for rejecting Lord Kelvin’s basic findings.
By the way, how are things over at DC? Is there a sort of a morbid excitement from being part of one of the last little groups of committed evolosers??
Don’t live in DC, and have no idea what you are talking about. But I am sure it makes sense in your mind.
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