Is the vestigial organ argument a vestige of poor science

[Subduction Zone]

it was

Then prove your claim. Valid sources only. Lying creationist sources will be taken as an admission of defeat.

 

[Subduction Zone]

it was
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...d-embryo-illustrations-led-to-drawn-out-lies/

https://evolutionnews.org/2012/10/darwin_lobbyist_1/
embryologist Michael Richardson, who called them “one of the most famous fakes in biology,” or Stephen Jay Gould who said “Haeckel had exaggerated the similarities by idealizations and omissions,” and that “in a procedure that can only be called fraudulent,” Haeckel “simply copied the same figure over and over again.”

Your first source only states that he was wrong, though some of his points were correct. Your second source is an admission of defeat by you.

 

[Jose Fly]

@Subduction Zone I gotta ask....is there a reason you follow folks like @whirlingmerc down every rabbit trail he puts before you? I mean, you do realize he's doing the Gish Gallop, right? And if you do, why don't you call him on it and stick to one or two points at a time?

Because from where I sit it looks like he's leading you on a bit.

 

[Subduction Zone]

@Subduction Zone I gotta ask....is there a reason you follow folks like @whirlingmerc down every rabbit trail he puts before you? I mean, you do realize he's doing the Gish Gallop, right? And if you do, why don't you call him on it and stick to one or two points at a time?

Because from where I sit it looks like he's leading you on a bit.

Perhaps he is. But he is sinking himself by running from one PRATT to another followed by either lying websites or websites that contradict his claims.

I think his brain may have temporarily exploded. One simply cannot be a YEC and claim not to be a science denier and even be knows that.

 

[Subduction Zone]

While waiting for @whirlingmerc 's head to stop steaming here is an article that debunks the claims that Haeckel was a fraud:

http://www.antievolution.org/topics/law/ar_hb2548/Haeckels_embryos.htm

I am on my tablet now and will quote from it later.

Of course using the "Haeckel was a fraud therefore evolution is wrong" argument is beyond foolish. By that twisted logic Christianity is wrong. People that live in glass houses. . .

 

[Jose Fly]

Perhaps he is.

No, there's no perhaps about it. He is absolutely doing the Gish Gallop, which by itself is expected.

The problem arises when someone from our side feels compelled to respond as soon as possible to each and every talking point he introduces....and that's what you've been doing in this thread. It just plays right into the creationist's hand. Now he isn't obligated to answer any specific counter-post and has instead been given permission to just introduce as many rote talking points as needed to keep the thread moving so that no single point is ever truly debated.

But he is sinking himself by running from one PRATT to another followed by either lying websites or websites that contradict his claims.

Not really. Another way of looking at this is that none of his talking points have been fully evaluated and refuted; the reason being of course that few of them are debated for more than one or two posts. By then, he's introduced at least one new talking point and the debate has followed along.

I think his brain may have temporarily exploded. One simply cannot be a YEC and claim not to be a science denier and even be knows that.

I can see how he believes that to be so, given the sources he cites. It's ridiculous naturally, but here we are.

 

[whirlingmerc]

Perhaps he is. But he is sinking himself by running from one PRATT to another followed by either lying websites or websites that contradict his claims.

I think his brain may have temporarily exploded. One simply cannot be a YEC and claim not to be a science denier and even be knows that.

Another assertion with a claim to be a mind reader?

 

[whirlingmerc]

While waiting for @whirlingmerc 's head to stop steaming here is an article that debunks the claims that Haeckel was a fraud:

http://www.antievolution.org/topics/law/ar_hb2548/Haeckels_embryos.htm

I am on my tablet now and will quote from it later.

Of course using the "Haeckel was a fraud therefore evolution is wrong" argument is beyond foolish. By that twisted logic Christianity is wrong. People that live in glass houses. . .

And no... human embryo do not have gills.. just a skin fold.
Unfortunately Carl Sagan got sucked into Haekle's bad science in an abortion article he wrote...

but others who investigated Haekel do say there is evidence of fraud
https://www.nature.com/articles/35065834

"We can make a persuasive case with Haeckel because we have identified some of his sources. When we compare his drawing of a young echidna embryo with the original6, we find that he removed the limbs (see Fig. 1). This cut was selective, applying only to the young stage. It was also systematic because he did it to other species in the picture. Its intent is to make the young embryos look more alike than they do in real life.'

In this and a variety of ways he took images and revised them in a manner to make his case
That is misleading

 

[whirlingmerc]

While waiting for @whirlingmerc 's head to stop steaming here is an article that debunks the claims that Haeckel was a fraud:

http://www.antievolution.org/topics/law/ar_hb2548/Haeckels_embryos.htm

I am on my tablet now and will quote from it later.

Of course using the "Haeckel was a fraud therefore evolution is wrong" argument is beyond foolish. By that twisted logic Christianity is wrong. People that live in glass houses. . .

What it does show is that science text books carried his bad science all through the last century even though they should have known better

That would include grade school, high school, college and even some med school text books. Even Steven J Gould bemoaned that

 

[Subduction Zone]

Another assertion with a claim to be a mind reader?

No, logical conclusion. Anyone that has any education at all should realize this. You claim to be educated. If that is true then you would know to be a YEC is to be a science denier.

 

[SomeRandom]

Another assertion with a claim to be a mind reader?

I dunno friend. @Subduction Zone kind of has a point. Your posts belie a complete lack of knowledge regarding even basic Biology. I barely have a High School level of understanding and even I can tell that you're way off.

 

[Subduction Zone]

And no... human embryo do not have gills.. just a skin fold.
Unfortunately Carl Sagan got sucked into Haekle's bad science in an abortion article he wrote...

but others who investigated Haekel do say there is evidence of fraud
https://www.nature.com/articles/35065834

"We can make a persuasive case with Haeckel because we have identified some of his sources. When we compare his drawing of a young echidna embryo with the original6, we find that he removed the limbs (see Fig. 1). This cut was selective, applying only to the young stage. It was also systematic because he did it to other species in the picture. Its intent is to make the young embryos look more alike than they do in real life.'

In this and a variety of ways he took images and revised them in a manner to make his case
That is misleading

You lose when you start out dishonestly. Non one made any claims of "gills" at best you had "gill slits" when you were an embryo, though there is a scientific term for them. Now let's see if you shot yourself in the foot again with your sources as you did last time.

Oh my, no fraud in your first article. You can't seem to understand that being wrong is not a fraud. Before the photographs could be taken illustrations were done. Emphasizing what one saw was not fraudulent even if it was not accurate. Today photographs are used to illustrate what Haeckel got right. It is also mentioned what he got wrong, there is no "recapitulation" for example. What he did was not terribly unusual.

By the way, why use this argument? Once again by using it you are in fact stating that Christianity is false. Logic does not seem to be a tool that you can use consistently.

 

[Subduction Zone]

What it does show is that science text books carried his bad science all through the last century even though they should have known better

That would include grade school, high school, college and even some med school text books. Even Steven J Gould bemoaned that

Hardly. There were some of Haeckel's concepts that were correct. You would throw it all out. Today they hardly use Haeckel except for what he got right. Which is consistent with how other sciences work. When you are taught physics you are not taught that Newton was an alchemist. That huge error in his life is forgotten. There is not enough time to dwell on all of the errors that were made in the past. It takes long enough to go over the successes.

If you could find some of those espousing recapitulation you might have a point. I doubt if you will be able to find any that do that.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Back to @whirlingmerc 's errant claim about humans having "just a skin fold". From the article that I linked:

"This is a half-truth.<in reference to the claim that humans never have gills> While it is technically correct that humans don't ever have gills (since they never function as respiratory organs), humans and other terrestrial vertebrates do have at one point in their embryological development the same structures that in fish and the larva of amphibians become gills.

For example mammals (including humans) and the other terrestrial vertebrates (reptiles, birds) develop pharyngeal (sometimes called branchial, or visceral) clefts and pouches (clefts on the outside, pouches on the inside) in the neck and throat. The only thing keeping them from being true slits is a thin membrane of skin (which in the first pair of "slits" becomes the ear-drums). While these "slits" do not normally open in mammals, they do open, and then close up in amphibians, reptiles and birds. The common creationist claim that the exterior clefts are merely "flexion folds" is totally false. They are the outsides of the "slits" which have corresponding pouches in the throat.

Aortic arches (blood vessels), which travel in between each of the cleft/pouches, also develop in humans and other terrestrial vertebrates. However unlike fish and amphibian larva, terrestrial vertebrates do not develop the finer capillaries (that grow off the aortic arches) that are used by fish to absorb dissolved oxygen from the water in which they live. So we develop the larger "gill" blood vessels but not the smaller ones.

In addition to having the cleft/pouches and aortic arches, the embryos of terrestrial vertebrates also have pharyngeal arches (cartilaginous supports) and nerves which also run in between the cleft/pouches just as they do in the gills of fish. These facts can be found in just about any medical (human) embryology or comparative vertebrate anatomy textbook, and they have been known since before the scientific community accepted evolution."

So human embryos do have pharyngeal arches, which are commonly called "gill slits". These did develop into gills in our distant ancestors though not of course in us.

 

[David T]

Mine is never right.
But it's never wrong either.

My partner is always right regardless she makes sure.

 

[ChristineM]

Bill Nye only has a BS in Mechanical Engineering .
Carl Sagan has more but astronomy
Darwin's another astornomer
Darwin had a degree in Bible and that was it

so yes... fair enough

Sorry to disappoint you but other peoples qualifications dont make you an expert on what you deliberately fail to understand.

 

[ChristineM]

You gave me what I asked for.
I thought the last link was your way of saying, 'Here get yourself educated about science.'
Was it what I asked about, then I'll look at it, otherwise,... sorry. This is a debate forum, not a science class.

Besides I informed you before hand.
Forum rules say
always provide a citation and limit your quotation to a paragraph or two rather than quoting the entire content (see Rule 4 for additional guidelines)

Nope, it was get yourself educated about the particular aspect of science we are discussing. I cant learn it for you and you cannot debate a subject you are ignorant of.

I provided a citation to my point, the following link was just an educational add on. Shame you didn't notice that before whining

 

[ChristineM]

You asked about ETs, I gave you info on the fact that it is considered a testable hypothesis.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other planets.

No, you cited ETs, i asked you to put you money where your mouth is. And you directed me to wiki without even a link. Can i draw your attention to rule 4 "always provide a citation and limit your quotation to a paragraph or two rather than quoting the entire content (see Rule 4 for additional guidelines)"

 

[ChristineM]

That is indeed a problem for those who have The Truth.

The capital T (or even quote marks) says it all.

 

[whirlingmerc]

Sorry to disappoint you but other peoples qualifications dont make you an expert on what you deliberately fail to understand.

typo... Darwin's only degree was in Bible