How to teach evolution & Evidence for Creationism

[Blackheart]

8k words really is too short, i'll probably hve to start snipping out people's quotes, but I'm a lazy lazy person.

All it would require is the tiniest shift in the way the universe was formed, and stars could not have existed. Without stars, planets could not have existed and life could not have existed. The argument is much more expansive then this, however. The probabilities of life coming about by random chance look to modern scientists to have been essentially nil.

Um, or it was an absolute certainty. That's the problem with working from a single occurence. You come up with two results. It's impossible, or it's a certainty.

Well we KNOW it's not impossible, otherwise why would we be arguing about it? And we don't know for sure that it's a certainty either, which leaves us somewhere about... ignorant.... We just don't KNOW. And have no way of knowing, unless someone offers us another universe to test.... Assuming they even exist of course.

This is only one argument, of course. Though it is a strong one, it isn't my favorite . I like best going straight back to the scriptures, discussing the overwhelming evidence that they are true. The Old Testament in very clear prophesies predicts what happened in the times of the New Testaments.

I'll just note three problems with the idea of prophecy.

One, dating. Which is here mostly for completeness, since it's fairly well accepted that the old testemant translations we have are dated prior to the compilations of early new testements.

Two, interpretation. Which is a much more valid complaint. The new testements were composed after the initial prophcies were made, and there is the question of whether the author(s) conciously or unconsciouly changed their records to suit well known prophetic utterences. Note also that I refer to them as utterences, because like most prophecies they are vague and unspecific, and can be interpreted to fit a wide range of occurences.

Thirdly, there is the problem of divine inspiration. Just because the original author of a prophecy believes it to be divinely inspired, does not mean that it isn't a form of precognition.

Which is why such evidence is ANECDOTAL, not EMPIRICAL. At least as far as applying to the question of a supreme being. It MIGHT be empirical when applied to more limited questions such as "how well DO the prophecies in the old testement reflect the written record in the new testement" or even "how well does the written record of the new testement fit the historical evidence".

The probability that Jesus should have so precisely fulfilled the Messianic predictions he did is essentially nil.

Now you're really headed off on a tangent, but I will just note for the sake of completeness that the Jews certainly didn't think he fit the prophecies very well. And they were the ones who originally MADE the prophecies....

The evidence that the gospel writers were reliably taking down events is vast, the evidence that the gospels were unchanged by translation errors or infiltrating myths is irrefutable. Anyway, I love discussing those evidences. It takes time, but it is very fun.

Yes it is fun. Unfortunately this probably isn't the place for it, other than to note that stating that something is irrefutable is a very, very, long way from demonstrating that it is so. Especially the part about no translation errors from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to Old English to Middle English to King James. THAT part has been quite hammered into the ground, and there is ample evidence of quite a few spelling errors, additions, and even outright meaning substitutions.

I'm still very curious to read your presentation on this theory.

As soon as you say you've absorbed the first broad general outline of the first part, because it generally provokes a horde of questions.

Let's deal with what we have . Which includes a lot of evidence I could get into. It would have to go in the "why you believe what you believe" thread though; much of it is not related to creationism.

I'm not much for philosophical argument nowadays. Too many people keep mixing up things like empiricism and metaphysics for anything to much progress past arguing over semantics.

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Shall I call it a "fish thingy"?

Really, youse guys!

Too late for anything else tonite

A "fish" archetype if you like. Fish Thingy has the same problem as before, I keep thinking you're talking about a fish penis.

After all, you're the one who doesn't seem to like the idea of species. All fish would be fish archetypes, from rays to sharks to tuna. They can't interbreed, but since they all share these same characteristics - gills, lateral tail movement for propulsion, fins etc., they must all be from some type of common archetype.

So this one particular archetypal "fish" keeps getting tossed up on the shore, until it's descendants can cope with it. (Much like modern mudskippers). If there's any OTHER example of the fish archetype that's closer to the "frog" archetype, which one do you think it's going to be? None. Which leads one to the conclusion that there is likely to be a link there, especially since there's no evidence that these "frog" archetypes existed until fish had been around for a long time.

At what point does the "fish" become a "frog"? Never? Then where did all these frogs come from? Lacking any other theory with any supporting empirical data, the only available conclusion is that those "fish" stopped being "fish" and became "frogs".

Oh if you want to you can say that it was fluffy bunnies from dimension X that used magic mutation wands, or even that they thought up "frogs" wholesale on the spot, and dumped out several million of them because they liked the idea of "fish" with legs, but it doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference. It's UNLIKELY that it happened that way, but it still doesn't change the mechanism.

[Lief Erikson]

I understand fairly well most of what you were saying on multiple universes. Unfortunately, I don't have a strong enough science background to comment . Thanks for taking the time to write that up.

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Um, or it was an absolute certainty. That's the problem with working from a single occurence. You come up with two results. It's impossible, or it's a certainty.

Well we KNOW it's not impossible, otherwise why would we be arguing about it?

Sure it could be impossible . . . and a miracle . Impossible is possible . If one accepts the Big Bang, it looks impossible. I know though that there's no point in digging up those arguments, considering your views.

Originally Posted by Blackheart

And we don't know for sure that it's a certainty either, which leaves us somewhere about... ignorant.... We just don't KNOW. And have no way of knowing, unless someone offers us another universe to test.... Assuming they even exist of course.

I don't understand why you think there are only two possibilities: Certainty or impossibility. What happened to using good old-fashioned odds based upon the available data?

Originally Posted by Blackheart

I'll just note three problems with the idea of prophecy.

One, dating. Which is here mostly for completeness, since it's fairly well accepted that the old testemant translations we have are dated prior to the compilations of early new testements.

Fairly well established? I've never heard any arguments brought up on the matter of which comes first. The Old Testament documents have been dated just as other ancient documents have been. What arguments have you heard that might cast doubt in this matter?

I'll continue soon.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by String theory, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

As of 2005, string theory is unverifiable. It is by no means the only theory currently being developed which suffers from this difficulty; any new development can pass through a stage of unverifiability before it becomes conclusively accepted or rejected. As Richard Feynman noted in The Character of Physical Law, the key test of a scientific theory is whether its consequences agree with the measurements we take in experiments. It doesn't matter who invented the theory, "what his name is", or even how aesthetically appealing the theory may be—"if it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong." (Of course, there are subsidiary issues: something may have gone wrong with the experiment, or perhaps the person computing the consequences of the theory made a mistake. All these possibilities must be checked, which may take a considerable time.) No version of string theory has yet made a prediction which differs from those made by other theories—at least, not in a way that an experiment could check. In this sense, string theory is still in a "larval stage": it possesses many features of mathematical interest, and it may yet become supremely important in our understanding of the Universe, but it requires further developments before it can become verifiable. These developments may be in the theory itself, such as new methods of performing calculations and deriving predictions, or they may be advances in experimental science, which make formerly ungraspable quantities measurable.

Unlike the Big Bang, String Theory really does sound as though it is in an extremely primitive stage. It can't make predictions yet that are verified by evidence that isn't explained equally well by other theories. You can believe in it, of course. I have no problem at all with that. I certainly don't have enough information to judge it. The fact is, no one does. It is an interesting possibility, of course.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Two, interpretation. Which is a much more valid complaint. The new testements were composed after the initial prophcies were made, and there is the question of whether the author(s) conciously or unconsciouly changed their records to suit well known prophetic utterences. Note also that I refer to them as utterences, because like most prophecies they are vague and unspecific, and can be interpreted to fit a wide range of occurences.

The authors wrote the New Testament at a time when there were numerous witnesses of these events still alive. The Pharisees also had a strong incentive to attack those accounts as best they could (they didn't want to be viewed as having murdered the Christ, obviously). For writers of that time, putting down non-historical events would have been handing their opponents weapons.

Also, there are many evidences from within the scriptures themselves that they were written by people doing their utmost to be accurate to the facts. Several things that could easily be viewed as embarressing to Christianity were included in there. For example, Jesus' cry on the cross, "Father, why have you forsaken me?", and the fact that women were the first people to see the resurrected Jesus (their testimony was considered basically worthless in that culture). Also if the gospel writers were willing to alter the true narrative of what occurred, they would logically have written words of Jesus to address certain issues that plagued the early Church, the foremost of these being circumcision. In the New Testament, Jesus says nothing on that subject. Rather then Paul being able to argue, "this is what Jesus said," he had to use Old Testament prophecies.

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Thirdly, there is the problem of divine inspiration. Just because the original author of a prophecy believes it to be divinely inspired, does not mean that it isn't a form of precognition.

Do you mean that you believe in the existence of spirits that relate the future, but aren't necessarily of God? Please clarify.

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Now you're really headed off on a tangent, but I will just note for the sake of completeness that the Jews certainly didn't think he fit the prophecies very well. And they were the ones who originally MADE the prophecies....

And the early Christians weren't Jews? The early Christian leader Paul wasn't a Pharisee?

The Jewish people were expecting a leader who would come in combat. That is part of the Biblical prophecies. The Messiah is supposed to come down in combat; this is particularly visible in the End Times prophecies of Zechariah. They did not understand that there were supposed to be two comings of the Christ. The Jewish people were severely disappointed in Jesus because he did not fulfill the prophecies of the great warrior that would lead them to national freedom. The Jewish Pharisees were probably glad that he didn't try to fulfill them, as so many false Messiahs before him had. The fact that some of the predictions of the Messiah (regarding the coming warrior that would free Israel) are attributed now to a Second Coming while in the time of Jesus they weren't can be viewed as an opposing point in Christianity's amazing display of prophetic fulfillment in Jesus. Nevertheless, what Jesus did fulfill is stunning on its own. The date of the Messiah's coming was predicted and fulfilled, his mission, the manner of his death, his resurrection, etc. I'd particularly like to bring up an Isaiah prophecy, my favorite of the prophecies of the Messiah that I've seen, which clearly shows the Suffering Servant role of Christ.

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Yes it is fun. Unfortunately this probably isn't the place for it, other than to note that stating that something is irrefutable is a very, very, long way from demonstrating that it is so. Especially the part about no translation errors from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to Old English to Middle English to King James. THAT part has been quite hammered into the ground, and there is ample evidence of quite a few spelling errors, additions, and even outright meaning substitutions.

Modern Bibles have been compared with the original Greek of ancient scriptures from the earliest centuries AD, and have been found extremely accurate. Only minor translation errors have been made.

Originally Posted by Blackheart

As soon as you say you've absorbed the first broad general outline of the first part, because it generally provokes a horde of questions.

Again, thanks for that outline .

Originally Posted by Blackheart

I'm not much for philosophical argument nowadays. Too many people keep mixing up things like empiricism and metaphysics for anything to much progress past arguing over semantics.

Well, I'm not positive how well discussing ancient Biblical texts and String Theory would fit into an "Evidence for Creationism" thread .

[Rían]

trying to catch up a bit ...

Originally Posted by Blackheart

I will say without a doubt, that truth has nothing at all to do with science. If you think that, then you have completely misunderstood the difference between science and philosophy.

That's not what I'm talking about. I believe that there is indeed a true state of the universe, if we could only see it. And science attempts to find out what is true about the universe. It does this by making hypotheses and testing them. We find out, for example, that when you drop things from a height, they fall. But they fall at somewhat different rates. Why is this? Perhaps something to do with surface area? Let's drop things with different surface areas and find out. Or perhaps it has something to do with wind resistance. Let's drop more things and find out! Let's drop things on the moon and see how THEY drop! Let's "drop" things in space and see what happens!

Of course truth has something to do with science! A scientist working for a cure for AIDS will try to find out the truth about how certain chemicals react with the AIDS virus. Now I won't disagree that something may appear to be true and then we find out differently, but so what? Then we discover it WASN'T true and we continue to seek the truth of the matter.

Macroevolution either occurred or it didn't. If YOU are right and it occurred, we'll NEVER know If, however, I am right and it did NOT occur because God created animals, plants and people pretty much how they are nowdays, along with the wonderful adaptation design elements that lets us breed different species within a kind, and that lets kinds adapt to their environment in countless cases (and die out in other cases, but that doesn't make the amazing adaptations any less wonderful) then you and I will know the truth someday. That should be interesting, to say the least!

[Rían]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

I don't have problems with most of the theory of evolution. It's the part where supposedly one-celled thingys change from one-celled thingys to humans thru things like beneficial mutations and natural selection that I object to. It's a nice theory, but that's all it is - it certainly isn't observable.

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Want to bet? Happens thousands of times every day. Inside a uterus. It's not a long jump from there to theorizing how such a thing could happen in the outside environment over a couple of billion years. Actually the surprising part is that it's not a lot more common. And, interestingly enough it explains many more observable phenomena, which is in itself an observation that the theory "predicts" the data.

Did you drop this as an example yet? I don't recall you doing so. All your example shows is that cells follow their instructions remarkably well! A human egg and sperm meet and a human is formed. A slime mold cell makes a slime mold. And so on and so on. Life reproduces after its kind.

Even if birds change so much that they can't breed anymore, so what?! They're still birds. And if the two new species undergo changes and make 4 more species that can't breed among themselves, so what? They're still birds! You are free to extrapolate to the high heavens but to me, it's like someone saying to me, "Going from one-celled thingies to birds would take at least millions of years and gazillions upon gazillions of steps based upon theoretical beneficial mutations. We can observe birds adapting to their environment in such a way that we've decided to proclaim a new species, esp. if they can't interbreed anymore. IOW, we have SEEN steps 1 to 5. Now I am asking you to take ON FAITH steps 6 thru 6 gazillion billion."

I just cannot buy it without throwing my integrity to the wind. It is extrapolation to an absurd point.

Over and over I OBSERVE that basic animal/plant kinds REMAIN basic animal/plant kinds, just as the Bible states. Even with the very fast reproducing species like flies, they remain flies. Sometimes you can fiddle with genes and get flies with crumpled wings, flies with two heads, etc., but gosh darn if they aren't still flies.

I just do NOT think the proposed mechanisms are supported by data! Beneficial mutations? About the best around is the sickle cell anemia one, which is certainly not entirely beneficial. Again, what we OBSERVE, over and over, is the vast, VAST majority of mutations are either neutral or harmful! The number of beneficial mutations required for even ONE kind of animal we see today to emerge from a one-celled thingy is mind-boggling. I imagine even dealing with ONE animal, we're talking about statistically impossible. Dealing with the millions of living things we have today, it's impossible upon impossible. Sure, people can say, "if there's even ONE change in a gazillion billion, then maybe we hit it!", but IMO, that's not rational. I mean, why even develop statistics, then, if you're going to ignore when something is called statistically impossible?

What I hear from most evolutionists is, "hey, we can't scientifically test if some powerful being made things or not, so we will ASSUME that we got here thru mechanisms that do NOT depend upon a powerful being, and see if we can come up with mechanisms that might work." Well, the ones they came up with just don't satisfy me - they're too unlikely, and they are too unsupported by actual data - they're supported by extrapolations.

To me, accepting the theory of evolution requires too much faith. I just can't do it.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Imagination isn't of primary concern when you are testing a theory.

I never said it was. You got my post mixed up - prob. didn't check back to see what I was referring to.

You said something along the lines of that if there was a god, then extinction proved that he didn't care much about the world. I responded by saying, in a teasing way, that you had no imagination, if that's the only possible theory you could come up with. I can come up with a few more

The idea of direction, whether for or against, is not empirically verifiable.

I agree. Yet the theory of evolution that I have seen taught, and that I usually see discussed, uses words like "non-directed" and "natural processes" (in the sense of mindless/goal-less).

No. It is testable, as testable as anything in "theoretical"physics or astrophysics.

Perhaps the first 5 steps are testable. I'll grant you that. It's steps 6 thru 6 gazillion billion that aren't testable. Do you agree? And holding one fossil in one hand and another in another hand and saying, "This fossil in my right hand is the ancestor of the fossil in my left hand" does NOT count as testable, as I hope you would agree.

But I don't see people standing around screaming for legislation on the teaching of bosons or singularity mechanics. Simply because they don't feel threatened by these ideas. They are too far removed form their reality. But you tell someone that their distant ancestors were primates and suddenly they display.. remarkably primate like fear reactions...

Oh, we're similar to primates in many ways, IMO But the primate-like reaction I have isn't fear, it's laughter at the wild amount of extrapolation I'm supposed to swallow!

Species isn't as arbitrary a classification as it used to be. There is good solid reproducable data about DNA differences. While true that some organisms have a different phenotype but similar enough genotype that they can breed fertile offspring, the current model is that these different populaitons are in the process of speciating. Which means that the theory takes into account, and has at it's core, speciation. In other words, the origin of species. New Species.

New Species that remain in their kinds.

And how would you regard that as fundamentaly different from what I have been pointing out? Or are you suggesting that there is a better model for how new species originate?

Yes, IMO there is a better model, better supported by scientific data, at least as far as possible when we talk about things in the prehistoric past, where there are NO records to go on AT ALL.

I think creationism as described in the Bible fits the data better than evolutionism. I think you are being close-minded in only looking at "how new species originate" - I think you need to look at the possiblity of a two-pronged POV. I think new species originated in two ways - the first way was an initial act of creation that made at least thousands of different plants/animals fully formed and functioning. The second way was that due to a great design, these life forms came complete with a genetic DESIGN that allowed adaptation to environment and the creation of sub-species to an amazing degree. The fossil record certainly supports this view. We see species in the fossil record that are still around today. We see species that are wonderful in their variety and functionality. We do NOT see things that show steps from fishy-things to giraffes. And that's why the evolutionists had to develop punctuated equilibrium.

There is NO problem saying that a hooved horse came from a multi-toed horse, if they're both horses. Of course, we'll never know (unless I'm right, as I mentioned before!). Where I DO have a problem is saying that horses came from fishy-thingies, which we do NOT see ANY evidence of, IMO, beyond the first few steps of the required 6 gazillion billion steps.

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I understand fairly well most of what you were saying on multiple universes. Unfortunately, I don't have a strong enough science background to comment . Thanks for taking the time to write that up.

The flipside to that is that there is now a move towards cyclic "creation" episodes. Big Bang single point of origin doesn't explain some puzzling aspects of known matter distribution in the universe. However the idea that when you have multiple points "overlap" simultanously between two "consecutive" universes, it "sparks" multiple inflation centers. Which means that you get this odd pattern of matter densities, which matches what we currently see.

And it is thought that it's a good possibility such episodes are cyclic, happening every 50-60 billion years... Though be advised that has to be a wildly innacurate estimate.

I don't understand why you think there are only two possibilities: Certainty or impossibility. What happened to using good old-fashioned odds based upon the available data?

It's a math problem. In order to calculate odds, you need to be able to succesfully determine all possible outcomes.

If you only have ONE occurence, there's no way to calculate the odds... If you try to do probability with a sample size of one, you're going to come out with 0 or infinity (certainty).

Fairly well established? I've never heard any arguments brought up on the matter of which comes first. The Old Testament documents have been dated just as other ancient documents have been. What arguments have you heard that might cast doubt in this matter?
I'll continue soon.

None recently, they've been doing some good work on the dead sea stuff, but for a while it looked like there might have been some real pampliset issues with the modern translations of the old testiment. However that's all cleared up (except for some niggling details) and as I said, I only included it for completeness.

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

The authors wrote the New Testament at a time when there were numerous witnesses of these events still alive.

Briefly, there's some real debate as to when the new testements were composed, much less recorded. But this isn't the thread for it.

Do you mean that you believe in the existence of spirits that relate the future, but aren't necessarily of God? Please clarify.

Someone said spirits? where? Oh if you want to bring that up sure, go ahead, but I was actually thinking of a quantum based time flow flux that someone happened to "tune" into and it gave them "visions". I suppose either way is just as likely....

And the early Christians weren't Jews? The early Christian leader Paul wasn't a Pharisee?

Not after conversion. A small number of jews converted, but most of the early converts after that were gentiles. The mass of jewish people rejected the claim to messiah, as well as the temple. But then, this isn't the thread for it.

Nevertheless, what Jesus did fulfill is stunning on its own.

Why don't we just leave it at that since this is the wrong thread. I have no problem admitting that at the very least the philosophies he advanced are an interesting mix of greek and eastern viewpoints with some very profound ethical implications.

Modern Bibles have been compared with the original Greek of ancient scriptures from the earliest centuries AD, and have been found extremely accurate. Only minor translation errors have been made.

That's because those modern bibles were directly translated from the greek manuscripts available. There are some definate translation errors when you look at the translations the early catholic church was using. Besides which, that leaves out the question of the accuracy of the available greek manuscripts, but as I've said, wrong thread.

Well, I'm not positive how well discussing ancient Biblical texts and String Theory would fit into an "Evidence for Creationism" thread .

String theory I can fit in under answering a quesiton about the availability of infinity to empirical testing, as well as answering a tangental question about genisis.

I'm not sure how I'd try to twist in texts, and it's probably best I don't try to.

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

And science attempts to find out what is true about the universe.

No, it attempts to find out what is empirically verifiable about the universe.

Truth is a philosophical construct.

Of course truth has something to do with science! A scientist working for a cure for AIDS will try to find out the truth about how certain chemicals react with the AIDS virus.

Actually medicine is even less concerned about truth! It's more concerned with what is effective, and if it can be empirically verified.

Truth exists "out there" in the realm of the metaphysical. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but I keep running across so many people who mix and match their science and philosophy that I'm starting to think that we need more philosophy classes in the core curriculum...

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

What I hear from most evolutionists is, "hey, we can't scientifically test if some powerful being made things or not, so we will ASSUME that we got here thru mechanisms that do NOT depend upon a powerful being, and see if we can come up with mechanisms that might work." Well, the ones they came up with just don't satisfy me - they're too unlikely, and they are too unsupported by actual data - they're supported by extrapolations.

All I can say is, there's a lot more empirical data for that than creationism, which is one of the reasons why evolution is a scientific theory and creationism is not.

As long as people understand that, I don't really CARE what they choose to believe. As long as they understand that it's a philosophical choice and it has no place in scientific debate, then they are welcome to debate the philosophy of it all they want.

I shall be away engineering the destruction of the earth for a period of time. If I should fail, I suppose I will return after a week or so...

[Rían]

Oh, rats, you're online now, Blackheart! I was hoping I'd get to finish catching up!

I think I will close off tonight, anyway - long day. And I'll close with some thoughts I had while doing the dishes.

I was thinking about what you said:

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Or are you suggesting that there is a better model for how new species originate?

Then it hit me - the very question you're posing can be a philosophical one, depending upon how you define it. And science cannot answer philosophical questions, as you have stated, IIRC.

Before I continue, I'll take a quick rabbit trail, as befits my Entmoot title

I'm not interested in winning any debate. I'm not interested in debating at all, in and of itself. What I am interesting in is determining what is true, to the best of my abilities. And what you say, I actually, really think about and consider.

Now back to my thought.

See, if the question is finding a "model for how new species originate", and you're talking about things like how those new species of finch originated to such an extent that they couldn't interbreed with the base species, then THAT is a question that is within the realm of science. But ... if your question INCLUDES things like how new species originate, including how fish archetypes led to giraffes - THEN a philosophical aspect has been introduced into a scientific question, because an entirely unproven philosophical assumption has been made that fish archetypes DID lead to giraffes!

Do you see what I'm saying? The main problem I have with the TOE is that it mixes philosophy with science, and claims its all science, when it is NOT.

Would you please carefully think about this, and let me know your opinion? Thanks!

Goodnight

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

No, it attempts to find out what is empirically verifiable about the universe.

And if something is true, then it will be empirically verifiable.

Truth is a philosophical construct.

But that is not ALL it is

Actually medicine is even less concerned about truth! It's more concerned with what is effective, and if it can be empirically verified.

See above.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

I shall be away engineering the destruction of the earth for a period of time. If I should fail, I suppose I will return after a week or so...

Could you please address my post #1283 first? I'd like to hear your thoughts on it

Best wishes for an enjoyable time away from things, altho I hope you fail to destroy the earth

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Interesting note: while still a foetus, humans have gills. Why? We don't breathe inside the womb. Observations like this indicate that macro-evolution is a very sensible idea. But I know you're not saying it's not a sensible idea RÃ*an.

No, NO, NO!
Human fetuses do NOT have gills!!

You're talking about pharyngeal folds, and although they might superficially resemble gills, they are NOT gills, and have NOTHING to do with gills or the function of gills. In a reptile, mammal, or bird, they develop into other structures entirely, such as the inner ear! All these so-called "gill slits" are, are folds which appear in the neck region, and they have NOTHING to do with gills.

This false idea of human embryos having gills is just a leftover from the recapitulation theory, which was pretty much discarded in the 1920s.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

No, NO, NO!
Human fetuses do NOT have gills!!

You're talking about pharyngeal folds, and although they might superficially resemble gills, they are NOT gills, and have NOTHING to do with gills or the function of gills. In a reptile, mammal, or bird, they develop into other structures entirely, such as the inner ear! All these so-called "gill slits" are, are folds which appear in the neck region, and they have NOTHING to do with gills.

This false idea of human embryos having gills is just a leftover from the recapitulation theory, which was pretty much discarded in the 1920s.

I thought pharyngeal folds were gills. (Rather than subscribing to the recapitulation theory.)

How can we be sure they have nothing to do with gills though?

[Rían]

sorry, was a bit emphatic ...

No, they're not gills, and have no connection with gills at all. It's just one of those false ideas that are still hanging around, because it supported a popular idea at one point in time. Just like you see Haeckel's embryos (which were falsified) still hanging around...

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

sorry, was a bit emphatic ...

No, they're not gills, and have no connection with gills at all. It's just one of those false ideas that are still hanging around, because it supported a popular idea at one point in time. Just like you see Haeckel's embryos (which were falsified) still hanging around...

What's Haeckel's embryos?

I still think it's possible for pharyngeal folds and gills to have come from a similar source or something. On second though, I think I'll drop this argument.
I know squat.

[Rían]

In brief - Haeckel (1834-1919) was a guy who was most famous for doing some drawings of early vertebrate embryos. Darwin used these drawings to support some of his ideas (he mentioned Haeckel in "The Origin of Species"). Darwin thought, briefly, that the human embryo at a very early period could hardly be distinguished from other vertebrate embryos, and that this supported the idea of common descent.

Biologists have known for over a century that Haeckel faked his drawings to exaggerate the similarities and squash the dissimilarities, yet they're still in some textbooks, and people still refer to them. Further, the stage that Haeckel labeled "first" is actually midway thru development, and the embryos are even more dissimilar in the first stages.

As far as p. folds and gills - I imagine by now, there have been enough dissections performed, and enough embryos studied, to show that the folds are NOT gills and indeed turn into inner ears and other non-related parts. Certainly if there was evidence that the folds WERE gills, we would certainly hear about it very loudly! As it is, it remains one of those leftover ideas that just stubbornly hang around, like the peppered moth (a vastly flawed experiment) and the Galapagos finches (the beaks were pre-existing in the population, and the only thing that happened was that they became more prevalent - they didn't come about by beneficial mutation by any means. And after the drought, the beak types went back! The effects were NOT cumulative.)