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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (183949)	3/23/2006 11:55:11 AM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

You still think Haeckel was not a fraud? His embryo drawings were faked. This is well-known. I clearly stated that Haeckel allowed bias into his drawings. He correctly noticed something very startling about embryos, that very early on, they look similar across widely different species, and gradually they come to look like their own species. He incorrectly framed this in a philosophical mold that the embryos were going through the Adult appearance of their common ancestry. That is, first they looked like fish, later some proto mammal, later monkeys with tails, finally human. His drawings are as you say "fudged", but they are not incorrect in main. Haeckel was very correct to note that there was something important evolutionary in this relationship. If he had not allowed himself to be blinded by his notion of adult stages, he might even have gotten to the understanding we have now, although modern genetics was required before it really was understood. The reason those stages are similar is that the development is controlled by a sequence of very basic and very ancient genes common with the different ancestors. So a human and fish embryo look very similar at a certain stage, because the same basic genes that both share are controlling that stage of development. As things progress, genes which are more specific to the evolutionary history of each species cause the differentiation which results finally in a species specific embryo. Thats the modern field of evo-devo, and Haeckel is an important early contributor. It took over a century for this known fraud to get fixed in biology textbooks. It still has not been fixed, because very few point out what really is going on, and why Haeckel was both correct and incorrect. It is an excellent example of both good and bad science, and the pitfalls which anyone has when he finds what he thinks he is looking for. To me it is one of the best examples of why philosophy is not useful in science, since it often leads one astray. Actually I agree. Biochemistry is defendable unlike the speculative reasoning Darwin, Dawkins, and other evolutionary scientists engage in. You really confuse me. All Darwin did, was arrive at the correct answer while knowing nothing of the most powerful evidence for it, genetics. That was his brilliance. Today, its not a matter of brilliance to accept common descent. The evidence is overwhelming. Dawkins and the rest are just being rational. You keep stating that you accept common descent but like ID. Whats the point of ID if you accept common descent? There is none. Why do you keep bashing evolutionists? You are one. At least some of the time. I will be happy to see what science ultimately finds out about the Cambrian explosion. There is no doubt that the Cambrian was very significant, but the timescale was not so terribly short (on the order of the end of the dyno's to now) and newer findings continue to push the start bodied fossils further back in time. Since you accept common descent, whats the problem? Ah yes, the straw man. No straw man. You write as if you think religion and science should be kept separate but you're only opposed to one side keeping them separate. I commented before about philosophy in the classroom. In general, at the college level I think a lot of freedom is needed. At the high school level teachers should teach the basics, not philosophy. That is one of the problems with ID and creationism in the USA. They want to teach it in grade school and high school. Those kids need basic facts, not philosophical ramblings. The ID crowd has one goal only: discredit evolution enough, so those young minds can find a refuge in their religious views from the reality of science. Thats what it all comes down to. The ID people are opposed to philosophical materialism and are trying to promote ID I provided a link before on that. What ID wants is supernatural explanations in science. Thats the antithesis of science. Your body has an immune system which produces antibodies and the production of antibodies isn't an example of evolution. Which it does by evolving them and selecting the best ones for further evolving. It does not "intelligently design" them. Its a classic "natural selection" process at work. If you find such a system at work in your own body, the idea that your entire organism might be subject to a similar process in its environment might occur to anyone half awake. Not sure why anyone would think that - especially as you agreed with "People who believe God created the universe can explore it just as well as those opposed to the idea of a god." Many people who believe in God, still follow scientific methods when doing science. I know many of them. You do realize that philosophical materialism is by definition atheist, don't you? As the link I provided before shows, it was developed by Christians who thought that Gods Universe should be explained by laws, not miracles. So, no, you are incorrect. Not according to the professors who teach it in the best universities and write books about it. Ask the Pope if you don't believe me! Yes, most people don't realize the implications of evolution. They think it can be directed or guided. But the evolution the real authorities on evolution teach is not consistent with a belief in God. This is glossed over: OK, if I understand you: 1) You acknowledge that common descent is evolution 2) You claim to accept common descent 3) You claim that evolution implies atheism 4) You are therefore an atheist? I'm missing something!