Modern books that still use Haeckel’s embryo drawings

Aggie · #41 8th September 2009, 08:37 PM

Baggins, there was a detailed analysis of what’s inaccurate about Haeckel’s drawings (and Romanes’ reproductions of them) published in the journal Anatomy and Embryology in 1997. It’s available here, if you have access to it. If you don’t, there’s also an article here that summarizes the paper, including a set of photographs showing how actual embryos differ from these drawings. This paper’s authors explain this a lot better than I could.

I find it kind of strange that you’re demanding I support the assertion I’m making about this, considering how many other people have pointed this out already, including the joint statement about this from 44 universities when the drawings were still fairly new. Among both the creationists and supporters of evolution on this forum, you appear to be the only person who disagrees with me about this. But in any case, the Richardson paper is probably the best explanation.

Baggins · #42 9th September 2009, 05:55 AM

Originally Posted by Aggie

Baggins, there was a detailed analysis of what’s inaccurate about Haeckel’s drawings (and Romanes’ reproductions of them) published in the journal Anatomy and Embryology in 1997. It’s available here, if you have access to it. If you don’t, there’s also an article here that summarizes the paper, including a set of photographs showing how actual embryos differ from these drawings. This paper’s authors explain this a lot better than I could.

I find it kind of strange that you’re demanding I support the assertion I’m making about this, considering how many other people have pointed this out already, including the joint statement about this from 44 universities when the drawings were still fairly new. Among both the creationists and supporters of evolution on this forum, you appear to be the only person who disagrees with me about this. But in any case, the Richardson paper is probably the best explanation.

All I have to go on is Mayr's book and he uses the print to illustrate that embryos are more similar in their earlier developmental stages and all have 5 gill slits.

The print is adequate for that and what ever you used would have to be simplified to make a general point.

I don't disagree that Haeckel's embryos were altered to fit his thesis and are pretty much useless for making a specific embryological point, but they are fit for the purpose that Mayr used them for, and I imagine the other texts made preetty similar points, and they were used because they were easily available and free they weren't used as an attempt to deceive the reader .

As such I can't see a major problem using them to make the point being made beyond the controversy that surrounds them, and that will probably ensure that they are dropped, but as Frank showed with his analysis of 15 major biology texts from the last century most either do not use Haeckel at all or use Haeckel to specifically refute his thesis.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...re_of_haec.php

This is basically a much ado about nothing, if texts used Haeckel to make complex embryological points or if they used them to support recapitulation or if they were trying to make a point about a conserved stage in vertebrate embryology I would have a problem. I don't have a problem for them being used as part of a discussion about the refutation of Recapitulation or to make very simple points like all embryos looking more similar earlier in their development or having 5 gill slits. I'd rather they used different illustrations but understand the reasons they don't - cost, laziness, conservatism, inertia.

Aggie · #43 9th September 2009, 09:27 AM

Baggins, do you not understand the point I made in post #37? Whether or not the drawings support Mayr’s point isn’t the only thing that should determine whether it’s acceptable to use them. If you claim that a drawing depicts a particular thing, then it should actually depict that thing. If it doesn’t, you’re being misleading.

Originally Posted by Baggins

As such I can't see a major problem using them to make the point being made beyond the controversy that surrounds them, and that will probably ensure that they are dropped, but as Frank showed with his analysis of 15 major biology texts from the last century most either do not use Haeckel at all or use Haeckel to specifically refute his thesis.

Exorcising the spectre of Haeckel again : Pharyngula

You already linked to that post, and I pointed out how the Kenneth Miller article says the opposite of this.

I have a theory as to why Frank and Miller reached such different conclusions about this, and I think it’s probably right. It looks to me like the Frank analysis was only looking for Haeckel’s original drawings, with the black background and German labels, even though most of the biology books that Frank was looking at were in English. Miller, on the other hand, was also referring to the copies that had been made of Haeckel’s drawings (without correcting the inaccuracies), especially the Romanes copy, which seems to be the most common.

I don’t think it’s all that impressive for textbooks to not use the original inaccurate drawings, if they’re continuing to use copies of the drawings that preserve all of their inaccuracies. Especially if the reason they don’t use the original drawings is just because their labels are in the wrong language.

marktheblake · #44 9th September 2009, 09:36 AM

Originally Posted by Baggins

Where's the lie, the pictures have been altered to remove embellishments and are being used to illustrate either the wrongness of Haeckel's original thesis, or something different?

My apology. Its obviously not a lie when the theory it supports is true.

Originally Posted by atomweaver

Well, duh. Haeckel's scientific contemporaries took him to task for it. It's not even news that creationists can claim to have discovered.

Well, Duh - I wasnt the one who said it was a revelation.

Man, but you folk can carp on about the same old stuff ad nauseam, can't you?

I made one post in this thread, who is carping on then?

Just because Haeckel did something wrong, doesn't make creationism right.

Never said that at all, so why preach it. Just because Haeckel did something wrong, it doesn't make evolution wrong.

Originally Posted by Split Rock

Creationists have been saying all along that evolution is a lie. Where is the evidence for that??

Perhaps you could start a thread on that, this thread is about Haeckel.

atomweaver · #45 9th September 2009, 10:56 AM

Originally Posted by marktheblake

Well, Duh - I wasnt the one who said it was a revelation.

No. You were the one who pretended as if this was a point that a creationist originally raised; "creationists have been saying all along..." No, actually. They haven't. They've been mimicking a point raised contemporaneously against Haeckel by other scientists... Most creationists (yourself quite possibly excepted) lack an understanding of embryology sufficient to even understand what it is that they are mimicking...

Originally Posted by atomweaver

Man, but you folk can carp on about the same old stuff ad nauseam, can't you?

I made one post in this thread, who is carping on then?

Sorry if it wasn't clear, by you folk, I was referring to creationists in general. By carping on ad nauseam, I was referring to the creationist habit of perpetuating the Haeckel drawing non-issue. You were the recipient of this comment, because of your position as most recent contributor to a ~100 year long line of carpers. In that sense, one post is one too many

.

atomweaver · #46 9th September 2009, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by Baggins

All I have to go on is Mayr's book and he uses the print to illustrate that embryos are more similar in their earlier developmental stages and all have 5 gill slits.

The print is adequate for that and what ever you used would have to be simplified to make a general point.

I think I get what you're saying. The pictures are deceptive, if your point is to make a case for a consolidated early embryonic form (Haeckel).

If your points, instead, 1) to show that each individual embryo progresses from a more generalized structure to a more complex one (structure analysis within each species, comparing pictures in the vertical), and that 2) more closely related species will remain more similar in structure for longer periods of embryonic development (ie. the fish in the middle tier drawings is more similar to the salamander than it is the rabbit; comparison to discern similarities and differences between horizontal pictures is reserved for the lower and middle tiers), then the errors in the drawing don't encourage a bias in favor of the particular points being made.

Baggins · #47 9th September 2009, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by Aggie

Baggins, do you not understand the point I made in post #37? Whether or not the drawings support Mayr’s point isn’t the only thing that should determine whether it’s acceptable to use them. If you claim that a drawing depicts a particular thing, then it should actually depict that thing. If it doesn’t, you’re being misleading.

I can only comment on Mayr, but he doesn't use the print in a misleading way he uses it to comment that earlier in their development vertebrate embryos are more a like , which they are, that they all have 5 gill slits , which they do, and to refute Recapitulation.

I don't have a problem with using the modified Haeckel drawings to do that, I would agree that it would be better if they weren't used purely to stop threads like this, but I can't really see a problem using them, they were probably the only widely available and free pictures of embryos available to be used and they are adequate for the job he uses them for. Haeckel didn't make up his pictures wholesale he exaggerated some features in some embryos so support his hypothesis of Recapitulation, knowing that doesn't mean the print is unusable for any reason in my book.

Myers goes through the reasons he thinks the prints were used after this point and mostly is was in a discussion to refute Recapitulation and, less often, to make broad points abut embryology, as in Mayr, where the print was fit for purpose.

The problems of Haeckel's prints aren't large enough to invalidate them for making broad embryological points and are actually needed if the discussion is about the refutation of the recapitulation hypothesis.

I don’t think it’s all that impressive for textbooks to not use the original inaccurate drawings, if they’re continuing to use copies of the drawings that preserve all of their inaccuracies. Especially if the reason they don’t use the original drawings is just because their labels are in the wrong language.

I have no problem with them being used in a discussion about the falsification of Recapitulation to make a very broad embryological point, as Mayr does.

In those cases, which is every case I have seen so far, it is almost certainly cost and laziness that has lead to their retention, but their retention does not deceive. Haeckel made changes to make earlier embryos look more alike but that does not alter the fact that embryos are more alike, and Haeckel got the 5 gill slits correct anyway.

I have yet to see any evidence they have ever been used since Haeckel in an attempt to deceive. I would be unhappy to see these plates in a text about embryology except in relation to the refutation of recapitulation, but I doesn't bother me to see them in old general biology and evolution texts making general points. It appears that they were freely and cheaply available and so they were used in texts that started out in the 30s-50s and they were never replaced. I imagine they have almost all been replaced now, and in some books like Mayr, they probably never will be replaced as the original author is dead.

Baggins · #48 9th September 2009, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by marktheblake

My apology. Its obviously not a lie when the theory it supports is true.

.

I don't understand, you think Recapitulation is true?

I ask again where is the lie in the continued use of these prints? Scientists discovered the embellishments contemporaneously, they have never subsequently been used to make the point that Haeckel embellished them for they have been used to illustrate the refutation of Haeckel's thesis or to make very general embryological points that aren't compromised.

I really can't see where you are coming from, and I doubt you can either, you don't appear to have any understanding of what you are talking about.

marktheblake · #49 9th September 2009, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by atomweaver

No. You were the one who pretended as if this was a point that a creationist originally raised;

pretended nothing of the sort.

They've been mimicking a point raised contemporaneously against Haeckel by other scientists...

Well duh, everyone knows that, it happened within a few years of the drawings being published.

The 'revelation' the gentleman mentioned was that the drawings are still being used, not that the drawings were discredited.

Aggie · #50 9th September 2009, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by Baggins

I can only comment on Mayr, but he doesn't use the print in a misleading way he uses it to comment that earlier in their development vertebrate embryos are more a like , which they are, that they all have 5 gill slits , which they do, and to refute Recapitulation.

The misleading thing about the way Mayr uses this image is that he says it shows “Embryos of different vertebrates at three comparable stages in development.” The image does not show this. The “phylotype” stages in the embryos of these animals actually look like this:

I can’t understand why you don’t think there’s a problem with claiming an image shows something that it actually doesn’t, even if it happens to contain the same elements that you’re wanting to point out.

Suppose that in the book I’m writing about evolution, I were to include an image with a caption that says “This is a photograph of a fossil of Archaeopteryx”, and then points out some of its dinosaur-like features. But instead of a photograph of an actual fossil of this animal, the image with this caption is a photograph of a carving I’ve made that somewhat resembles a fossil of Archaeopteryx, but is not based on any of the existing fossils of this animal. And suppose that my carving includes several additional dinosaurian features that the actual fossils of Archaeopteryx don’t have, such as a dromaeosaurid-like stiffened tail. If that’s what my photograph is of, would it not be misleading for my caption to say “This is a photograph of a fossil of Archaeopteryx”, even if the only dinosaurian features that my caption specifically mentions are ones that exist in the real fossils?

If you agree doing that would be a problem, then you need to explain why it’s acceptable for Mayr to use Haeckel’s / Romanes’ drawings while claiming that they show “embryos of different vertebrates at three comparable stages in development.” There isn’t any significant difference between that, and the hypothetical example I described.

I’m not sure why I’m having so much trouble making this clear to you. Does anyone else here think they can explain it better? Based on their comments in this thread, I know that Split Rock, Thistlethorn, USincognito, Naraoia, and Plindboe all agree with me about this.