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Posts: 267
Joined: Feb. 2006
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| Quote (Paul Nelson @ Mar. 07 2008,12:45) | | Donald Prothero just re-published the Romanes 1910 figure, based on Haeckel, although he attributes the material to von Baer; he also supports the validity of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny. So use of the drawings persists. |
As it happens, I have a copy of Prothero's book. Does he really "support the validity of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny?"
Let's see here.......(flips through book)
Starting at the bottom of page 109, after explaining what the phrase means; i.e. embryonic development repeats evolutionary history:
"To the limited extent that von Baer had shown 40 years earlier, this is true. But embryos also have many unique features (yolk sac, allantois, amniotic membranes, umbilical cords) that have nothing to do with the evolutionary past and are adaptations to their developing environment. Thus it is dangerous to overextend the evolutionary implications of the stages in an embryo, but they are useful guides nonetheless."
Sounds bang on to me.
then on page 110, bringing up matters near and dear to us all:
"Creationists, such as Jonathan Wells (2000), in their eternal effort to mislead the uninitiated and miss the forest for the trees, will crow about how the biogenetic law has been discredited. But Haeckel's overenthusiasm does not negate the careful embryological work of von Baer that shows that many features of our past evolutionary stages are preserved in our embryos. Wells, in particular, nags about how some of Haeckel's original diagrams had errors and oversimplifications, but this does not change the overall fact that the sequence of all vertebrate embryos show the same patterns in the early stages, and all of them go through a 'fish-like' stage with pharyngeal pouches (which become the gill slits in fishes and amphibians) and a long fish-like tail, then some develop into fishes and amphibians and others lose these features and develop into reptiles, birds, and mammals. Wells' deceptive approach is nicely debunked by Gishlick (www.ncseweb.org/icons/icon4haeckel.html).
If you had any doubts that you once had ancestors with fish-like gills and a tail, Figure 4-11 shows what you looked like five weeks after fertilization. Why did you have pharyngeal pouches (predecessors of gills) and a tail if you had not descended from ancestors with those features?"
And then Prothero shows a picture - no doubt PhotoShopped - of an actual human embryo showing just those features described.
Sounds to me like Prothero carefully put everything into context.
Note: Any errors/typos be the fault of my own self.
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