Is the vestigial organ argument a vestige of poor science

[whirlingmerc]

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.

The look the same... and by faith support evolution
but not a

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.

In the large, Carl Sagan used the argument to support Harkel and to justify abortion...
and in the big picture was wrong

"In fact, embryos of different kinds of animals are distinct from conception onwards, and modern research has confirmed this."
http://askjohnmackay.com/gill-slits-babies-have-gill-slits-before-birth-proof-evolution/

 

[ChristineM]

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

I am the queen of typos (dyslexia means i cant spot errors unless highlighted as a spelling error) but it makes no difference to my reply

 

[Audie]

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.


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

Exactly correct. Subzie is even worse than me, at doing that.

I'd love to see an agreement that when a person has laid an
egg, that nobody lets them start a new topic until they've
dealt with the previous one

Subs, ya got that??

 

[Audie]

I am the queen of typos (dyslexia means i cant spot errors unless highlighted as a spelling error) but it makes no difference to my reply

But it made all the diff in his, providing an excuse for a
dodge. Ya gonna let him get away with it?

 

[Subduction Zone]

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

His degree, perhaps. But he studied what was called "naturalism" in those days which included geology and biology. In the early days of the sciences specialization was not developed anywhere near the degree that they are today. He never worked outside of his field of expertise. The person that you referred to was working outside his area of expertise and no one takes him seriously since he cannot support his claims. Since the mid 20th century the standard for scientific work is publishing in well respected professional peer reviewed journals. Those publications are not guaranteed not to be wrong, but those that avoid peer review almost always are wrong. They are a time saver for the sciences since they separate out the absolute garbage from potentially correct new ideas. Where is Witt's peer reviewed work that supports his claim? Not false creationist journals where one has to swear not to use the scientific method, but real journals.

 

[ChristineM]

The look the same... and by faith support evolution
but not a



In the large, Carl Sagan used the argument to support Harkel and to justify abortion...
and in the big picture was wrong

"In fact, embryos of different kinds of animals are distinct from conception onwards, and modern research has confirmed this."
http://askjohnmackay.com/gill-slits-babies-have-gill-slits-before-birth-proof-evolution/

The god magic guy? Wow

Here is a university take on the subject

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evodevo_02

 

[ChristineM]

The look the same... and by faith support evolution
but not a



In the large, Carl Sagan used the argument to support Harkel and to justify abortion...
and in the big picture was wrong

"In fact, embryos of different kinds of animals are distinct from conception onwards, and modern research has confirmed this."
http://askjohnmackay.com/gill-slits-babies-have-gill-slits-before-birth-proof-evolution/

The god magic guy? Wow

Here is a university take on the subject

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evodevo_02

 

[Subduction Zone]

The look the same... and by faith support evolution
but not a

No, faith is your weakness. Why do you keep assuming that others have your weakness? The internal structure follow an almost identical path of development to a point. You should have read the link that I provided. It went into more detail for you.

In the large, Carl Sagan used the argument to support Harkel and to justify abortion...
and in the big picture was wrong

"In fact, embryos of different kinds of animals are distinct from conception onwards, and modern research has confirmed this."
http://askjohnmackay.com/gill-slits-babies-have-gill-slits-before-birth-proof-evolution/

Where did Sagan ever do that? Or are you just breaking the Ninth Commandment again. Please find a reliable website, not a lying creationist one, that can support your claim. And John Mackay? Are you kidding me?

 

[Revoltingest]

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

Darwin seemed to have no problem with his Bible learn'n.

 

[ChristineM]

But it made all the diff in his, providing an excuse for a
dodge. Ya gonna let him get away with it?

If he wants to delusion himself that up to him

 

[whirlingmerc]

Darwin seemed to have no problem with his Bible learn'n.

Darwin rejected the Bible of his mother's Christian faith in favor of his father's family who interesting ly enough believed in a form of acoustic evolution and animal transmigration of the souls with gramps family name plaque saying 'everything from seashells"
Darwin also had no problem asking for live aborigines to be captured live and brought to England for taxidermy.... but that is not an elevation of life... he also looked down on other ethnic groups than the British, the Irish, Africans and Asians in particular

As far as the sad Haekel drawings... the gil slits Carl Sagan clung to in support of abortion never made either case. In both vases Carl and Charles, human life values too low.

"
If the opening were really part of a gill, if it really were a “throwback to the fish stage,” then there would be blood vessels all around it, as if it were going to absorb oxygen from water as a gill does. But there is no such structure. We simply don’t have the DNA instructions for forming gills. The throat (or pharyngeal) grooves and pouches, falsely called “gill slit,” are not mistakes in human development. They develop into absolutely essential parts of human anatomy—the lower jaw, tongue, thymus gland, the parathyroid, etc. The middle ear canals come from the second pouches, and the parathyroid and thymus glands come from the third and fourth.

Without a thymus, we would lose half our immune systems. Without the parathyroids, we would be unable to regulate calcium balance and could not even survive. Another pouch, thought to be vestigial by evolutionists until just recently, becomes a gland that assists in calcium balance. Far from being useless evolutionary vestiges, then, these so-called “gill slits” are quite essential for distinctively human development."
https://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Evolutionary-Myths-20130103

 

[ChristineM]

Darwin rejected the Bible of his mother's Christian faith in favor of his father's family who interesting ly enough believed in a form of acoustic evolution and animal transmigration of the souls with gramps family name plaque saying 'everything from seashells"
Darwin also had no problem asking for live aborigines to be captured live and brought to England for taxidermy.... but that is not an elevation of life... he also looked down on other ethnic groups than the British, the Irish, Africans and Asians in particular

As far as the sad Haekel drawings... the gil slits Carl Sagan clung to in support of abortion never made either case

"
If the opening were really part of a gill, if it really were a “throwback to the fish stage,” then there would be blood vessels all around it, as if it were going to absorb oxygen from water as a gill does. But there is no such structure. We simply don’t have the DNA instructions for forming gills. The throat (or pharyngeal) grooves and pouches, falsely called “gill slit,” are not mistakes in human development. They develop into absolutely essential parts of human anatomy—the lower jaw, tongue, thymus gland, the parathyroid, etc. The middle ear canals come from the second pouches, and the parathyroid and thymus glands come from the third and fourth.

Without a thymus, we would lose half our immune systems. Without the parathyroids, we would be unable to regulate calcium balance and could not even survive. Another pouch, thought to be vestigial by evolutionists until just recently, becomes a gland that assists in calcium balance. Far from being useless evolutionary vestiges, then, these so-called “gill slits” are quite essential for distinctively human development."
https://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Evolutionary-Myths-20130103

You seem to forget that even christians were not very enlightened 150 years ago. Most slave owners were christian.

You also seem to be hung up on conjecture, ifs and buts regarding biology yet you have no expertise in biology to be making these claims. Remember rule 4

 

[Jose Fly]

Exactly correct. Subzie is even worse than me, at doing that.

I'd love to see an agreement that when a person has laid an
egg, that nobody lets them start a new topic until they've
dealt with the previous one

Subs, ya got that??

Looks like the answer is "no".

So basically we have someone who is both here all the time and has a compulsion to be the first to respond to every single point. For someone like me who drops in (at most) a few times a day, that means I will rarely, if ever, be able to have an actual debate or discussion here. If I leave for a bit, by the time I return SD has jumped in, posted a dozen or more times to the person I was interacting with, and taken the thread 10 different directions. So when I try and pick up where I left off it just gets ignored.

Given that, I'll probably just go back to lurking once or twice a week until things change.

 

[nPeace]

My apologies.

No problem.
I will interpret it for you though, because I understand that the simplest of statements can be mistaken - sort of like how some read a text in the Bible, and you wonder, 'How did they arrive at that?'

Besides, I want you to understand.
Just give me a few moments to get a few things done, and I will be right back with you.

 

[Audie]

Looks like the answer is "no".

So basically we have someone who is both here all the time and has a compulsion to be the first to respond to every single point. For someone like me who drops in (at most) a few times a day, that means I will rarely, if ever, be able to have an actual debate or discussion here. If I leave for a bit, by the time I return SD has jumped in, posted a dozen or more times to the person I was interacting with, and taken the thread 10 different directions. So when I try and pick up where I left off it just gets ignored.

Given that, I'll probably just go back to lurking once or twice a week until things change.

As in. SUBZIE LIGHTEN FREAKIN' UP ALREADY!!!

 

[Jose Fly]

No problem.
I will interpret it for you though, because I understand that the simplest of statements can be mistaken - sort of like how some read a text in the Bible, and you wonder, 'How did they arrive at that?'

Besides, I want you to understand.
Just give me a few moments to get a few things done, and I will be right back with you.

Do you mean interpret the article about satellite regions in centromeres? If so, no need. I understand the material.

 

[Jose Fly]

As in. SUBZIE LIGHTEN FREAKIN' UP ALREADY!!!

Well, maybe not "lighten up"....more like "settle down dude!"

 

[nPeace]

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

Well, I'm only human.

 

[nPeace]

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)"

Yeah, I noticed that too late - Hey. Everyone makes mistakes.
Stay tune for the evidence of a creator.

 

[nPeace]

Do you mean interpret the article about satellite regions in centromeres? If so, no need. I understand the material.

No, I mean interpret what I said about inferring.