[Al Simmons]

I thought this was a fascinating piece of news. Have at it, folks!

[FormerACLUmember]

Developmental Biology 101.

[tallhappy]

Utter nonsense.

[Third Order]

you can call them reptiles, just don't dare call a fetus a baby.

[Caveman Lawyer]

Holy crap, this thread has all the elements, doesn't it?

[Williams]

Study finds??? I've known this since I was a kid, and I'm older than I want to admit. We really are getting dumbed down, aren't we?

[Paleo Conservative]

[prisoner6]

My wife claims I still have the feet and skin of a lizard.

And I DO tend to shed in the Spring.

prisoner6

[editor-surveyor]

This nonsense was exposed for the lie it is a long time ago. Recycled dog feces.

[tongue-tied]

Okay, I'm not even a big evolution guy, but this seems like stupid science to me. And here's why: If at two weeks/months/trimesters gestation human foot bones seem a certain way, and somehow relate to some ancient bird or lizard, who cares?

What did the ancient bird or lizard feet look like at two weeks/months/trimesters? And how, in any way, does that prove anything? If a preborn human somehow resembles a fossil of an adult, fully formed bird or reptile then whoopdeedoo and isn't that neat. But it surely means nothing. Or am I not being scientific here?

[muawiyah]

It's really not news.

In any case, if the bio-system was simply assembled in a factory (somewhere) using appropriate technology, you might well find the exact same process exhibited as a mammal's feet were grown.

It's the height of hubris to look at something like this and conclude that there are magical/mystical/butotherwise unmeasurable forces at work, lurking in the background, deciding that feet should/must develop in this manner.

The simplest solution is the design engineers at the "mammal feet" factory came up with this one because it was more economical, easier, superior to other methods, or they didn't wrap up the job as well as they thought they did.

[Junior]

Ping.

[Mamzelle]

LOL! I was taught this crap in junior high--"it looks like a gill, therefore we were fish."

[Cicero]

There were famous illustrations in all the school biology textbooks for many years, showing this kind of fetal development. Most of us probably used one of those textbooks when we were children. They have long been proven to be complete lies.

I would imagine this is yet another example of wishful thinking by some hapless Darwinist.

[4woodenboats]

....and after 63 days they look like a pair of fluffy bunny ears, and only 5 days later resemble band instruments, indicating that we have evolved from softness and niceness and had happy thoughts of music and sugarplums dancing in our heads

[Mikey_1962]

Red Meat...you are evil.

[Getready]

Ontogeny recapitulate phylogeny...this concept has been
pretty well ruled out, due to poor research and faked
drawing by Ernest Haeckel in the late 1800's or early
1900's...most embryology textbooks do not say that
"ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" anymore.
Interesting idea...if a developing human fetus(baby) was
fossilized, would the discoverer(s) think that they had found a half-fish, half human, or 1/4 fish, 1/4 reptile, 1/4
lower reptile, 1/4 human?
Another question would be, is this pattern seen in all
organisms?...for instance, does a bird go through
it's development looking like a reptile, or a dinosaur?
Does a horse look like a protohippus in development?
Does a fish go through a jellyfish embryological phase?

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

When I was a baby I looked like Winston Churchill.

I neither grew up to become Winston Churchill nor did I have any of his genes.

[sgtbono2002]

What BS. The appendages of a growing fetus prove nothing except the fact that babies toes and hands need to grow the fetus doesnt come fully formed from the egg stage.

Neither does a chicken. Crack a fertilised chicken egg and you dont see a rooster with its wattles.

Who thinks up this BS?

[js1138]

Those interested in the subject might try their hand at figuring out what species these are.

[Zeroisanumber]

This is something that Darwin himself noticed. It's one of the more interesting tidbits that I learned in Biology 101.