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To: Leonine; cyborg
Don't forget to mention the the original "comparative embryology" frauds published by Ernst Haekel, which were expose as such back in the late 19th century.
33 posted on 12/03/2003 6:21:03 PM PST by Agamemnon
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To: Agamemnon
Now why would anyone perpetrate a scientific fraud?
A) The perpetrator has overwhelming faith in a pet theory and feels an urgency to proselytize by deception.
B) The perpetrator is incompetent and desires peer respect.
C) The perpetrator is not a scientist and finds pleasure in hoodwinking those who take themselves too seriously.
D) The perpetrator is afraid of Pascal's wager.
E) All of the above!
34 posted on 12/03/2003 6:35:03 PM PST by Leonine
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To: Agamemnon
Don't forget to mention the the original "comparative embryology" frauds published by Ernst Haekel, which were expose as such back in the late 19th century.

You are invited to explain how you think you have determined that Haeckel's hand-drawn drawings were actual "frauds" as opposed to careless errors due to various sorts of 19th-century shortcomings (technological, funding, standards, etc.)

Around the same time as Haeckel, respected astronomers Schiaparelli (in Italy) and Percival Lowell (in the US) both made sketches of Mars based on their telescope observations and in good faith drew maps of the "canals" that they had seen. Unfortunately, they were tricks of the eye resulting from trying to glean too much detail from fuzzy images of a distant planet, and never actually existed on Mars itself. The maps of Mars's "canals" were wrong, but they weren't frauds or hoaxes.

Schiaparelli's map:

Despite this embarrassing (and famous) error, Lowell achieved real accomplishments by building the historic Lowell observatory, and accurately predicting the existence of the planet Pluto via mathematical analysis of variations in Uranus's orbit, twenty years before Pluto's eventual discovery.

What evidence do you have for your claim that Haeckel's oversimplifications of embyonic anatomy were actual frauds instead of honest mistakes like Schiaparelli's and Lowell's?

In any case, while embryonic development has more subtleties than Haeckel appreciated in the 19th century, contrary to many creationist claims, his points were not all wrong either. While embyronic development across vertebrate families varies more than Haeckel claimed, his insights about the their striking similarities and parallel structures are still valid today.

112 posted on 12/04/2003 1:07:48 AM PST by Ichneumon
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