Dismembering Evolution 4: Embryonic Proof

The time has come to leave the realm of theory and speculation for awhile and dig into the so-called “proof” that evolution is true. I have asserted all along that much of the “proof” of evolution is simply wrong for one reason or another. I shall start pointing them out.

Perhaps the most familiar proof of evolution lies in the realm of embryology. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, embryology is the study of embryos. Evolution does, and has always maintained that proof of common ancestry in all vertebrates is found in the very earliest stages of development. The original claim, and the claim that is still most commonly found in school textbooks is that if you compare any two vertebrate embryos at the earliest stages of development they will be very similar and grow steadily less similar as they develop. This sounds fine and well, but is it true?

To look at the drawings we are all familiar with, a drawn picture known a Haeckel’s Embryos, this assertion seem to be true. But is it?

No. Haeckel’s Embryos are pure scientific fraud.

Allow me explain.

First and foremost it must be noted that the so-called first stage of development as it is presented in this drawing is, in fact, NOT the first stage of development for any of the creatures represented in the drawing. The first stage, obviously, is the fertilized egg, which typically bears a relatively strong resemblance among all species since it is merely a different sized egg combined with a single sperm. However, once the fertilized eggs begin to develop they immediately diverge in appearance. The first phase is called cleavage. Comparing the five classes of vertebrates that Haeckel used (There are seven classes of vertebrates, but the last two, jawless fish and cartilaginous fish were so divergent in embryonic development that he did not include them in his drawings.) there is almost no resemblance between them at this stage. The same is true at the end of cleavage when the appearance of the embryos is even more divergent, and also at the stage Gastrulation when even an amateur embryologist can see that the embryos are not from similar species at all. Only after all of this do we get to what Haeckel called “the first stage of development”.

But surely, they embryos must resemble each other at this stage, right? Wrong!

Haeckel faked his drawings. He exaggerated similarities and minimized differences between the embryos to create “proof” that embryology supported Darwin’s theory of evolution when, in fact, the opposite is true. A comparison of Haeckel’s drawings to photographs taken of these creatures at this stage of development shows that while there are some minor similarities, there a re enormous differences as well that cause none of the embryos to resemble each other very strongly at all. Consider the ribbed tadpole appearance presented in the famous drawings that supposedly represents every animal depicted. Now picture the following: A fish at this stage of development looks like an earthworm wrapped around a giant egg yolk. A frog at this stage looks like a butterfly pupae. A reptile actually does resemble a tadpole if you stretch your imagination enough. A bird most closely resembles . . . well, for lack of a good comparison in real life I am forced to resort to Hollywood, it looks like the embryonic form of the creature in the movie “Alien” more than anything else I can think of. A human embryo at this stage looks like . . . well, I really can’t think of any good comparisons. To see a fine comparison of these differences reference figures 5-1 p 83, 5-2 p93, and 5-3 p 95 of Icons of evolution.

This brings up another point. We have actual photographs of embryonic development, nice new ones in full color or grayscale, whatever floats your boat. Why are we using 130 year-old drawings in the first place? Oh yeah, because the photos will not match the text of any textbook claiming that embryos of the different classes of vertebrates bear a strong resemblance to each other.

Surely this is not right. Surely this is just an oversight on the part of the textbook writers, right? Wrong again!

While some textbook writers really are unaware of the developments in embryology, after all, nobody can be expected to know EVERYTHING in any given field of study, there is just too much information, others have willfully, have knowingly misrepresented the facts. Take renowned biologist and renowned Darwinist/evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould for example, the man who is famous for his bulldoggish defense of evolution in the face of theological ignorance. (Sarcasm here folks) He knew since at least 1977 that “Haeckel had exaggerated the similarities by idealizations and omissions. He also, in some cases – in a procedure that can only be called fraudulent - simply copied the same figure over and over again.” Natural History Magazine, March 2000. Well, that is refreshing honesty from someone in the academic community. Furthermore, he has acknowledged that the scientific community has known about this fraud for over 100 years, and has allowed it to continue, himself among them.

Yes, you read that right. Scientists have known about this fraud from the very beginning. Haeckel was a known huckster in the scientific community, and accusations of fraud plagued his career, not just in embryology, but many other aspects of biology as well. Yet, for some reason this shyster’s drawings are still used to “prove” evolutionary theory to this day.

100 years folks. Not quite the amount of time Ptolemy’s calculations and drawings of the geocentric universe were accepted as the truth, but long enough to be corrected if conscientious scientists cared to conduct honest science and advance real research. This is especially true when you consider that we have made more scientific advances in the last 100 years than in the previous 10,000 combined. Indeed, this massive scientific cover-up has set the field of embryology back almost 100 years. And people say evolution is a necessary foundational theory of science. In embryology, at least, it has been a setback, not a benefit.

Thre IS good news for Darwinists. The array of species on this planet is so vast that if you cherry pick enough you can produce a set of 5 embryos, one from each of the vertebrate classes represented in the original drawings Haeckel conjured up, that do bear a strong enough resemblance to each other that you can use them to try to prove that embryology supports evolution. All you have to do is ignore every other species on the face of the planet and the first four stages of development on you will be golden.

I have been harping a bit on the subject of EARLIEST stages of development in this article, and there is a reason for it. A part of Darwin’s theory of evolution that has not seen much if any change is the following: He claimed that all vertebrate embryos resemble each other most closely at the earliest stages of development. The fact is that they are wildly divergent at the earliest stages of development, grow to some slight, though not very good resemblance, and then diverge again. Once again, the theory of evolution is just plain wrong.