Faked embryos are back at PBS December 29 2009

Just when we had hoped we had rid them from textbooks, they show up on PBS’s latest evolution wind chorus.

Well, that’s what embryologist Jon Wells says here.

In the nineteenth century, a German embryologist named Ernst Haeckel attempted to show that vertebrate embryos are very similar in origin, but they diverge later. That would support a simple thesis of common descent - the kind of simple thesis he was looking for.

Actually, it doesn’t happen that way. Embryos start out different, appear similar midway through development, and then diverge again. Embryologists call this the “hourglass” of development.

That doesn’t mean that common descent is not true; it means that textbook portrayals based on apparent fakes or other conveniently chosen examples are not a good teaching tool.

Wells writes about it here, with links:

PBS: Pushing Bad Science

On the website for its December 29 special, PBS offers an interactive “Guess the Embryo” exercise featuring four different vertebrate embryos: an 8 day-old mouse, a 5 day-old quail, a 17 day-old turtle, and a 40 day-old bat. The purpose of the exercise is to convince viewers that “embryos of different species can appear startlingly similar to one another.” A discerning viewer, however, will notice that the turtle embryo already has a rudimentary shell on its back—thus distinguishing it clearly from the others. A discerning viewer might also notice that the bat embryo bears little resemblance to the mouse embryo, even though both are mammals.

What viewers may not know—and PBS does not tell them—is that the interactive exercise shows embryos midway through development. The earliest stages are systematically omitted. Perhaps this is because in their earliest stages vertebrate embryos are striking different from each other. They follow a pattern that embryologists call the “developmental hourglass”—wide at the top, narrow in the middle, and wide at the bottom. In other words, vertebrate embryos start out very different from each other, become superficially similar midway through development, then diverge again as they mature. Like Darwin’s German disciple Ernst Haeckel, PBS distorts vertebrate development to make it seem to provide evidence for Darwin’s theory.

The American people deserve better from their “Public” Broadcasting System. (links on site)

Hmmm. Do the American people deserve better? Won’t vast numbers of Americans go on paying for the Darwin drama rather than acquaint themselves with basic facts?

After all, the Darwin drama is really wasted on how that turtle gets his shell. The money point is the ka-chink of “why you cheatie on your sweetie” or “why women do [or alternatively don’t] murder their kids.” Or murder anyone else who didn’t see it coming or couldn’t flee anyway?

Ah, Darwinism! There is nothing it can’t explain - and nothing it does explain. Except - where a bunch of your tax money goes and why some good people’s careers got wrecked.

Denyse O'Leary is co-author of The Spiritual Brain.