Re: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance

Funny that you ask, from a ID/creationist perspective, one would never
learn about the 'rest of the story'.

For instance: Photographs of moths resting on tree trunks were used to
show relative camouflage however, there are now much better
photographs and should be used. However there is nothing wrong for
pedagogical purposes to stage photographs.

The peppered Moth indeed shows support for evolutionary change via
selection. As such the story, which so many creationist sites are
trying play down, based on Wells' 'writings', still stands strongly

The Miller Urey experiments also stand quite well by themselves. And
recent research is expanding on the likely origins of life scenarios

See: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/09/whats_that_soun.html

As Gishlick remarks

<quote>…Wells's claim that researchers are ignoring the new
atmospheric data, and that experiments like the Miller–Urey experiment
fail when the atmospheric composition reflects current theories, is
simply false. The current literature shows that scientists working on
the origin and early evolution of life are well aware of the current
theories of the earth's early atmosphere and have found that the
revisions have little effect on the results of various experiments in
biochemical synthesis. Despite Wells's claims to the contrary, new
experiments since the Miller–Urey ones have achieved similar results
using various corrected atmospheric compositions …Even if Wells had
been correct about the Miller–Urey experiment, he does not explain
that our theories about the origin of organic "building blocks" do not
depend on that experiment alone…. In fact, what is most striking about
Wells's extensive reference list is the literature that he has left
out. Wells also fails to cite the scientific literature on other
terrestrial conditions under which organic compounds could have
formed….</quote>

and

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/04/primordial_soup.html

<quote>Bada discovered that the reactions were producing chemicals
called nitrites, which destroy amino acids as quickly as they form.
They were also turning the water acidic—which prevents amino acids
from forming. Yet primitive Earth would have contained iron and
carbonate minerals that neutralized nitrites and acids. So Bada added
chemicals to the experiment to duplicate these functions. When he
reran it, he still got the same watery liquid as Miller did in 1983,
but this time it was chock-full of amino acids. Bada presented his
results this week at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in
Chicago.</quote>

Haeckel's 'falsifications' of the embryo pictures is totally overblown by Wells.

See for instance
http://blog.case.edu/singham/2007/08/09/petitions_and_politics_in_science

or
The Road from Haeckel: The Jena Tradition in Evolutionary Morphology
and the Origins of "Evo-Devo", Biology and Philosophy, Volume 18,
Number 2 / March, 2003

<quote>Haeckel made these drawings to illustrate his. ideas, and they
are not drawn directly from observations of embryos, but. idealised
for pedagogical clarity. </quote>

and finally

Haeckel, Behe, Wells & the Ontogeny of a Fraud
http://darwin.bc.asu.edu/pub/pickett.pdf

There is just too much information out there that seems to have been
ignored or misinterpreted about these 'icons' and many creationists
can now be observed repeating wells' assertions as if they were
scientific fact.

My question to you is: Are such inflated claims about science
permissible as an 'end justifies the means'?

On 9/3/07, Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu> wrote:

> BTW, have the photographs of moths resting on tree trunks still being used in textbooks
> to indicate evolutionary changes? How about the Haeckelian embryo falsifications and the
> Miller-Urey experiments? Or, are these topics presented now in a different light?

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Received on Mon Sep 3 14:11:02 2007