Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jayjay · 05-09-2003, 09:25 PM

I remember once reading an "anti-tract" based on Big Daddy that used the original artwork (at least partially), but fixed it so that instead of being stumped by the creationist student the professor calmly countered his misconceptions on evolution. However, I can't find it anymore. Anyone got a link?

NonHomogenized · 05-09-2003, 10:40 PM

well, I know of Kent Hovind is a Big Phony

Jayjay · 05-09-2003, 10:46 PM

Found it: "Who's Your Daddy?" It's even better than I thought.

Lobstrosity · 05-10-2003, 12:21 AM

Heh, that's pretty funny stuff.

Nic Tamzek · 05-10-2003, 03:03 AM

Hee hee, the asterisks refer to talkorigins links and science books.

This tile is kinda screwed up though:

Haeckel was not completely wrong, and his embryo drawings have been used in textbooks (although not a majority, if Wells' sample of 10 is a guide) into recent times.

Probably they will be more-or-less banished now to due press about Richardson's articles critiquing Haeckel, plus the hype of Wells and other creos. But Richardson's most recent article actually defends Haeckel somewhat, no doubt in an attempt to balance out the "Haeckel's drawings are worthless" oversimplification which many (including myself) were lead towards by the initial bandwagon.

Quote:

Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2002 Nov;77(4):495-528

Haeckel's ABC of evolution and development.

Richardson MK, Keuck G.

Section of Integrative Zoology, Institute of Evolutionary and Ecological Sciences, University of Leiden, The Netherlands. richardson@rulsfb.leidenuniv.nl

One of the central, unresolved controversies in biology concerns the distribution of primitive versus advanced characters at different stages of vertebrate development. This controversy has major implications for evolutionary developmental biology and phylogenetics. Ernst Haeckel addressed the issue with his Biogenetic Law, and his embryo drawings functioned as supporting data. We re-examine Haeckel's work and its significance for modern efforts to develop a rigorous comparative framework for developmental studies. Haeckel's comparative embryology was evolutionary but non-quantitative. It was based on developmental sequences, and treated heterochrony as a sequence change. It is not always clear whether he believed in recapitulation of single characters or entire stages. The Biogenetic Law is supported by several recent studies -- if applied to single characters only. Haeckel's important but overlooked alphabetical analogy of evolution and development is an advance on von Baer. Haeckel recognized the evolutionary diversity in early embryonic stages, in line with modern thinking. He did not necessarily advocate the strict form of recapitulation and terminal addition commonly attributed to him. Haeckel's much-criticized embryo drawings are important as phylogenetic hypotheses, teaching aids, and evidence for evolution. While some criticisms of the drawings are legitimate, others are more tendentious. In opposition to Haeckel and his embryo drawings, Wilhelm His made major advances towards developing a quantitative comparative embryology based on morphometrics. Unfortunately His's work in this area is largely forgotten. Despite his obvious flaws, Haeckel can be seen as the father of a sequence-based phylogenetic embryology.

Richardson is the authority on these matters, I think perhaps he was a bit taken aback by the reaction to his previous critiques of Haeckel...

Valentine Pontifex · 05-10-2003, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by NonHomogenized
well, I know of Kent Hovind is a Big Phony

This one has a rather embarrassing error on this panel.

The Hipparcos satellite did not measure anything 500 million light years distant. Indeed all of its parallax measurements are from objects under 500 light years.

After some searching I found a reference that will support what I just said here.

NonHomogenized · 05-10-2003, 05:27 PM

Yeah, that's a pretty glaring error, now that you point it out. If I had a means to contact the author, I'd send him a note. Ah well. Even the correct figure destroys Hovind's claim that trigonometric parallax only works to 20 light-years.

Lobstrosity · 05-10-2003, 05:37 PM

Well, off to the left there's an "Interactive Menu." At the bottom there's a link Contact Us, though that would probably put you in touch with the site admin rather than the author--perhaps the site admin knows how to reach this guy? The panel is incorrect on two fronts. Not only does it give distance measurements off by six orders of magnitude, but it also says that Hipparcos looked for Cepheid variable stars when it really used trigonometric parallax.

Valentine Pontifex · 05-10-2003, 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lobstrosity
Well, off to the left there's an "Interactive Menu." At the bottom there's a link Contact Us, though that would probably put you in touch with the site admin rather than the author--perhaps the site admin knows how to reach this guy? The panel is incorrect on two fronts. Not only does it give distance measurements off by six orders of magnitude, but it also says that Hipparcos looked for Cepheid variable stars when it really used trigonometric parallax.

This is what really what happened. A long time ago, someone observed a one of the Magellanic Clouds: a small irregular galaxy orbiting our own. The person noticed a relationship between the period of the Cepheid variables and the apparent brightness of them. Now consider someone in San Diego. How far is he from the Washington Monument? How far is he from the Lincoln Memorial? From the U.S. Capitol building? From the Air and Space Museum? Without getting a map of some sort I can't give exact figures, but I can say one things: the distances to all these things is pretty much the same. By the same reasoning, all the Cepheid variable in that Magellanic clould are the same distance to Earth (at least to a first approximation). So we can conclude that the observed relationship is based an a relationship between the the actual brightness of the Cepheids and their period. This suggests that if one could figure out the distance to a Cepheid one then will know the distance to all the others once can see. (It did get more complicated when it was realized there are at least two types of them...)

Hipparcos was able to greatly improve the estimates to the distance to some Cepheids. This allowed the Cepheid variables to be used to measure distances to any Galaxy which telescopes can make them out.

And the page makes another mistake. The farthest out an Cepheid Variable has been observed is about 100 million light years. Any distances beyond that are figured out via yet more methods which I believe are calibrated via Cepheid data.

Valentine Pontifex · 05-10-2003, 07:12 PM

It might be a good idea for people not to reproduce people email addresses. Lets spare people needless spam. And some sites exclude robots and watch from them like ArXiv which for physics papers. There are also several ways to obscure email address from robots that allow functional email links.

05-09-2003, 09:25 PM	#1
Jayjay Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Finland Posts: 6,261	Jack Chick's "Big Daddy" rebuttal tract I remember once reading an "anti-tract" based on Big Daddy that used the original artwork (at least partially), but fixed it so that instead of being stumped by the creationist student the professor calmly countered his misconceptions on evolution. However, I can't find it anymore. Anyone got a link?

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05-09-2003, 10:40 PM	#2
NonHomogenized Veteran Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: no longer at IIDB Posts: 1,644	well, I know of Kent Hovind is a Big Phony

05-09-2003, 10:46 PM	#3
Jayjay Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Finland Posts: 6,261	Found it: "Who's Your Daddy?" It's even better than I thought.

05-10-2003, 12:21 AM	#4
Lobstrosity Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: San Diego, California Posts: 719	Heh, that's pretty funny stuff.

05-10-2003, 05:27 PM	#7
NonHomogenized Veteran Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: no longer at IIDB Posts: 1,644	Yeah, that's a pretty glaring error, now that you point it out. If I had a means to contact the author, I'd send him a note. Ah well. Even the correct figure destroys Hovind's claim that trigonometric parallax only works to 20 light-years.

05-10-2003, 05:37 PM	#8
Lobstrosity Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: San Diego, California Posts: 719	Well, off to the left there's an "Interactive Menu." At the bottom there's a link Contact Us, though that would probably put you in touch with the site admin rather than the author--perhaps the site admin knows how to reach this guy? The panel is incorrect on two fronts. Not only does it give distance measurements off by six orders of magnitude, but it also says that Hipparcos looked for Cepheid variable stars when it really used trigonometric parallax.

05-10-2003, 07:12 PM	#10
Valentine Pontifex Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy Posts: 3,092	It might be a good idea for people not to reproduce people email addresses. Lets spare people needless spam. And some sites exclude robots and watch from them like ArXiv which for physics papers. There are also several ways to obscure email address from robots that allow functional email links.

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