These Evolution Examples Are Staged | Textbooks Still Use Them - FAS2626

SPEAKER A If you opened a biology textbook today, you might still see drawings of Haeckel's embryos or the famous peppered moth. But did you know that scientists have admitted these icons of evolution are either staged or completely fraudulent? In this episode, we are exposing the truth behind these classic examples and asking why these are still being taught as fact. Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Joining me to discuss this topic is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome once again, Dr. John. SPEAKER B Hello, Kaysie. SPEAKER A Dr. John has written a book called The Big Argument: Does God Exist? And in today's program, we'll be drawing insights from this book, specifically from chapter 8. Now, in the chapter, it mentions about Haeckel's embryo drawings, and these were actually exposed as fraudulent way back in the 1800s, but they still appear in textbooks in the 1900s. So give us a bit of background on that story, as well as why do you think these images are remaining in education even after being debunked? SPEAKER B Yes, this is a very, very interesting question. I guess for listeners to, and viewers to understand, we know that when Darwin put out his original thesis, he grew this, you know, set out this phylogenetic tree. And essentially showed where you have, you know, fish evolving into amphibians, evolving into reptiles, evolving into birds, and, and so forth, and eventually up into humans. SPEAKER A Right. SPEAKER B And it's interesting, I was out visiting the, the dinosaur area at Winton in New South Wales a couple of years ago, and they have disposed of a number of dinosaur remains, and particularly marine, large marine creatures have been found out in the area in northwestern Queensland there. And there was a book on the shelf, Grandmother Fish. And it was for, you know, little children, sort of kindergarten-type children. And I thought, this is, this is so wrong. But this is this picture that is painted that essentially we are evolved from fish, you know, through this chain. And so one of the things that came up after this whole scenario, when Darwin published his whole sequence of evolution there, Haeckel really got onto this, and he supposedly looked at the embryos of different types of animals, rabbits, chickens, and so forth. And showed that they went through this stage, and human embryos as well. And essentially showed that human embryos went through these different stages. So at a very early stage, they looked like a fish and so forth, developed on through the different— So then later they looked more like a reptile and so forth like this. SPEAKER A As in? The embryo looks like a fish or it looks like the embryo of a fish and then it looks like— SPEAKER B No, no, no, the embryo looked like a little fish. SPEAKER A Really? SPEAKER B Yeah, yeah, yeah. SPEAKER A All right. SPEAKER B And so that's where, for example, I was saying the human embryo developed gill slits. Uh-huh. SPEAKER A Right? SPEAKER B So, and that these were showing up and so forth. And at one stage it developed this tail, which was the, reptilian tail sort of thing. So it was going through all this. So, so this really, really caught on that essentially in the womb, as a little human baby was developing, it went through these little stages from looking like a fish to looking like a reptile to so forth. And so this cottoned on, you know, seemed powerful evidence, and he published his drawings where here he, you know, sort of got these different stages of embryos. And so, and this looked very realistic, you know, made to look, you know, very realistic. And so this really, you know, cottoned on. Of course, at the time it was shown, you know, that It doesn't correspond. The human embryos don't look like that at all. But this has persisted on. And I know when I was researching my book, Evolution Impossible, as well, I looked into this again, and that was in the early 2000s. And I remember seeing a current university biology textbook was still promoting Haeckel's ideas. SPEAKER A Hmm. SPEAKER B Now this is, you know, quite astounding really, because— and I think I can't remember in the chapter of my book I reference and I cite that particular major textbook was a major biology textbook that was still citing that. And yet earlier on in 1997, and I've got the references here because I knew you were going to talk about this, there was an article published by E. Pernisi in Science. So one of the top science journals in the world, you've got Nature and Science, two top science journals. And it was called Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered. And the reference for those who want to look it up is 1997. It's Science, Volume 277, page 1435. And there was also an article about this published in New Scientist, which is a a more easy-to-read science journal that carries the latest science news for, for scientists. And that's in, again, 1997, and it's in number 2098, page 23. And that article was entitled "Embryonic Fraud Lives On." So I think one of the things to me is the fact that people cling to this as this desperate desire to believe that humans have evolved via this change, that we evolved from early organisms that evolved into fish, jellyfish into fish, into, you know, reptile into amphibians, into reptiles and so forth, dinosaurs, birds. SPEAKER A And so it's really, it's really love of the idea rather than a love of the evidence. SPEAKER B Oh, you put it very well then. Yeah, this is it. It's wishful thinking. That's what they want to believe. And it really troubles me that we then have books like Grandmother Fish being put out there for young children to read, to be inculcated with this whole idea of evolution, that we evolved through these particular life forms, eventually through some ape-like creature into humans. So it's very, very disturbing actually, because it's not based on evidence. When we look at the actual scientific evidence, that isn't true. Matter of fact, we now know what those little folds that are in the human embryo that look like fish, they develop into the thymus gland and the parathyroid gland. Gram and the inner ear canal. SPEAKER A So this is the part that looks like, maybe like gills? Gills. SPEAKER B From like, water fish. Yeah, yeah, so that they were claiming, oh, these are the gill slits being developed. No, they're just the cells of the organ that will eventually become those particular organs and pathway, yeah. So this is it. So much in the, you know, the claims that evolutionists have made It really worries me that even when something has been clearly proved wrong, repeatedly proved incorrect, they're still pushing it. They're still pushing this lie. And of course, the average person, you know, I've met people when I've been talking to them about the evidence for creation, they say, oh, well, you know, don't you know, as babies develop, they have, you know, go through a fish stage and, all this sort of thing. And they remember that, they've been taught that in school. SPEAKER A I guess that's where pictures can really put an idea in and it's hard to get rid of. SPEAKER B That's right. SPEAKER A Once it's there, isn't it? SPEAKER B Yeah, those pictures. And it's the same, you see the ape man slowly changing into the upright bodybuilder sort of thing. SPEAKER A So going on to another story, which the, or example, which the chapter mentions, and this is the, example of the peppered moths, which I even recall reading about that when studying science. And apparently some of the peppered moths were even glued to the tree to show what they wanted to show by the photos because they wouldn't naturally land there. So obviously people have uncovered that this evidence was partially staged and What does that impact this example? How does it impact this example for natural selection? SPEAKER B Yeah, so it's interesting, when I was editing the work, I wasn't aware of that. And so that was something new to me that David had got onto when he was researching. SPEAKER A I thought it was a valid example. I thought, yeah, it makes sense. SPEAKER B Yeah, yeah, me too. Matter of fact, I've used some of those pictures in some of my talks. SPEAKER A Okay. SPEAKER B Realising, yeah, they were fake. SPEAKER A Wow. SPEAKER B They were fakes. The moths were glued there to show the contrast and this sort of thing. And the other fascinating thing was that David and his research pointed out, of course, that there wasn't this dramatic loss. Both species actually continued on. SPEAKER A Right. SPEAKER B Yeah. So the light peppered moths continue on and and are there today. You know, they weren't sort of eliminated out at the time. That was a story that was used that would sort of fit the scenario. And obviously there were probably a few of the lighter-coloured peppered moths that were knocked off by the birds more easily when they happened to land on a sooty tree branch or something like this. But in actual fact, it turned out it was a poor case. SPEAKER A Wow. SPEAKER B Of, yeah, of natural evolution. SPEAKER A And just in case people are wondering, 'cause in the chapter it does have a reference here to J.A. Coyne, Not Black and White, found in Nature 396, 1998, page 35 to 36. So I was amazed by that too, that this appeared in Nature. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER A And he is writing that, hey, this example is not even valid. Yeah, yeah. SPEAKER B And he is a very strong evolutionist, by the way, too. SPEAKER A Yeah. So like, that was very surprising to me that this was there. So— SPEAKER B And I think, look, this highlights a very important area in this issue, that some of the top scientists and the top researchers in this area realize that the evidence for actual evolution is very scanty. They're still actually looking for a mechanism on how evolution occurs. Matter of fact, that, UC Berkeley, University of California Berkeley, on their, one of their evolution education sites, one of the issues that they point out is that scientists are still trying to understand how evolution can happen. There's no known mechanism that works to produce the new meaningful genetic information. So all this other stuff's being taught, it's all a smokescreen for the fact that we actually don't know. And the big emphasis on natural selection that is coming out, sure, we observe natural selection, right? SPEAKER A Yeah. SPEAKER B But it doesn't produce the new information. Natural selection doesn't produce evolution. Natural selection doesn't produce new species. Natural selection, even though Darwin brought it up, does not really explain how new species can form. You know, as you mentioned, you know, at the beginning of one of our recent episodes, sure, natural selection can explain the change from long fur to short fur, but it doesn't explain where the fur came in the first place. SPEAKER A Yes, yes. SPEAKER B And it's the same here. It doesn't— it can say, okay, white peppered moths, light-colored peppered moths may be more easily hunted down by birds than black ones during when there's a lot of soot around during the Industrial Revolution. But it doesn't explain where— how the moths came to be in the first place. Yes. Or how they're amazing. Reflective scale system formed that produced these scales. And if— how could random mutations produce such beautiful patterns that often follow mathematical patterns or form particular camouflage patterns, this sort of thing? They can't explain the unique reflective index of the scales that make up those surfaces on the butterfly wings and all this sort of thing. So there's extremely complex biochemistry. Natural selection can't explain that. And that's— it's just a smokescreen to say we have no explanation at the moment as to how these complex structures can form. SPEAKER A Mm. Very enlightening, especially when you're exposed to these things in education and then you realize, wait a minute, they were made up. SPEAKER B They were fraud. SPEAKER A Yes. Yes. It really, I guess, highlights how much we need to seek for the truth in these matters as well, and, um, and don't discard evidence. Like, let's, let's examine all the evidence. Don't discard some just because it doesn't fit with your idea that you like. Um, take it all and let it sink in what it really means. So thank you for clearing that up today. Have you ever struggled with doubts about God's existence or known someone who has? What helped you through it? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments. Your journey could inspire someone else who's searching for answers.