INVESTIGATING GENESIS SERIES
©2002  by Gerard Wakefield    http://www.creationism.org/wakefield/
(This article may be copied for educational purposes only.)

"Another Evolution Fraud Exposed"

Biblically-based scientists have always known that the theory of evolution is fraught with false evidence. Whether in the form of deliberate hoaxes or misinterpretations of the facts based on pre-conceived biases, practically every "proof" of evolution supplied by Darwin’s supporters has turned out to be false. A notable example of this was provided by German scientist Ernst Haeckel, Darwin’s staunchest supporter in nineteenth-century Europe. Like most proponents of evolution, Haeckel was less than honest and accurate in his scholarship. Stephen J. Gould, professor of biology, geology, and the history of science at Harvard and the world’s leading supporter of the evolution myth, admitted in an article in the March, 2000 issue of Natural History:

Haeckel’s forceful, eminently comprehensible, IF NOT ALWAYS ACCURATE, books appeared in all major languages and surely exerted more influence than the works of any other scientist, including Darwin…in convincing people throughout the world about the validity of evolution (p. 42, emphasis added). To "prove" the greater myth of evolution, Haeckel invented the lesser myth known as "ontology recapitulates phylogeny." In a nutshell, he claimed that evolution was proved by the fact that, from its conception to its birth (or hatching), every animal passes through an evolutionary "climb" identical to the worldwide process of evolution from one-celled animals to advanced life-forms over eons of time. In other words, every animal embryo "evolves" from a microscopic mass of cells to a fish, then to an amphibian, then to a reptile, and so on. To prove his claim, Haeckel created numerous drawings of embryonic fish, salamanders, tortoises, chickens, pigs, dogs, and humans, all placed side by side. His drawings showed each species starting its fetal existence looking exactly like all the others, and then undergoing an individual evolutionary ascent identical to that which Darwin had proposed for the entire animal kingdom.

The problem with Haeckel’s "proof" of evolution was that his drawings were a hoax. Even Dr. Gould admitted that

Haeckel had exaggerated the similarities [between embryos of different species] 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.…Haeckel’s drawings never fooled expert embryologists, who recognized his fudgings right from the start (p. 44). Most of the scientific establishment, eager to reject the Book of Genesis and embrace Darwin’s myth, uncritically accepted Haeckel’s artwork. Of the very few who knew them to be fraudulent, the most vocal figure was one of the greatest Creation scientists of all time, Louis Agassiz. A professor of zoology at Harvard and the first scientist to discover that the Earth had once been under a "Great Ice Age," Agassiz had vigorously opposed the introduction of evolutionary teaching at Harvard. The Swiss-born scientist made no bones about Haeckel’s pro-evolution dishonesty. When he examined the book in which Haeckel’s bogus drawings first appeared, Agassiz wrote in the margins that the drawings were "artistically crafted similarities mixed with inaccuracies," and that "these figures were not drawn from nature, but rather copied one from the other!" He then wrote the word "Atrocious" (p. 48). In the fight that erupted between the two scientists, Gould admitted that Agassiz generally sticks to the high road, despite ample provocation, by marshaling the facts of his greatest disciplinary expertise (in geology, paleontology, and zoology) to refute Haeckel’s frequent exaggerations and rhetorical inconsistencies. Agassiz may have been exhausted and discouraged, but he could still put up one whale of a fight, even if only in private (pp. 47-48). Despite the fact that Haeckel’s embryo drawings have long since been exposed as fraudulent, the profoundly dishonest pro-evolution movement is, astonishingly, STILL presenting his artwork as "proof" of Darwin’s theory. Ironically, no one has been more vigorous in exposing this travesty than Dr. Gould, the world’s staunchest proponent of Darwin’s great myth. He wrote: Haeckel’s drawings, despite their noted inaccuracies, entered into the most impenetrable and permanent of all quasi-scientific literatures: standard student textbooks of biology (p. 44)….Once ensconced in textbooks, misinformation becomes cocooned and effectively permanent, because…textbooks copy from previous texts (p. 45). Prof. Gould then made this absolutely startling admission: …[W]e do, I think, have the right to be both astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, IF NOT A MAJORITY, of modern textbooks! (p. 45, emphasis added) He then goes on to quote a colleague, Michael Richardson of the St. George’s Hospital Medical School in London, who stated, "I know of at least fifty recent biology texts which use the drawings uncritically" (p. 45).

These facts are both frightening and heartening. They are frightening because they demonstrate the colossal dishonesty of the evolutionary movement, as well as the widespread nature of this dishonesty. However, it is heartening to know that even a militant anti-Creationist such as Dr. Gould would admit in the pages of a respected journal like Natural History that one of the major pieces of evidence for evolution is not only fraudulent, but is shamefully being propagated among the world’s youth to this very day. With hope, this might serve as a wake-up call for people who have been deceived into believing Darwin’s theory as scientific fact beyond the scope of doubt or question.



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