Pharyngula: Deep homologies in the pharyngeal arches

Posted 22 June 2006 by PvM

PZ Myers has posted a well written article on deep homologies in the pharyngeal arches which link the thyroid/parathyroid glands in humans to the gills in fish. This is an excellent example of how science contributes to our scientific understanding. Could someone remind me: How again does Intelligent Design explain all this? 'Poof'?...

13 Comments

Pvm · 22 June 2006

And for a good laugh read up on Davescot and gravity... I guarantee you it's quite a blooper. Please go laugh at UncommonDescent Davescot, perhaps unaware of physics, stated that gravity is the strongest force. And while I can understand his error, he was given the opportunity to support his claim. He did so by quoting from an article which started with "gravity is the weakest force" but apparantly missed that intro and cut and paste "uriously, in some ways gravity is also the strongest force in the universe. It always adds, never subtracts, and can build up until it overwhelms all other forces." Seems that a self proclaimed IQ of 150 may not protect oneself from these mistakes. This webpage provides a simple but easy to understand overview of the relative strenghts of the forces of nature. Note that the website serves children grades kindergarten till twelve :-)

The two forces with which you are most familiar are the ones which you can see around you in your daily life ... electromagnetism and gravity. You may be surprised that we've described gravity as being the weakest force ... surely a force that can hold massive planets in orbit must be a very strong one! In fact, gravity is much weaker than electromagnetism. The reason gravity seems so strong is because we see around us the effects of the gravity caused by the entire planet earth.

For those interested in some more in-depth understanding see this webpage which shows that gravity is by large the weakest force. The page was submitted by Angela (age 10, Philippines) (October 16, 1997) What a little critical thinking and access to google can do...

Torbjörn Larsson · 22 June 2006

Pharyngeal arches surely must go "pooph".

Henry J · 22 June 2006

Of course, now nobody'll know what my previous reply was talking about... :)

Steviepinhead · 22 June 2006

I have a feeling--though I'm too lazy to check--that the pharyngeal arches post was probably originally posted a while back, before PZ moved his own blog. He has been selectively re-posting his older science posts at his new venue.

Assuming that this is an older post, it would have been PZ's habit to cross-post here the first time around (but I haven't checked that either).

In any event, no harm in re-posting such a golden oldie--if that's actually what it is--but PZ's reposting of older posts might be something to keep in mind before recycling them all here.

Jason · 22 June 2006

PvM,

Did you perhaps mean to say "This is an example of how evolution contributes to our scientific understanding"?

Sir_Toejam · 22 June 2006

Hey we should all be reminded by this:

"Have you embraced your inner fish today?"

Henry J · 22 June 2006

Re "Have you embraced your inner fish today?"

Just for the halibut.

Henry

Tiax · 22 June 2006

I assume the ID explanation would be that designers sometimes re-use ideas. Sometimes. But not always. No, we couldn't tell you when they do and when they don't. How is that useful? No, we couldn't tell you that either. But Evolution disproves God, so our system is better.

Shalini, BBWAD · 22 June 2006

ID: Ask us no questions and we'll tell you no lies...

KRMS · 23 June 2006

Confused at how evolution "disproves" God.

GT(N)T · 23 June 2006

"Confused at how evolution "disproves" God"

In the minds of some Creationists it does.

Henry J · 23 June 2006

Re ""Confused at how evolution "disproves" God"
In the minds of some Creationists it does."

Hmm. If evolution actually did disprove God, and given that evolution is strongly supported by evidence, doesn't that mean those Creationists are arguing for athiesm, even if without knowing it? Am I confused here? Oh well.

Henry

fnxtr · 25 June 2006

...disproves the literalness of Scripture, which was written by men. Says nothing about God one way or the other.