Pharyngula: Deep homologies in the pharyngeal arches

PvM posted Entry 2398 on June 22, 2006 01:36 AM.
Trackback URL: http://www.pandasthumb.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.fcgi/2393

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’?…

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Comment #107357

Posted by Pvm on June 22, 2006 1:59 AM (e)

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…

Comment #107380

Posted by Torbjörn Larsson on June 22, 2006 7:12 AM (e)

Pharyngeal arches surely must go “pooph”.

Comment #107447

Posted by Henry J on June 22, 2006 1:22 PM (e)

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

Comment #107467

Posted by Steviepinhead on June 22, 2006 2:47 PM (e)

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.

Comment #107468

Posted by Jason on June 22, 2006 3:11 PM (e)

PvM,

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

Comment #107485

Posted by Sir_Toejam on June 22, 2006 4:25 PM (e)

Hey we should all be reminded by this:

“Have you embraced your inner fish today?”

Comment #107536

Posted by Henry J on June 22, 2006 9:27 PM (e)

Re “Have you embraced your inner fish today?”

Just for the halibut.

Henry

Comment #107537

Posted by Tiax on June 22, 2006 9:35 PM (e)

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.

Comment #107545

Posted by Shalini, BBWAD on June 22, 2006 10:50 PM (e)

ID: Ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies…

Comment #107583

Posted by KRMS on June 23, 2006 5:52 AM (e)

Confused at how evolution “disproves” God.

Comment #107588

Posted by GT(N)T on June 23, 2006 6:52 AM (e)

“Confused at how evolution “disproves” God”

In the minds of some Creationists it does.

Comment #107629

Posted by Henry J on June 23, 2006 12:34 PM (e)

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

Comment #108224

Posted by fnxtr on June 25, 2006 12:52 PM (e)

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