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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Tones on Tails
Message-ID: <334@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 27-Jan-85 20:10:37 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.334
Posted: Sun Jan 27 20:10:37 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Feb-85 11:34:02 EST
References: <373@cadovax.UUCP> <151@spp1.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 48
Summary: 

In article <151@spp1.UUCP> johnston@spp1.UUCP writes:
> About the embryonic tail, the reference refers to it as an anomoly. I
> don't believe it need be explained by one of the origin theories and is better
> explained by genetic abnormalities within a species.

The embryonic tail is not abnormal: its retention is.  One of the strong
points of evolutionary theory is that it explains a host of biological kludges
in the development from egg to adult.  Creationism can't offer more than
"that's the way it is".

> Since the "tail" is really only the last part of the vertabrae, then we
> all have a tail only it isn't always visible. That the spine develops
> first makes sense since it function is analogous to a frame for a house
> which is built first. If you are delivered 41 foot planks to cover the 40
> foot frame you've already built, you nail on the planks as is and then cut
> off a foot.

The tail in the embryo is composed of several vertebrae which later invert
and fuse together to form the coccyx (one small bone.)  Your analogy
doesn't make sense from the standpoint of an omnipotent creator:
presumably he could do it right in the first place.

> I think it weakens the evolutionist argument to be looking at embryo
> development and attempting to see evolutionary history.

Why?  Embryonic development also had to evolve, if we weren't created.

> As far as the gills go, I believe that evolutionist themselves threw that
> one out when it was learned that the structures only looked like gills and
> actually served other functions.

No, because human embryos have gill slits, not gills.  They do not perform
the function of gills at any time, but they are hard to distinguish from
the embryonic gill slits of other vertebrates.

> Did you know that in the not to distant past, some scientist, looking at a
> sperm cell through a microscope, concluded that there was a miniature baby
> in each cell. This was widely accepted at the time. I'm glad it was
> refuted. It takes little imagination to wonder what would happen if he saw
> a tail there and if a theory similiar to evolution could be postulated
> on that basis.

Yes, and someone imagined canals on Mars.  Did you know that these
"discoveries" were hotly contested?  Scientists are not as carelessly
gullible as your comment would indicate.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh