Evidence for God from Science

The Evolution of the Long-Necked Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis L.) What do we really know? Testing the Theories of Gradualism, Macromutation, and Intelligent Design


I noticed this as I was perusing some new content at Evolution news and views and thought it had some interesting new considerations on the subject of the giraffe neck via evolution. I can't really believe I have overlooked some of the simple observable evidence all this time.

From the book's Amazon page:
"Darwin (1871) and many African folk legends before him [...] proposed a simple but powerful explanation for the large and elongated shape. Long necks allowed giraffe to outreach presumed competitors, particularly during dry-season bottlenecks when leaves become scarce;..." (Simmons and Scheepers). However, this old African folk legend which is still commonly taught in high schools, fails to explain, among other things, the size differences between males and females. Giraffe cows are up to 1.5 meters shorter than the giraffe bulls, not to mention the offspring.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/th ... 62711.html

Such a simple mechanical understanding and yet it has never been realised until now. If neck length gives a survival advantage during the dry season then why aren't the offspring born with necks as long as the parents? they have to eat too right? Here is the logic;

If a long neck gives a selectable advantage to an organism then 'ANYTHING' with a shorter neck would be at a disadvantage during a natural selection event. Essentially this means that giraffe cows and calves would have lost the competition.
For those who may want to argue that the giraffe calf would survive because of mommy;
By 2 months the young giraffe is eating leaves and at 6 months is fairly independent of its mother. A young giraffe can even survive early weaning at 2 or 3 months. http://www.awf.org/content/wildlife/detail/giraffe/

It's darn hard to grow to the age of reproduction if daddy is eating all the food within HIS reach.... . simple system mechanics... who would have guessed.

so I'm guessing ID says that the designer just gave giraffes long necks for fun then?

Also, there is in fact a scientific explanation that has overtaken the outdated reasoning you point out. It's all about males being able to mate (and pass on their genes).

http://www.how-come.net/giraffeneck.html

Ivellious wrote:so I'm guessing ID says that the designer just gave giraffes long necks for fun then? http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... long-necks

I believe ID says that the designer gave giraffes a long neck to see how many people would rationalise that it occured as a result of mutation and natural selection

Ivellious wrote:Also, there is in fact a scientific explanation that has overtaken the outdated reasoning you point out. It's all about males being able to mate (and pass on their genes). http://www.how-come.net/giraffeneck.html

It was outdated reasoning? and not simply wrong reasoning? lol So since the first rationale was used to back the evolutionary tale and it was wrong then we should review the evolutionary tale too.
What makes you think the second rationale is any more correct than the first? let us review this second rationale from a mechanical engineers perspective shall we?

Why do giraffes have such long necks?
An average male giraffe's neck weighs 200 lbs. and can stretch 6 feet long. Giraffes fight over females by swinging their necks and heads like a medieval ball and chain. The longer and heavier the neck, the more momentum behind the often bone-shattering head slams.
Simmons and Scheepers found that males with the longest, most massive necks tended to win the mating contests, allowing their genes to be passed down to future generations. Simmons believes that it was the competition for mates that pushed the evolution of the giraffe's neck, with longer-necked animals more successful at reproducing. http://www.how-come.net/giraffeneck.html

Ahh I see. So now instead of trying to explain giraffe neck length in general they are trying to explain 'male' neck length. lol.
If male giraffe neck length gives them an advantage then why do the females have long necks?.... so they can see who the winner is of course. lololo
Let us look at another site dealing with your reference;

Why do giraffes have such long necks?
The hypothesis proposed by Simmons and Scheepers has been controversial from the start and has received a good deal of criticism. One paper, published by G. Mitchell, S. J. van Sittert, and J. D. Skinner in the Journal of Zoology last year collected data suggesting that male giraffes do not energetically invest more in the growth in their necks than females do. In fact, not only did the necks of female giraffes continue growing through their lives, but they also added neck mass faster than males, and whatever differences there were between the necks of female and male giraffes appeared to be attributable to differences in overall body mass rather than the true sign of sexual selection. If the differences between living giraffes were so minimal, it seemed unlikely that males had truly driven the evolutionary change through sexual selection.

Simmons and co-author R. Altwegg have just responded to this study in a new Journal of Zoology paper, and in surveying the debate they state that neither the food competition nor the necks-for-sex hypothesis may be able to provide a comprehensive explanation for giraffe evolution.

As identified by Simmons and Altwegg, the long neck of the giraffe may have evolved in response to some ecological change but then was co-opted into other functions which caused further alterations under different evolutionary pressures. The advantages provided by the giraffe’s long neck today -- be it in terms of feeding, sexual selection, or both -- cannot definitively tell us why the trait evolved in the first place.

Ultimately, a combination of natural history, embryology, and palaeobiology will be needed to fully understand the unique anatomy of giraffes. This is not something which will be accomplished in a year or even ten, but will take the persistent investigations of many researchers working across a variety of scientific disciplines. For the moment, the question of “How did the giraffe get its long neck?” must be answered with “We do not yet know”, but that is as it should be. It is better to admit that we are still unravelling a mystery than to dogmatically assert that all is solved and that all the uncharted places on the evolutionary map have been filled in.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... long-necks

See what happens when you do a google search and click on the first thing that pops up... It shows that you didn't have a clue to begin with and simply tried to find anything to back your beliefs.

For anyone that didn't quite grasp what happened, Ivellious in his zeal to counter my post simply tried to google something for backing and typed into the search something like "Why giraffes have long necks" and guess what pops up first? try it and see what comes up.
Of course knowing some of the historic arguments about this subject I had a bit of a natural selective advantage waiting in the wings for just such a response.

The proper response from an unbiased person should have been that the first conclusion of evolutionists was wrong and that currently we just don't know how it happened. Religious zeal... gotta love it.

It was outdated reasoning? and not simply wrong reasoning?

Both, actually. Outdated just like theory of a flat Earth is outdated. And, just like with flat Earth theory, new information has come along to make the old belief outdated (and clearly wrong).

lol So since the first rationale was used to back the evolutionary tale and it was wrong then we should review the evolutionary tale too.

This is BS, and you know it. The first rationale was a hypothesis of how evolution might have occurred to give giraffes long necks. Written by people who knew basically nothing about how giraffes live, at least not nearly as much as they could have. It was more of a hunch than an evidence-based reasoning. Darwin also had "hunches" about chimpanzees and humans that have been plainly debunked by future studies. If what you are saying is that one error in the initial idea means the whole thing is immediately flawed, you are crazy.

If male giraffe neck length gives them an advantage then why do the females have long necks?

If I'm a human male several thousand years ago, it was advantageous for me to be taller, more muscular, and more athletic. By passing my genetic predispositions on to my daughters, they will likely also be taller, stronger, and more athletic than normal human girls. By comparison, a female that breeds with a long-necked giraffe will have offspring with longer necks, regardless of gender. In this case, evolution may have been driven by sexual selection of males, with the eventual female offspring simply having taken on the longer neck genes from their father. They were selected to have this trait based on the selection of their fathers to reproduce.

male giraffes do not energetically invest more in the growth in their necks than females do

What does this even mean? Animals do not consciously "invest" in growth "energetically". No matter how energetic I was about growing taller, I had little control over my height.

In fact, not only did the necks of female giraffes continue growing through their lives, but they also added neck mass faster than males

Many mammal's females reach puberty faster (and thus start to grow) earlier than the males, but, like in the case of giraffes, they typically do not grow as large as males by the time they reach adulthood. This seems to be an irrelevant point.

If the differences between living giraffes were so minimal, it seemed unlikely that males had truly driven the evolutionary change through sexual selection.

If shorter-necked giraffes were/are less likely to reproduce and pass on their genes, why should we expect lots of them to exist today? That would seem to defy this explanation of sexual selection, not the other way around.

It is better to admit that we are still unravelling a mystery than to dogmatically assert that all is solved and that all the uncharted places on the evolutionary map have been filled in.

I agree...this is a mystery without a definitive answer. But of course, inserting a "God of the Gaps" argument (i.e Intelligent Design just did it for no reason) is in fact not admitting a biological mystery at all. Take a little of your own advice next time.

For anyone that didn't quite grasp what happened, Ivellious in his zeal to counter my post simply tried to google something for backing and typed into the search something like "Why giraffes have long necks" and guess what pops up first? try it and see what comes up.

And it appears to be a valid argument for all intensive purposes. Far better to look for other possible explanations that don't involve shoving a non-answer into the equation.

The proper response from an unbiased person should have been that the first conclusion of evolutionists was wrong and that currently we just don't know how it happened. Religious zeal... gotta love it.

Yes, the first conclusion of Darwin (which, for the record, is over a century old) may have been wrong. Yes, we don't have a perfect answer for it with the limited research done on the topic. But, of course, in your opinion, ID is totally unbiased, which I would say is ludicrous. You basically said here that there is a mystery in biology, and that because there is no immediate answer, a) evolution is a lie, and b) giraffes must have just been poofed into existence with long necks, case closed. Because that is really good science.

KBCid wrote:It was outdated reasoning? and not simply wrong reasoning?

Ivellious wrote:Both, actually. Outdated just like theory of a flat Earth is outdated. And, just like with flat Earth theory, new information has come along to make the old belief outdated (and clearly wrong).

So your saying that the outdated theory of a flat earth is analogous to evolutionary theory. A dumb assumption was made based on beliefs in the truth of a theory and it was later shown to be dumb right? lol
The fact here though is that unlike the flat earth theory you are choosing to still believe in evolutionary theory and are willing to back any rationale that can keep your belief valid.

KBCid wrote: lol So since the first rationale was used to back the evolutionary tale and it was wrong then we should review the evolutionary tale too.

Ivellious wrote:This is BS, and you know it.

really? So your promoting that we shouldn't question everything we think we know about evoltuionary theory and its supposed evidences? We should just look the other way in this case and religiously adhere to the evolutionary belief.

Ivellious wrote:The first rationale was a hypothesis of how evolution might have occurred to give giraffes long necks.

The first rationale was and still is a poster child for the evolutionary rationale. It was a prediction predicated on the proposed causal force of the mechanisms that are still believed to be causal in evolutionary theory. In the scientific method when one finds that a prediction based on a theory doesn't pan out then one should question the validity of the theory that caused the rationale for ones failed prediction.

Ivellious wrote:Written by people who knew basically nothing about how giraffes live, at least not nearly as much as they could have.

written by people who had a theory about how variety and variation occured and who also thought that they could boldly just start applying its principles to whatever they observed without ever testing it. Look how long that concept in conjunction with the innocent giraffe were poster children for evolutionary theory. Very psuedo-scientific if you ask me.

Ivellious wrote:It was more of a hunch than an evidence-based reasoning.

Sure it was. Thats exactly how its been promoted all along...

Ivellious wrote:Darwin also had "hunches" about chimpanzees and humans that have been plainly debunked by future studies.

Darwin had a hunch alright and it is turning out to be kinda like the flat earth hunch.

Ivellious wrote:If what you are saying is that one error in the initial idea means the whole thing is immediately flawed, you are crazy.

of course one must be crazy to question evoltuionary theory, insane even.

KBCid wrote:If male giraffe neck length gives them an advantage then why do the females have long necks?

Ivellious wrote:If I'm a human male several thousand years ago, it was advantageous for me to be taller, more muscular, and more athletic. By passing my genetic predispositions on to my daughters, they will likely also be taller, stronger, and more athletic than normal human girls. By comparison, a female that breeds with a long-necked giraffe will have offspring with longer necks, regardless of gender. In this case, evolution may have been driven by sexual selection of males, with the eventual female offspring simply having taken on the longer neck genes from their father. They were selected to have this trait based on the selection of their fathers to reproduce.

Oh yes right right. your rationale is quite unassailable... Come meet my little friends, let me introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Black widow spiders;

How to Identify Venomous House Spiders
Black widow spider - Female black widows are perhaps the most easily identifiable spider in human history. The striking red markings on their undersides are a dead giveaway to their species, and whether it be in the shape of an hourglass or a simply a dot, it is safe to assume that any shiny black spider with a bulbous abdomen falls under this category and can be promptly avoided. The males of this species are smaller, shyer, and less venomous than their female counterparts, in fact there has been much speculation as to whether or not they are more venomous than the common garden spider at all! Also they look nothing like their women; they're thin and usually mottled brown or gray.http://shaddie.hubpages.com/hub/The-Glade

I would also like to introduce to you and everyone else a very, very cool looking (to me) new wasp that I read about awhile ago. Ladies and gents meet the Velvet ant (go see the picture); http://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/

Velvet Ants (i.e. Wasps)
Velvet ants (Mutillidae) are not actually ants at all—the insects are classified as wasps even though female velvet ants do not have wings and appear to be tiny furry colorful ants.
Male velvet ants look nothing like the females but are much larger winged creatures resembling other wasps. So great is the sexual dimorphism between the genders that it took entomologists a tremendously long time to pair the females with the males, and in many species the connection has still not been made by science. http://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/

The replies you gave to my reference in your last post is beteen you and them. I was just the bearer of their message.

KBCid wrote:For anyone that didn't quite grasp what happened, Ivellious in his zeal to counter my post simply tried to google something for backing and typed into the search something like "Why giraffes have long necks" and guess what pops up first? try it and see what comes up.

Ivellious wrote:And it appears to be a valid argument for all intensive purposes. Far better to look for other possible explanations that don't involve shoving a non-answer into the equation.

What more can I say...

KBCid wrote:The proper response from an unbiased person should have been that the first conclusion of evolutionists was wrong and that currently we just don't know how it happened. Religious zeal... gotta love it.

Ivellious wrote:Yes, the first conclusion of Darwin (which, for the record, is over a century old) may have been wrong. Yes, we don't have a perfect answer for it with the limited research done on the topic.

Ivellious are you sure you are an evolutionist? You are doing a much better job of helping my side than most I have seen.
One post ago you were promoting a whole different answer and now...

Ivellious wrote:But, of course, in your opinion, ID is totally unbiased, which I would say is ludicrous.

I would say I as an IDer am quite heavily biased based on my understanding of mechanics. fact is my understanding of mechanics and the crumbling understanding of evolutionary theory is what drove me to consider intelligent design theory in the first place and then ultimately to choose who I would believe the designer was. Ironically, this designer - that I have come to believe in specifically tells me to...
1Thess 5:21 Test all things; hold fast that which is good.
So far, so Good.

Ivellious wrote:You basically said here that there is a mystery in biology, and that because there is no immediate answer, a) evolution is a lie, and b) giraffes must have just been poofed into existence with long necks, case closed. Because that is really good science.

Basically what I was actually saying is that evolutionary theory has failed in yet another prediction. The author of the book on the other hand proposed ID as a more rationale answer. Who am I to argue with his logic when my own logic shows that an irreducibly complex system of 3D spatiotemporal positioning must exist before evolution can even begin to function.

KBCid wrote:I believe ID says that the designer gave giraffes a long neck to see how many people would rationalise that it occured as a result of mutation and natural selection

Seriously what is the ID reasoning in this case?

KBCid wrote:It was outdated reasoning? and not simply wrong reasoning?

The explanation for why long necks developed was wrong. [Scientists are not infallible.] But is there any evidence to show that the evolution of longer necks did not occur? The explanation may be invalid but the underlying observation does not have to be.

sandy_mcd wrote: Seriously what is the ID reasoning in this case?

I don't have a rationale from mainstream ID that comes to mind. However, by the observable evidence and the logic I can apply to it... It would be that variation is a core 'function' of the living system... an attribute that is mechanical in how it operates... systematic if you will. purposeful variation within limits.

KBCid wrote:It was outdated reasoning? and not simply wrong reasoning?

sandy_mcd wrote: The explanation for why long necks developed was wrong. [Scientists are not infallible.]

The explanation would be correct if the premises were true. Scientist are supposed to make a reasoned assumption of how the premises function and then test it by the scientific method to see if it works as envisioned not tout that the premises are true and parade it around as fact for a hundred or so years and leave the testing undone. The scientific method is how fallibility is weeded out before running down to the presses to state the beliefs are 'facts'

KBCid wrote:But is there any evidence to show that the evolution of longer necks did not occur? The explanation may be invalid but the underlying observation does not have to be.

ummm yea. in fact the observable evidence existed when the assertion of evolutionary mechanism was first applied and it was pointed out by further logic and reason in a preceding post. Think about it... how did you know why "The explanation for why long necks developed was wrong."
Did a scientist you trust just come along and say "oh we were wrong on that point" and not explain why? further you should consider why the giraffe still has a long neck since the females and calves feed on lower plants anyway. Wouldn't it be more advantageous to have less neck so you can reach where you feed anyway and also that you don't have to near cripple yourself to get a drink? See if you can find a picture or video of a giraffe trying to get a drink it's hilarious and look at how long it takes them to get back to a defensible position, think about how vulnerable they are when they are performing this simple act. I know if I was a lion... I would wait at a watering hole for the giraffe to get all contorted into the drinking position and then pounce. simple mechanics. If evolution were true then every weakness of a specie would be a niche for a predator to take advantage of.

Giraffes and their vulnerable drinking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrNds0ydBK0

How does a Giraffe bend down?
For giraffes, bending down is a daily challenge. To reach ground level for example, when drinking a giraffe has to splay its front legs at an angle of almost 45 degrees. http://www.animalcorner.co.uk/wildlife/ ... about.html

A Neck Up on the Competition
Giraffes have to sleep every night, and they are even more vulnerable to attack when lying down than when drinking. This is because standing back up is a lengthy three-step process that involves vigorously swinging their necks backwards and forwards, first to hoist their forelegs to kneeling, then to get on their hindlegs, and finally to get up on their forelegs as well.
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ ... tition.cfm

Oh jeez, more pseudoscience.

There is something inherent in the genes of a giraffe that make it long. For example, you can breed and breed certain animals but only so much length can be selected for. There are boundaries and Darwinists know this. NS has to work with EXISTING info. THere is no mystical outside force that says, "ooohh, a giraffe would surve better if it had a long neck."

It is not as if you could take a zebra, breed thousands of generations and get one with a giraffe like neck. We see this in canines. Selective (intelligent) breeding has pushed the canines to their limits. But that's the point. There are limits. And we haven't even begun to talk about all the special features a giraffe must have to survive with that long neck.

Beanybag wrote:Oh jeez, more pseudoscience.

What does this add to the conversation, really.

Giraffe Necks
The story of the giraffe’s neck is a classic of high school biology textbooks. For this reason everyone “knows” that giraffes evolved longer necks in order to reach the leaves at the top of trees. However, this has never been clearly established...
The most obvious feature of the giraffe is its long neck. For some reason the evolution of the giraffe neck became the standard example in textbooks. Stephen J. Gould did a survey of biology textbooks and found that 100% used giraffe evolution as the example...

There is therefore a stark contrast between the scientific reality and the textbook fiction regarding giraffe evolution – but what’s new.

The standard (textbook, that is) story is that ancestral giraffes were selected for longer necks because that enabled them to reach leaves higher up in trees than other animals. Therefore in times of scarcity they would have access to food that other animals could not access, and this conferred a survival advantage. http://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde ... ffe-necks/

In their text The Living World (Fifth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2008) evolutionists George Johnson and Jonathan Losos rehearse the usual teachings. Students are told that “Microevolution Leads to Macroevolution” with the giraffe’s neck serving as the example of how small change is supposed to accumulate to the large-scale change evolution needs.
http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2010/07 ... -your.html

The Evolution of the Long-Necked Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis L.) – What Do We Really Know?
"No data from giraffes then [in Darwin’s time] existed to support one theory of causes over another, and none exist now."
"…ancestral species are relatively short necked, and the spotty evidence gives no insight into how the long-necked modern species arose.”
"The standard story, in fact, is both fatuous and unsupported." Stephen Jay Gould

Ulrich Kutschera made the following statement regarding the origin of the giraffe, on 29 November 2005 in 3SAT (a German TV channel): "...the evolution of the long-necked giraffe can be reconstructed from fossils." According to today's best giraffe researchers, all fossil links that could show us the gradual evolution of the long-necked giraffe from the short-necked giraffe are missing, apart from the insufficiently answered question of causes. Some paleontologists postulate a "neck elongation macromutation" to explain the origin of the long-necked giraffe.

Kathleen Hunt however, in her often-cited work Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ, leaves no doubt that the origin of the giraffe is clearly and completely solved by the synthetic theory (gradual evolution by mutations, recombination and selection). When one looks at her reasoning more closely, however, one encounters numerous holes and problems and the fossil evidence for the gradual evolution of the long-necked giraffe is
— as expected — completely lacking. A detailed analysis of her work shows, therefore, that the strong impression that one receives on a first reading concerning the continuous evolution of the giraffe stands in stark contrast to the current paleological facts.

1a. Ulrich Kutschera on the Evolution of the Giraffe

On the evolution of the giraffe, Ulrich Kutschera asserted in the German TV-3SAT-science programme Nano, 19 November 2005(1), reacting to a clip from the film by Fritz Poppenberg Is the Bible right after all? – in which the origin of the long-necked giraffe is presented as a problem for the synthetic theory of evolution – the following points (my emphasis according to the oral TV-statement):

"We know 20-million-year-old fossils, fossil giraffes, short-necked forms, from which the long-necked giraffes inhabiting the savannah, as well as the short-necked giraffes which inhabit the forest, have evolved. That is, the evolution of the long-necked giraffe can be reconstructed from fossils. We are dealing with a false statement in this film." http://www.weloennig.de/Giraffe.pdf

Beanybag wrote:Oh jeez, more pseudoscience.

Yup it sure is.

Beanybag wrote:Oh jeez, more pseudoscience.

Danieltwotwenty wrote:What does this add to the conversation, really.

It would be the realisation that that the evolutionary fable is falling apart faster than they can come up with arguments to defend it, yet they still feel obligated to say something even if it is incoherent.

KBCid wrote:Giraffe Necks
The story of the giraffe’s neck is a classic of high school biology textbooks. For this reason everyone “knows” that giraffes evolved longer necks in order to reach the leaves at the top of trees. However, this has never been clearly established...
The most obvious feature of the giraffe is its long neck. For some reason the evolution of the giraffe neck became the standard example in textbooks. Stephen J. Gould did a survey of biology textbooks and found that 100% used giraffe evolution as the example...
There is therefore a stark contrast between the scientific reality and the textbook fiction regarding giraffe evolution – but what’s new.

KBCid wrote:Of course knowing some of the historic arguments about this subject I had a bit of a natural selective advantage waiting in the wings for just such a response.

This is totally confusing to me.
What's the point of bringing up the giraffe story? Clearly most textbooks (and consequently many citizens) "know" that giraffes evolved long necks to browse higher and gain a competitive advantage.
Unfortunately, the textbooks are not only wrong, they also do not, and never did, reflect scientific thinking. See the reference to Gould mentioned: http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/18 ... -Illus.pdf. Darwin did not use this example.
So the argument isn't proving evolution (actually the proposed cause of an observation) wrong, it is proving that textbooks are not very good. This is news?
http://whyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2006/ ... eview.html

My wife's post about how poor public school textbooks are reminded me of Richard Feynman's account of reviewing textbooks for the State of California. ...
Richard Feynman wrote about how he would get so angry when reading the books. "The reason was that the books were so lousy. They were false. They were hurried. They would try to be rigorous, but they would use examples (like automobiles in the street for "sets") which were almost OK, but in which there were always some subtleties. The definitions weren't accurate. Everything was a little bit ambiguous -- they weren't smart enough to understand what was meant by "rigor." They were faking it. They were teaching something they didn't understand, and which was, in fact, useless, at that time, for the child."

After Richard Feynman plowed through various books he would go to committee meetings to evaluate and rate the books. Richard found out that sometimes he was the only one who read the books. In fact a blank book had gotten a high rating by a number of committee members.

sandy_mcd wrote: This is totally confusing to me. What's the point of bringing up the giraffe story? Clearly most textbooks (and consequently many citizens) "know" that giraffes evolved long necks to browse higher and gain a competitive advantage.

Indeed you appear to have grasped that the giraffe 'story'... the just so evolution story was wrong... because they didn't provide experimental support for it before applying it as a fact in textbooks and now it is coming back to bite them in behind.

sandy_mcd wrote:Unfortunately, the textbooks are not only wrong, they also do not, and never did, reflect scientific thinking. See the reference to Gould mentioned: http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/18 ... -Illus.pdf. Darwin did not use this example.
So the argument isn't proving evolution (actually the proposed cause of an observation) wrong, it is proving that textbooks are not very good. This is news?

yup the textbooks were wrong and not one evolutionary scientist made any effort to have them corrected. Now they are all jumping on the band wagon to say just what you are trying to say. It wasn't our idea and we didn't approve it. Not much different than the The Piltdown Man hoax which wasn't refuted for 40 yrs. and during that time it was used as an example to back the evolutionary tale.
The question now is 'how many other lines of so called evidence are the same as this'. How many of the evidences that you assume are true because a scientists said so are also just figments of someones imagination.
The nice part is that I really don't have to convince anyone about the truth here since most of us were regaled about the truth in school aand we all have our own memories as evidence.