What did ernst haeckel do?

Answer 1

Ernst Haeckel was a zealous promoter of Darwin's evolutionary theory in Germany, unfortunately, like others before him (peppered moths and Piltdown Man being examples) he didn't let scientific facts get in the way of a good story. What is even more unfortunate is that his bio-genetic law is still promoted today as fact even though it is based on fraudulent data. His fraud was exposed by contemporary scientists in 1864 soon after it was published.

Evolutionary scientists are becoming more vocal in exposing Haeckel's fraudulent intent in his infamous embryo drawings.

Haeckel used images of embryos of various species to support his theory that different animals pass through, or 'recapitulate', similar embryonic stages. But it was recently shown in the scientific journal Nature that Haeckel removed the limbs from the image of a young echidna embryo (and other species also) in order to make the young embryos look more alike than they do in real life. The removal of limbs was selective, as it was done only to particular developmental stages.

Haeckel's evolution-promoting motive is clear from the text accompanying his drawings: 'There is still no trace of the limbs or "extremities" in this stage of development...'.

Nature, 8 March 2001, p. 144.

Darwin and others have reasoned that descendants along various evolutionary lineages would demonstrate similar embryonic morphologies during the earliest stages. Closely related organisms would show differences only during the latest stages, whereas distantly related ones should display ever widening differences as the embryo develops. Haeckel (1834-1919), a flamboyant German biologist, provided a series of drawings which conveniently demonstrated just this. These pictures appear even today in graduate-level Biology textbooks, such as American Academy of Science president Bruce Alberts' Molecular Biology of the Cell, with no statement that this evidence is a well-established blatant fraud, a shameless fake. Even Darwin, who called this his 'strongest single class of facts', was duped.

Photographs of the embryos Haeckel selected demonstrate virtually no resemblance with his drawings. Additionally, Haeckel did not draw the first stage of growth, where closest resemblance was predicted, but selected precisely the stages where five (out of the seven) carefully selected vertebrate classes are least different. For the amphibian class the natural choice would have been a frog, which looks, however, very different than the other four organisms used, so a salamander was used as (uh) representative (ahem) for this class. Apparently all this was not good enough for him. 'In some cases, Haeckel used the same woodcut to print embryos that were supposedly from different classes' (p. 91).

Although the embryos vary in size from less than 1 mm to almost 10 mm, Haeckel portrayed them the same size. Wells points out that the processes of cleavage (subdivision in many separate cells without overall growth) and gastrulation (movement and rearrangement of the cells to form organs and other structures) proceed before the point in time drawn by Haeckel. Here is where Darwin's expectations should be tested, and there is 'certainly not a pattern in which the earliest stages are the most similar and later stages are more different' (p. 97). In fact, the evidence points clearly to unrelated lineages and not a common ancestor.

Another myth is the claim human embryos go through a fish-like stage and display gill slits. These pharyngeal folds are not gills.14 Ironically, they're not even gills in pharyngula-stage fish embryos, although they do develop into these later, 'but in a reptile, mammal, or bird they develop into other structures entirely (such as the inner ear and parathyroid gland)' (p. 107). In reptiles, mammals, and birds they never resemble gills, and what is observed are merely some parallel lines in the neck region.

Professor Douglas Futuyma, author of the 1998 textbook Evolutionary Biology, responded in February 2000 via an internet forum to a critic who had accused him of lying by using Haeckel's drawings as evidence for evolution. He admitted he had not been aware of Haeckel's dishonesty, a rather staggering admission. It is important to always be sceptical of those endless, but transient 'proofs' for evolution. They reflect over-enthusiastic and selective use of data when it appears to support a pre-conceived evolutionary mind-set. Incidentally, Futuyma's admission was not an example of 'science' correcting itself, but the result of a 'creationist' setting the record straight (p. 109).

Taken from a review of "Icons of Evolution" by Jonathon Wells

Re: Haeckel's Work as ArtWhile it is true that Haeckel's work is indeed beautiful as art, as indeed is nature itself, the whole motive of his work was not artistic but scientific. So, although the drawings may be beautiful works of art they are deliberately fraudulent scientifically as Haeckel himself admitted. Even George Gaylord Simpson, famous evolutionist and others equally committed to the evolutionary theory, reject Haeckels theory as unscientific.

Haeckel's 'ongoing contribution' is still sadly found even today in textbooks of science.

AnswerIt seems my answer was reverted, so I shall repost it. The above post is almost entirely an outright graft from the cited "Icons of Evolution" by Jonathan Wells and is frought with inaccuracies and false implication.

Let's begin at the beginning. Ernst Haeckel was a German biologist of the late mid 1800s who made commentary on a large range of issues, ranging from philosophy to development to evolutionary theory to naming new species. He is often best-known for his (indeed zealous) promotion of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection, however he was also an accomplished artist, as anyone can see from his work "Kunstformen der Natur" ("Artforms of Nature").

Now to the "meat" of the controversy: Ernst Haeckel came up with many ideas related to biology, a number of them turning out to be false. Most famous is recapitulation theory, the idea that organisms directly express their evolutionary history during development, in respect to time. In the case of a human, for example, the general (simplified) idea would hold that after multicellularity, you go through a fish-like stage, then amphibian, then reptile, then mammalian, then ape, etc. This is very oversimplfied, but that is the general gist.

But this is not the case. While development does supply deep insight into evolutionary relationships and we can get glimpses of organs/parts which are no longer present in the adult form of animals, ontogeny is more complex and is differentiated between species, the differentiation increasing as the organism develops.

Adding to the controversy, Haeckel provided a number of illustrations for his ideas, claimed to be accurate representations of various animals in their development. These illustrations were challenged during Haeckel's lifetime during a number of scientific and personal feuds as overemphasizing the similarities of related organisms. This is merely a little bit of historical intrigue until you toss in modern creationism, a bit of bad-faith ID, and of course the fact that some modern textbooks still use copies of some of Haeckel's embryonic illustrations.

However, let's look at the "answer" which was actually a short paragraph or two and then a massive quote from Jonathan Wells. We start of well: he was indeed German and a zealous promoter of evolutionary theory, in this case natural selection and common descent. But nowhere is the biogenetic law sold as fact, certainly not by scientists or in schools. This is an old idea which was challenged and died around Haeckel's time and, as an inaccuracy, irrelevant ot the article.

Now, it is not this author's intent to play a 'gotcha' game, so the rest of this answer will tend to focus on anything implying inaccuracies or irrelevancies in the earlier answer and nothing more.

Recapitulation concerning Haeckel is not about passing through the stages of similar organisms, it is about development mirroring phylogeny. Haeckel's images, when used in modern textbooks, are never used to support recapitulation theory. They may be inaccurate drawings, but the statements of the texts are accurate. Darwin did not say that Haeckel's drawings were the greatest evidence for his theory, as is implied from the first answer. Instead, he said that about embryogenesis in general in "The Origin of Species", well before Haeckel's drawings were even made. As such, this inaccuracy is irrelevant.

It is wrong to say that Haeckel's drawings bear no resemblance to photographs of the same point in development. While those specific drawings are inaccurate, they are a product of cutting corners rather than outright fabrication.

It is an outright lie and sign of Wells' lack of academic integrity to say that Haeckel did not draw the earliest stages of development. There are numerous examples of even the zygote in his drawings. For evidence, merely check "Kunstformen der Natur", freely available online.

The next paragraph in the 'answer' has almost nothing to do with Haeckel but is instead an attack on Darwin (and then implicitly evolutionary theory). This is both entirely irrelevant and not a problem for scientists or evolution: Darwin got many things wrong, but he got the important things right. Haeckel did indeed draw developmental stages as the same size on paper, however again Wells blew this out or proportion.

The next paragraph makes no mention of Haeckel and is almost an entirely irrelevant answer, despite its false implications. Of course pharyngeal ridges are not gills. The only people confused about such a thing are those with almost no knowledge of the subject. There is nothing ironic about them not being actual gills in fish embryos.

Futuyma admitting ignorance about fudged drawings is not "staggering" unless jaywalking is now a heinous crime. Haeckel's fudging is generally only important as 1) an interesting historical fact and 2) a creationist talking point (where they, as usual, get most things wrong). It is are not evidence that an evolutionary biologist is not well-versed in the vast amount of work that has been done in the almost 150 years since The Origin of Species. The fact that Wells attempts to make it into an "atrocious" fact tells us everything we need to know about his integrity and how much you should trust him as a source on Haeckel.

However, we get a good view into the bias of the first answer with this quote: "It is important to always be sceptical of those endless, but transient 'proofs' for evolution." Now, not only has the response deviated entirely from Haeckel, but it is now touting the fudged drawings as being a part of a large, doubtful set, all in order to throw aspersions on evolutionary theory. Congratulations on a 'creationist' setting the record straight, if by that they mean being aware of a minor historical artifact for which the details were filled in by a fellow scientist.

Answer 2

He was a painter and separated protoctists into a kingdom called protoctista