Exorcising the spectre of Haeckel again
quote:
I looked at 15 books in total. Where Haeckel's drawings appeared, that fact is noted. Where comment on Haeckel or his law is given, I have quoted the text faithfully, or in one case summarized, to give the flavor of the commentary.
Of the 15 books, only 5 show Haeckel's drawings, two in whole, three in part.
Of those 5, only one presents the biogenetic law uncritically, and that book is the 1937 H. C. Skinner, T. Smith, F. M. Wheat "Textbook in Educational Biology".
The other 4 of these 5, along with another 7 that actually mention Haeckel, either dismiss Haeckel's laws as crude or incorrect, or else critique them in the sense that embryos resemble one another at early stages, but that adaptational pressures have obscured or removed most of the similarities.
More details in the article.
Edited by PaulK, : Corrected link
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