a

. “This generalization was originally called the biogenetic law by Haeckel and is often stated as ‘ontogeny [the development of an embryo] recapitulates [repeats] phylogeny [evolution].’ This crude interpretation of embryological sequences will not stand close examination, however. Its shortcomings have been almost universally pointed out by modern authors, but the idea still has a prominent place in biological mythology.” Paul R. Ehrlich and Richard W. Holm, The Process of Evolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 66.

“It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny.” [emphasis in original] George Gaylord Simpson and William S. Beck, Life: An Introduction to Biology (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1965), p. 241.

Hitching, pp. 202–205.

“The enthusiasm of the German zoologist, Ernst Haeckel, however, led to an erroneous and unfortunate exaggeration of the information which embryology could provide. This was known as the ‘biogenetic law’ and claimed that embryology was a recapitulation of evolution, or that during its embryonic development an animal recapitulated the evolutionary history of its species.”  Gavin R. deBeer, An Atlas of Evolution (New York: Nelson, 1964), p. 38.

“... the theory of recapitulation has had a great and, while it lasted, regrettable influence on the progress of embryology.” Gavin R. deBeer, Embryos and Ancestors, revised edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1951), p. 10.

“Moreover, the biogenetic law has become so deeply rooted in biological thought that it cannot be weeded out in spite of its having been demonstrated to be wrong by numerous subsequent scholars.” Walter J. Bock, “Evolution by Orderly Law,” Science, Vol. 164, 9 May 1969, pp. 684–685.

“... we no longer believe we can simply read in the embryonic development of a species its exact evolutionary history.” Hubert Frings and Marie Frings, Concepts of Zoology (Toronto: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1970), p. 267.

“The type of analogical thinking which leads to theories that development is based on the recapitulation of ancestral stages or the like no longer seems at all convincing or even interesting to biologists.” Conrad Hal Waddington, Principles of Embryology (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1956), p. 10.

“Surely the biogenetic law is as dead as a doornail.” Keith Stewart Thomson, “Ontogeny and Phylogeny Recapitulated,” American Scientist, Vol. 76, May–June 1988, p. 273.

“The biogenetic law—embryologic recapitulation—I think, was debunked back in the 1920s by embryologists.” David Raup, as taken from page 16 of an approved and verified transcript of a taped interview conducted by Luther D. Sunderland on 27 July 1979. [See also Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma (San Diego: Master Book Publishers, 1984), p. 119.]

“The theory of recapitulation was destroyed in 1921 by Professor Walter Garstang in a famous paper. Since then no respectable biologist has ever used the theory of recapitulation, because it was utterly unsound, created by a Nazi-like preacher named Haeckel.” Ashley Montagu, as quoted by Sunderland, p. 119.

b

. Haeckel, who in 1868 advanced this “biogenetic law” that was quickly adopted in textbooks and encyclopedias worldwide, distorted his data. Thompson explains:

A natural law can only be established as an induction from facts. Haeckel was of course unable to do this. What he did was to arrange existing forms of animal life in a series proceeding from the simple to the complex, intercalating [inserting] imaginary entities where discontinuity existed and then giving the embryonic phases names corresponding to the stages in his so-called evolutionary series. Cases in which this parallelism did not exist were dealt with by the simple expedient of saying that the embryological development had been falsified. When the “convergence” of embryos was not entirely satisfactory, Haeckel altered the illustrations of them to fit his theory. The alterations were slight but significant. The “biogenetic law” as a proof of evolution is valueless.  W. R. Thompson, p. 12.

“To support his case he [Haeckel] began to fake evidence. Charged with fraud by five professors and convicted by a university court at Jena, he agreed that a small percentage of his embryonic drawings were forgeries; he was merely filling in and reconstructing the missing links when the evidence was thin, and he claimed unblushingly that ‘hundreds of the best observers and biologists lie under the same charge’.” Pitman, p. 120.

M. Bowden, Ape-Men: Fact or Fallacy? 2nd edition (Bromley, England: Sovereign Publications, 1981), pp. 142–143.

Wilbert H. Rusch, Sr., “Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 6, June 1969, pp. 27–34.

“... ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, meaning that in the course of its development [ontogeny] an embryo recapitulates [repeats] the evolutionary history of its species [phylogeny]. This idea was fathered by Ernst Haeckel, a German biologist who was so convinced that he had solved the riddle of life’s unfolding that he doctored and faked his drawings of embryonic stages to prove his point.”  Fix, p. 285.

“[The German scientist Wilhelm His] accused Haeckel of shocking dishonesty in repeating the same picture several times to show the similarity among vertebrates at early embryonic stages in several plates of [Haeckel’s book].” Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977), p. 430.

“It looks like it’s turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology.” Michael K. Richardson, as quoted by Elizabeth Pennisi, “Haeckel’s Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered,” Science, Vol. 277, 5 September 1997, p. 1435.

“When we compare his [Haeckel’s] drawings of a young echidna embryo with the original, we find that he removed the limbs (see Fig. 1). This cut was selective, applying only to the young stage. It was also systematic because he did it to other species in the picture. Its intent is to make the young embryos look more alike than they do in real life.”  Michael K. Richardson and Gerhard Keuck, “A Question of Intent: When Is a ‘Schematic’ Illustration a Fraud?” Nature, Vol. 410, 8 March 2001, p. 144.

c

. “Another point to emerge from this study is the considerable inaccuracy of Haeckel’s famous figures. These drawings are still widely reproduced in textbooks and review articles, and continue to exert a significant influence on the development of ideas in this field.”  Michael K. Richardson et al., “There Is No Highly Conserved Embryonic Stage in the Vertebrates,” Anatomy and Embryology, Vol. 196, No. 2, August 1997, p. 104.