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Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel ( February 16, 1834 - 1919) was a German biologist and philosopher who popularized Charles Darwin's work in Germany. Haeckel was a physician and, later, a professor of comparative anatomy; Haeckel was one of the first to consider psychology as a branch of physiology. He also proposed many now ubiquitous terms including " phylum" and " ecology." His chief interests lay in evolution and life development at large, including an interest in development of nonrandom form which culminated in beautifully illustrated Kunstformen der Natur ("Art forms of nature").
Haeckel's observations on the link between ontogenyOntogeny (also ontogenesis or morphogenesis) describes the origin and the development of an organism from the fertilized egg to its mature form. Ontogeny is studied in developmental biology. The idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, i. that the deve and phylogenyA phylogeny (or phylogenesis) is the origin and evolution of a set of organisms, usually of a species. A major task of systematics is to determine the ancestral relationships among known species (both living and extinct), and the most commonly used method have been named the " recapitulation law ", summed up in the phrase, ontogeny recapitulates phylogenyOntogeny recapitulates phylogeny", also called the "biogenetic law" or the theory of recapitulation , is a now discredited hypothesis in biology first espoused in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel. Ontogeny is the development of the embryos of a given species; phylog. Unfortunately, Haeckel's effort to prove the law was itself probably misguided and inaccurate.
Haeckel was also known for his " biogenic law ", in which he suggested that the development of races paralleled the development of individuals. He advocated the idea that "primitive" racesUntermensch ( German: subhuman is a term from Nazi racial ideology. Derived from nineteenth century racial theory, Nazi ideology held that the Germanic peoples were the master race, and that all other peoples represented lesser races of varying degrees. were in their infancies and need the "supervision" and "protection" of more "mature" societies.
Haeckel was a flamboyant figure whose popularity with the public was substantially higher than it was with many of his scientific peers. Although Haeckel's ideas are important to the history of evolutionary theory and he was a competent invertebrateInvertebrate is a term coined by Chevalier de Lamarck to describe any animal without a backbone or vertebra, like insects, squids and worms. He divided them into two groups, the Insecta and the Vermes. However, the invertebrates are not a coherent group o anatomist, most famous for his work on radiolariaRadiolaria are amoeboid protozoa that produce intricate mineral skeletons, typically with a central capsule dividing the cell into inner and outer portions, called endoplasm and ectoplasm. They are found as plankton throughout the ocean, and their shells, most of the speculative concepts that he championed are now seen as incorrect.
For example, Haeckel described and named hypothetical ancestral micro-organisms that have not been found and almost certainly do not exist. His concept of recapitulation has been disproved. Haeckel did not support " survival of the fittest" instead believing in a Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics. On top of picking the wrong theories to support, he was caught using doctored data in some of his papers.
- Ernst Haeckel did forge. Many of his pictures of organisms simply are inventions to prove his theory... Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, (Source: German weekly DIE ZEIT 22/2003 Wir Deutschen sind nicht moralisch höher stehend http://www.zeit.de/wissen/biotechnologie/winnuess )
