[Virginia-American]

Ontogeny (embryonic development) does not recapture phylogeny (evolution), and thus Haeckel was wrong to say so, and of course, he was wrong to alter these drawings...

However, like anatomy, ontogeny does follow a remarkable progression when you move from species to species in the evolutionary chain...

There are some amazing facts that led Haeckel astray

My favorite is the way that mammalian ear bones start out in the jaw and then migrate to the ear. This exactly mimics the fossil progression from reptiles to mammals.

It also pretty much disproves ID because an engineer faced with the task of making a better ear would leave a perfectly good jaw joint alone and simply modify the ear.

Other examples of embryological vestigisms are the egg shell that forms around a developing marsupial embryo (and is reabsorbed before it's born), and the egg teeth that some marsupials have but never use.

[Seamoth]

Amazing! Thanks for the information!

It also pretty much disproves ID because an engineer faced with the task of making a better ear would leave a perfectly good jaw joint alone and simply modify the ear.

I don't know much biology but I know a little about computers. I made this observation. Nature does not resemble the solutions that computer engineers create. Nature resembles far more the solutions that genetic algorithms & similar models create: a muddled jumble formed by endless generations of random improvisations upon random improvisations, often with critical weaknesses. It's hard to believe, for example, that a God would use such a vunerable thorax/neck.