Posted on 03/14/2009 10:03:26 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Haeckel: legacy of fraud to popularise Evolution
Pauli J. Ojala and Matti Leisola
Embryology was once called Entwicklungsgeschichte, the evolutionary history of organisms. This history was believed to repeat itself during the development of every new individual. Ernst Haeckel’s typology combined the pamphlets of Goethe, classification schemes of Cuvier and ‘mechanisms’ of Lamarckian inheritance of acquired properties, and put them into a Darwinian phylogenetic framework. Haeckel’s fraud applies not only to the ‘fake embryos’ diagram. He constructed the first all-embracing phylogenetic tree, and described the first prehistoric man even before any evidence was found. Haeckel fabricated drawings on the spontaneous generation of life from inorganic material in his article ‘Monera’ that were recycled in textbooks through the critical years of the evolutionary takeover until the 1920s. The Haeckelian legacy provided logical justification for the myth of an inability of newborns to feel pain, abortion legislation, psychoanalysis and even the sexual revolution. Haeckel provided an arsenal of slogans and novel terminology for materialism. His Monist League openly claimed evolutionism as the ultimate scientific religion. It indoctrinated the common people with a scientific denial of any ‘dualism’, the existence of matter and spirit, appealing to the proto-fascists and socialists alike, as indicated in the massive correspondence to Haeckel from all over the world. Haeckel was a Darwinian demagogue. Discoveries of correspondence from Fennoscandinavia imply that the exaggerated Haeckelism dominated Darwinism not only in Germany but in Nordic countries as well.1...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
Turns out that exogenous change in organisms is not only possible, but frequent. One such process is called METHYLATION.
The science (scientific knowledge) surrounding this process is relatively new so almost no one who reguarly posts on FR would have learned it in highschool or earlier.
Methylation works far faster than "mutations" that directly affet the basepairs of the genome.
Also see:
Ernst Haeckel: Evangelist for evolution and apostle of deceit
http://creation.com/ernst-haeckel-evangelist-for-evolution-and-apostle-of-deceit
for later reading
Thanks for the ping!
Haeckel has been mostly rejected by modern biologists; no one ascribes accuracy to Haeckel’s most famous maxim, “Ontology recapitulates phylogeny.” Stephen Jay Gould is an excellent author to start with if you’re interested in the more recent scientific support for the theory of Evolution.
The framework that Haeckel thought was the mechanism for evolution has been critiqued and discarded. The article you cite is of great interest to historians of science, but really does not disprove evolution. That theory has moved far beyond Haeckel’s beliefs and does not employ them anymore.
The political roots of darwinism laid bare.
thanks for the ping!
Evolution is perfectly compatible with Christianity. The only fraud is contained in such cartoonishly foolish sites as Journal of Creation that exist solely to prop up Christians who are of perilously weak faith.
“Evolution is perfectly compatible with Christianity.”
It is as far as I’m concerned. However, that does not mean that it is good science.
Let’s consider Freudian psychology. One could debate its compatibility with Christianity. To me, that is irrelevant. It just isn’t good science. The same statements hold for Marxism. They hold again for man-made global warming.
I realize that there are many people who disagree with your claim above. Some Christians might find Freudian psychology, Marxism, and even man-made global warming to be at odds with Christianity. Even if we don’t agree with their position, it does not mean that any of these fields are good science.
->>The political roots of darwinism laid bare.<<
What this seems to be saying, thought, is that because someone who died in the 1800’s published some incorrect drawings we should reject the more modern and correct science that has been discovered since then..
That seems like an odd argument particularly since the criticism of the these drawings came from inside the scientific community and began early enough in Haeckel’s life that we have his responses - saying that they were errors not deliberate changes.
Doesn’t matter to me whether they’re accepted or not. But the truth of the matter is, the movement has always been a political movement. A racist political movement at that.
That’s the truth huh? Are you sure?
>>Doesn’t matter to me whether they’re accepted or not. But the truth of the matter is, the movement has always been a political movement. A racist political movement at that.<<
I’d like to disagree with you. But to everything man has created from hunting parties to governments, sports, science , military etc we bring our flaws. Distrust or even hatred based on being different, particularly if the difference is visible like race is one of the worst flaws and it finds its way into science as surely as water flows down hill.
But I’d argue that is a flaw of man. not particularly of science, and that science has more checks and balances against racism than most other human endeavors.
You could even argue today that science has gone too far on race for political correctness reasons - we don’t want to acknowledge that different groups may have different abilities - any test that shows that is declared flawed or even racist.
So I disagree that developmental biology (a term I use since “darwinism is long outdated) is racist - while agreeing that it certainly can and has been used that way.
Do all the frauds in religion disprove religion as well?
If no - why not?
I rest my case.
What this seems to be saying, thought, is that because someone who died in the 1800’s published some incorrect drawings after Darwin had already written The Descent of Man.
It's called retrooriginism. Blame Haeckel 1874 for Darwin 1871. Blame Darwin 1859 for Marx 1848.
So really Hitler was ultimately responsible for the creation of Communism.
And actually Haeckel only died in 1919, not the 1800s
Your retro theory doesn’t quite work. Marx’s seminal work, Das Kapital was written in 1867, well after Darwin’s Origin of Species(1859). The truth is, the works of Marx straddled the works of Darwin, with his most important works following Darwin’s Origin. The truth is, Marx was a good deal more enthusiastic about an association between their respective works than was Darwin. Marx wanted Darwin to write an introduction to a second edition of Das Kapital. Darwin begged off. Darwin treated Marx with the same respectful coolness he might have accorded a skunk discovered under his front porch. It is obvious Darwin wanted little to do with Marx even only as a respectable colleague.
As for Hitler being the creator of Communism – you’re going to have to explain that whopper. Communism was an old, old idea before either Hitler or Marx; old before the French Revolution; old even before 1620 when the Pilgrims briefly dabbled in a disastrous communist experiment and nearly starved to death.
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