Haeckel's Embryo Fraud

Ernst Haeckel was an amazing scientist at a crucial time in the history of biology. The legend of his fraud is largely manufactured.

His work reflected a certain ignorance of comparative embryology, and he probably skewed his illustrations to demonstrate his own theory, the biogenic (or "biogenetic") law. There is no evidence he was every convicted of fraud, he was not "kicked out" of the University of Jena, and all of Dr. Brad Harrub's assertions are based on poor research and factually false claims made by creationist author Jonathan Wells in his book "Icons of Evolution".

Rebutting Brad Harrub: Haeckel's Embryo Fraud



So, let's be clear on something that is often confused.
1. Haeckel's illustrations were an attempt to prove his own biogenic law, not evolution.
2. Comparative embryology, the similarities between tissues during development, show the same branching pattern that is seen in phylogenetics. That is, closely related organisms show very similar stages of development. THIS is the actual evidence for evolution to be taken from pictures of embryos found in textbooks.

Evolution of development ("evo-devo") has been one of the most productive areas of biology of the last two decades. Arguing that Haeckel's failure to prove his biogenetic law somehow affects the value of comparative embryology to demonstrate evolutionary relatedness is just false.

My apologies for the bad camera work. This was mid-way through the talk, and the seats were very uncomfortable. The "jiggling" was me adjusting my position and having to move my phone hand to relieve the strain.