Was Haeckels “Recapitulation Theory,” also known as the “biogenetic law” discredited?
The theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism, and often expressed as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. This theory, has since the early twentieth century, been refuted on many fronts. Haeckel’s drawings used artistic licence, his theory was associated with Lamarckism, it was quite clearly wrong in supposing that embryos passed through the adult stages of more primitive life-forms, it ignored organs such as teeth which are “held over” to a late developmental stage, and it was used by Haeckel to promote the supremacy of the white European male. However, the basic idea of recapitulation is still wide spread – Stephen Jay Gould’s first book begins by declaring that many medical professionals still believe, privately and informally, that there is “something in” the notion. Thus it is not totally discredited it very much depends on which scientist is evaluating Haeckel’s theory.
