Page 82 - The Evolution Impasse 2

80 OH 62: A Species of Ape

tion, com plete ly in de pend ent mu ta - ONTOGENY
tions must have pro duced these life RECAPITULATES
forms twice, by chance! This fact pla - PHYLOGENY THEORY, THE
ces ev o lu tion ists in an even worse
(See al so The, Biogenetic Law and
di lem ma. Extraordinary sim i lar i ties
Theory of Recapitulation,)
like these, which con flict with the
The ev o lu tion ist bi ol o gist Ernst
ev o lu tion ist the sis of ho mol o gy,
Haeckel pro posed this the o ry to -
show that sim i lar or gans rep re sent
ward the end of the 19th cen tu ry.
no ev i dence for hav ing evolved from
The term re ca pit u la tion is used to
a com mon an ces tor. Indeed, the ex -
sum ma rize the the o ry.
act op po site can be ob served in some
Haeckel claimed that dur ing their
life forms: Some liv ing things, de -
de vel op men tal phas es, em bry os re -
spite be ing re gard ed by ev o lu tion -
peat ed the ev o lu tion a ry proc ess that
ists as very close ly re lat ed, have
their al leged an ces tors had un der -
some or gans that are com plete ly dif -
gone. For ex am ple, he main tained
fer ent from one an oth er.
that dur ing its de vel op ment in the
moth er's womb the hu man em bryo
ex hib it ed first fish-like gills and then
OH 62: A SPECIES OF APE
rep tile char ac ter is tics be fore fi nal ly
Evolutionists long sug gest ed that "evolv ing" in to a hu man ba by.
the fos sil crea ture to which they However, as time passed, it emerged
gave the name Homo ha bi lis was ca - that this sce nar io was to tal ly im ag i -
pa ble of walk ing up right. They thus nary.
thought that they had found a link Evolutionists al so ad mit this. One
be tween ape and man. However, the ar ti cle in American Scientist read:
new H. ha bi lis fos sils dis cov ered by
Surely the bi o ge net ic law [the re ca pit -
Tim White in 1986 and giv en the
u la tion the o ry] is as dead as a door nail.
name OH 62 de mol ished that claim. It was fi nal ly ex or cised from bi ol o gy
These fos sil parts showed that, just text books in the fif ties. As a top ic of se -
like present-day apes, H. ha bi lis had ri ous the o ret i cal in quiry it was ex tinct
long arms and short legs. This fos sil in the twen ties. 75
put an end to the claim that H. ha bi - To sup port his the o ry of re ca pit u -
lis was ca pa ble of walk ing up right. It la tion, Ernst Haeckel pro duced
was noth ing more than a spe cies of faked draw ings, at tempt ing to por -
ape. tray fish and hu man em bry os as re -

The Evolution Impasse II