Page 509 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Harun Yahya

An article in the October 16, 1999 edition of New Scientist brought Haeckel's embryology myth com-
pletely out into the open:

[Haeckel] called this the biogenetic law, and the idea became popularly known as recapitulation. In fact
Haeckel's strict law was soon shown to be incorrect. For instance, the early human embryo never has func-
tioning gills like a fish, and never passes through stages that look like an adult reptile or monkey. 61

Thus, what could be called the most popular supposed proof of all time for evolution—the "recapitu-

lation" theory—was invalidated.
But even while Haeckel's fabrications came to light, another falsification close to that of Haeckel con-
tinued to go unnoticed: namely, Darwinism.
As we saw earlier, Darwin discounted other scientists' negative views of Haeckel's interpretative

drawings at the time and used them to bolster his own theory. But this was not the only point where
Darwinism diverged from the truth. Much more striking is that he presented the views of Karl Ernst von
Baer—reputedly the most noted embryologist of the time—as distorted. Jonathan Wells' Icons of
Evolution explains in detail that von Baer did not accept Darwin's theory and harshly refuted it. He was
also firmly against evolutionist interpretations of embryology, formulating the rule that "the embryo of a

higher form never resembles any other form, but only its embryo." 62 He also said that Darwinists dogmatically
"accepted the Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis as true before they set to the task of observing embryos." 63 But,
after the third edition of The Origin of the Species, Darwin distorted von Baer's interpretations and conclu-

sions and used them to bolster his own theory. As Wells explains:

Darwin cited von Baer as the source of his embryological evidence, but at the crucial point, Darwin distorted
that evidence to make it fit his theory. Von Baer lived long enough to object to Darwin's misuse of his obser-
vations, and he was a strong critic of Darwinian evolution until his death in 1876. But Darwin persisted in cit-
ing him anyway, making him look like a supporter of the very doctrine of evolutionary parallelism he

explicitly rejected. 64

In short, Darwin exploited his time's primitive scientific conditions to make false and prejudiced de-
ductions; and took advantage of the limitations in communications in order to distort other scientists'
findings.
This fact's coming to light—late though it is—is doubtlessly a major blow to Darwinism. Darwin re-
ceived help from Haeckel's falsifications and portrayed embryology as in favor of his theory. 65 Many

people were deceived by this myth and in their naïve ignorance, accepted that they once had gills.
But that was then. Now it is known that embryology does not prove Darwinism. Now the same slo-
gan must be reiterated in the field of embryology.

Once upon a time, there was Darwinism!

Adnan Oktar 507