Page 165 - Confessions of the Evolutionists
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CHAPTER 24.
CHAPTER 24.
EVOLUTIONISTS' CONFESSIONS
REGARDING THE
INVALIDITY OF RECAPITULATION
T he theory of recapitulation, first proposed by Ernst Haeckel to-
T
wards the end of the 19 century, claimed that during their
th
embryological development, living things repeated the evolu-
tionary process experienced by their forerunners.
He suggested, for example, that during its development in its moth-
er's womb, the human embryo exhibited first fish-like and then reptilian
features, before finally becoming human. Subsequently, however, it
emerged that this theory was totally a figment of the imagination. In fact,
Haeckel himself confessed to the frauds he had perpetrated in the illus-
trations he produced to support this imaginary scenario. The fact that
some evolutionists still give credence to Haeckel's imaginary scenario,
and the illustrations that he admitted were fraudulent, shows how far
they have lagged behind the scientific literature.
Ernst Haeckel:
After this compromising confession of "forgery," I should be obliged to
consider myself condemned and annihilated if I had not the consolation
of seeing side by side with me in the prisoner's dock hundreds of fellow-
culprits, among them many of the most trusted observers and most es-
teemed biologists. The great majority of all the diagrams in the best bio-
logical textbooks, treatises and journals would incur in the same degree
the charge of "forgery," for all of them are inexact, and are more or less
doctored, schematisized and constructed. 412
George Gaylord Simpson professor of zoology at Columbia
University:
