Page 166 - Confessions of the Evolutionists

164 CONFESSIONS OF THE EVOLUTIONISTS

HAECKEL'S FAKE DRAWINGS

Fish Salamander Tortoise Chick Hog Calf Rabbit Human

Haeckel's aim in preparing this imaginary picture was to give the impression
that living things are descended from one another. But in doing so, Haeckel
perpetrated a fraud. In order to be able to point to a similarity among em-
bryos that actually bore no resemblance to one another, he added imaginary
sections to them, or else removed others.
Haeckel's theory of recapitulation maintained that during the developmental
process, living embryos repeated the evolutionary process undergone by
their ancestors. He suggested, for example, that in its mother's womb, a hu-
man embryo first exhibited fish-like gills, followed by reptilian characteris-
tics, before finally turning into a human being. Later years, however,
showed that this scenario was utterly imaginary. The supposed gills that ap-
pear during the earliest stages of development actually turned out to be the
middle ear canal and the beginnings of the parathyroid and thymus glands.
Another part of the embryo, equated with a fish's yolk sac was revealed to
be a sac that produces blood for the baby. That part described as the tail by
Haeckel and his followers is in fact the human backbone and resembles a
tail only because it develops before the legs. Evolutionists now describe this
hoax committed by Haeckel as one of the worst frauds in biology.