Ernst Haeckel

1
Ernst Haeckel

• The Riddle of the Universe

2
Hackel

• Trained as a Physician but abandoned practice
  after reading Origin of Species
• Became a professor of comparative anatomy and
  intensely studied sponges and segments
• Dabbled in anthropology, biology and cosmology
• Was accused of falsifying data

3
Haeckel II.

• Was influenced both by the German idealistic
  tradition and by the works of Darwin
• Became one of the more vociferous supporters of
  evolution, but was less supportive of natural
  selection as the mechanism by which evolution
  occurred
• Believed that all species were historical
  entities (lineages) ?environment acted directly
  on organisms, producing new races

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Manifestations

• The survival of the races depends most strongly
  on their interaction with the environment
• His "biogenic theory", suggested that the
  development of races paralleled the development
  of individuals. He advocated that "primitive"
  races were in their infancies and needed the
  "supervision" and "protection" of more "mature"
  societies

5
The History of Creation (1868)

• "In order to be convinced of this important
  result, it is above all things necessary to study
  and compare the mental life of wild savages and
  of children. At the lowest stage of human mental
  development are the Australians, some tribes of
  the Polynesians, and the Bushmen, Hottentots, and
  some of the Negro tribes.
• In many of these languages there are numerals
  only for one, two, and three no Australian
  language counts beyond four. Very many wild
  tribes can count no further than ten or twenty,
  whereas some very clever dogs have been made to
  count up to forty and even beyond sixty."

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Theory of Recapitulation

• the development of the individual of every
  species fully repeats the evolutionary
  development of that species
• each successive stage in the development of an
  individual represents one of the adult forms that
  appeared in its evolutionary history.
• Totally wrong but still influential at the time