Talk:Ernst Haeckel

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Contents

1 Possible Copy Written Material 2 Indexing Problem 3 POV 4 Seeking source 5 Removing Reference Section 6 Stephen Jay Goulds comments on Haeckel

Possible Copy Written Material

Why is this page identical to http://www.yourencyclopedia.net/Ernst_Haeckel.html ?

Since Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU FDL, anyone may duplicate its contents. Many websites have copied Wikipedia material wholesale, often annoyingly stealing link precedence (since Wikipedia tends to be slower and less stable, because it is still being edited). Anyway, that page is one such - you can read the GNU FDL disclaimer (as required by the license) at the bottom, as well as an attribution to Wikipedia. Graft 16:10, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

DoH! It didn't occur to me that maybe they had "borrowed" from here. Thanks. DavidR 16:17, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Indexing Problem

When I entered "Haeckel" in the Search box, WP could not find this entry. I had to locate it by searching for "ecology" and using the Haeckel link there. I have seen variant spellings of his name and wonder if the "correct" one, i.e., the one in use by WP, is not listed in the index dictionary (or whatever one calls it). -- WLH

POV

Major POV problems with discussion of theory, much of this page is plagarized without legit. sources. --Goferwiki

From what source is it plagiarized? -Willmcw 04:55, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

I removed the old heading, I was confused, I thought the author lifted the text of this article from an article referenced on the above website. My humblest apologies to the author. However, the discussion of the theory is still no where near acceptable. I am changing the tag on the article to NPOV because of the slant in the disussion of the theory. Goferwiki 04:34, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Haeckel's observations on the link between ontogeny (development of form) and phylogeny (evolutionary descent) have been named the "recapitulation theory", summed up in the phrase, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". Haeckel's efforts to prove this hypothesis were probably misguided and inaccurate.

Haeckel was also known for his "biogenic theory", in which he suggested that the development of races paralleled the development of individuals. He advocated the idea that "primitive" races were in their infancies and needed the "supervision" and "protection" of more "mature" societies.

Haeckel was a flamboyant figure whose popularity with the public was substantially greater than it was with his scientific peers. Although Haeckel's ideas are important to the history of evolutionary theory, and he was a competent invertebrate anatomist most famous for his work on radiolaria, most of the speculative concepts that he championed are now seen as incorrect. For example, Haeckel described and named hypothetical ancestral micro-organisms that have not been found and almost certainly did not exist. His concept of recapitulation has been disproven. Haeckel did not support Darwin's "survival of the fittest", rather believing in a Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics. On top of picking several wrong concepts to champion, he was actually caught using doctored data in some of his papers. Most notably his drawings of embryos were known, even by contemporaries, to deliberately misrepresent the similarities between embryos of different species.

How is this POV? Should it not acknowledge that his ideas are now seen as incorrect? Can you be more specific as to you concerns? Thanks, -Willmcw 05:17, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I assume Haeckel didn't feel his data was doctored. Sam Spade 16:54, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So if we added "Haeckel presumably acted in good faith" would that take care of the POV issue? -Willmcw 18:46, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

"On top of picking several wrong concepts to champion, he was actually caught using doctored data in some of his papers. Most notably his drawings of embryos were known, even by contemporaries, to deliberately misrepresent the similarities between embryos of different species."

That seems to preculde good faith on Haeckel's part, and strikes me as opinionated. It would be good to cite a source on these criticisms. Sam Spade 20:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

So would deleting that statement remove the POV from the article? (Though if it were sourced, I suppose it owuld belong.) -Willmcw 20:30, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Anti-Haeckel propaganda is part of the creationist playbook...discrediting him (and thus, the similarity in embryos) is part of the effort to "disprove" evolution. Obviously, that says nothing about whether things are true or false, but it does suggest that one should be on the lookout for hidden subtext and pov. Guettarda 20:52, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

So now that the offending sentence has been removed, can we remove the POV tag? Any other serious issues? -Willmcw 21:40, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

No, let me give you a few more examples of POV issues: "Haeckel's efforts to prove this hypothesis were probably misguided and inaccurate." This is not a fact, and furthermore relies on the premise that one thinks the recapitulation theory is innacurate. You should just state the theory, without any value-judgments imposed on that definition. Another POV: "For example, Haeckel described and named hypothetical ancestral micro-organisms that have not been found and almost certainly did not exist." You may be able to say that these microorganisms to date have not been found, but you can make no scientific/factual claim that they do not exist. There is no proof as yet of them, but there has been no evidence to scientifically rule them out either. This is a value-judgement and not encyclopedic in nature. Goferwiki 14:40, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Please fix it or take down the POV tag. Thanks. -Willmcw 20:25, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Seeking source

On top of picking several wrong concepts to champion, he was actually caught using doctored data in some of his papers. Most notably his drawings of embryos were known, even by contemporaries, to deliberately misrepresent the similarities between embryos of different species.

The above paragraph is seeking a source, so that it might be reworded and restored to the article. Sam Spade 20:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Have a look at talk.origins (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/haeckel.html): (His theory was invalid, some of his drawings were faked, and he willfully over-interpreted the data to prop up a false thesis. Furthermore, he was influential, both in the sciences and the popular press; his theory still gets echoed in the latter today) and antievolution.org (http://www.antievolution.org/topics/law/ar_hb2548/Haeckels_embryos.htm) (Though Haeckel defended the relative accuracy of his figures he nevertheless modified them in later editions of his book to make them more technically accurate, a fact even noted by Haeckel's modern critic Michael Richardson. (Richardson 1998, p.1289) While it might be true that in hindsight both Haeckel and His's figures were not always entirely accurate, none of the minor errors they may contain once corrected change the status of the evidence they illustrate for evolution.). Guettarda 21:09, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I think if we can provide an objective source (not associated with supporting/not supporting the creationist movement, that provides clear evidence that his figues and data were doctored, we can remove POV. As of date, I can not find an academic source that does this. I have only found these statements echoed in pro-creationist propaganda. Goferwiki 14:31, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

That's why I quoted anti-creationist sites. Haeckel is a big issue for creationists; whatever the anti-creationists concede is likely to be uncontorvertial (and so a good starting point). They also include references. Guettarda 14:50, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for finding those, User:Guettarda. What more do we need? Should we rewrite the paragraph so it says that the earliest drawings were inaccurate, but were later fixed? Would that be NPOV? -Willmcw 08:30, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

Yes. If someone has a source accusing him of wrongdoing citing it would be fine, but expressing certainty of intentional fraud in the narrative strikes me as unfair. Being that he was a reputable scientist, and considering the standards of the times, intentional fraud strikes me as unlikely anyhow. Can't the man just make mistakes, or be a crappy scetch artist, etc...? Sam Spade 20:04, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Would it not make sense to locate the diagrams of embryonic development drawn by Haeckel and simply compare them with photographs of the real thing? Such a direct graphic comparison I think would be an invaluable resource for this entry. I think, if this comparison does not show willful fraud, at the very least it would highlight any innacuracies present, leaving interpretations of willful fraud up to the reader, or whatever source you eventually find on his intent. I would imagine the drawings themselves would not be difficult to locate, they are reproduced in many highschool biology textbooks, and I'm guessing are by now in the public domain. The difficult part I think may be in locating the photos of actual embryos of those various species suitable for comparison. Though a photo of a human embryo alone may be sufficient, simply to show that it does not have gills, as Haeckel's diagram of a human embryo seems to show. It seems to me this would strike right at the heart of the issue, allowing the reader to be less dependant on second hand accounts of such comparisons.

such a comparison is done on this site: http://zygote.swarthmore.edu/evo5.html

From what I know, it does not seem undisputed that Haeckel was aware that he was purposefully fudging the appearance of his drawings. Take a look at this website http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/embryos/Haeckel.html. It is a site written by Dr. Kenneth Miller who is a strong pro-evolutionist and has written several biology text books. On this site he makes the follwing statement: "This (my note - that idea that Haeckel faked his drawings) idea has been pushed back into the news recently by the news that Haeckel's drawings of embryonic similarities were not correct. British embryologist Michael Richardson and his colleages published an important paper in the August 1997 issue of Anatomy & Embryology showing that Haeckel had fudged his drawings to make the early stages of embryos appear more alike than they actually are! As it turns out, Haeckel's contemporaries had spotted the fraud during his lifetime, and got him to admit it. However, his drawings nonetheless became the source material for diagrams of comparative embryology in nearly every biology textbook, including ours!" So more than 100 years later the evolutionary texts continue to use drawings that are knwon to be false but seem to be slowly changing over to the accurate representations. It seems academically disingenuous to refuse to accept what has been known for a hundred years. Does the fact that Haeckel faked the drawings change the fact that embryos do appear similar as they develop? No. But does the fact that they do appear to have similar appearances prove that evolution is true? No. This is not an issue of whether or not what Haeckel did supports the creationist viewpoint or not. Just because creationists use the fact that Haeckel was extremely inaccurate in his drawings does not change the fact that he was inaccurate. There seems to be adequate evidence from credible academic sources who are not creationists (and again the source of the information does not matter a hill of beans as long as the information is accurate) that Haeckel did what he did on purpose to try to advance the evolutionary thought of his time.

I have made a few edits which warrant removing NPOV so I am going to do that. I think the article is good how it is. Goferwiki 09:52, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Removing Reference Section

I am removing this section because 1) the article the person posted is in German, 2) the person put their own opinion on it.Goferwiki 09:42, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Here is what was in the article "*Ernst Haeckel did forge. Many of his pictures of organisms simply are inventions to prove his theory... Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, (Source: German weekly DIE ZEIT 22/2003 Wir Deutschen sind nicht moralisch höher stehend [[1] (http://www.zeit.de/wissen/biotechnologie/winnuess)])" Unacceptable Goferwiki 09:43, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Stephen Jay Goulds comments on Haeckel

I also have found some comments from arguably one of the more recent "poster child"s for Evolution, Stephen Jay Gould. He is a completely secular, non-creationist and credible source that casts a shadow on Haeckels famous diagrams of animal fetuses. Due to copyright issues, I'm playing it safe and not including the actual text, but you can go to the website below and confirm it. It is from the March 2000 issue of Natural History "Abscheulich! - Atrocious! - the precursor to the theory of natural selection" , and Gould in no uncertain terms makes it clear you cannot trust the embryo diagrams and that its unfortunate it found its way into scientific texts.

I think the Wikapedia article on Haeckel should be more clear that the embryo diagrams for which he is most famous, were and still are highly contested by the majority of scientists ( including thosse who are pro-Evolution)

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_2_109/ai_60026710/pg_2