Ernst Haeckel

Ernst Heinrich Haeckel (1834-1919), German biologist and philosopher who popularized Charles Darwin's work in Germany. He was a physician and, later, a professor of comparative anatomy. [1] Haeckel was one of the first to consider psychology as a branch of physiology. He also proposed the term "ecology."

Haeckel's observations on the link between ontogeny and philogeny? have been named the "recapitulation law," summed up in the phrase, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. As Haeckel's effort to prove the law was itself provably misguided and inaccurate, he became a favorite target of creationists seeking to discredit the theory of evolution.

See [1] for a biography.

/Talk?

---

[1] http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/haeckel.html