"Recapitulation" (also called the "biogenetic law" or
"biogenic law") is the evolutionary theory that, at different stages in your
embryonic development in your mother's womb, you had the organs of your forebears. But
this ridiculous speculation has been repeatedly shown to be untrue by reputable
scientists. Here are some of their comments. Evolutionary theory is a myth. God created
everything; the evidence clearly points to it. Nothing else can explain the mountain of
evidence. This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia,
brought to you by Creation Science Facts.
CONTENTS: Scientists Speak about Recapitulation
Introduction - Zeal to prove evolution got the idea started
Scientists Deride the Theory - They declare it to be utter nonsense
Facts and Questions - The scientific evidence does not agree with the theory
Evolutionists Refuse to Accept the Facts - They continue to teach and publish this
error
Conclusion - The theory has been utterly rejected by competent scientists
Zeal to prove evolution got the idea started.
"The fertilized egg cell contains in its tiny nucleus not only all the genetic
instructions for building a human body, but also a complete manual on how to construct the
complex protective armamentarium—amnion, umbilical cord, placenta, and all that makes
possible the embryo's existence in the womb."—*Life, April 30, 1965, pp. 70,
72A.
"Biogenetic Law, or Recapitulation Theory, was considered by Darwin to be `second
to none' as an evidence of evolution."—H.M. Morris, W.W. Boardman and R.F.
Koontz, Science and Creation (1971), p. 45.
"According to it, ontogeny, the development of the individual recapitulates
phylogeny, the development of the race . . In this form the theory runs into so many
difficulties it clearly cannot be true. An immediate problem is presented by the fetal
membranes, the umbilical cord, and other fetal structures that cannot represent adult
structures of any period. Furthermore, mutations have been shown to modify all stages of
development, not just the final ones."—*G.B. Moment, General Zoology (1958),
p. 201.
"The theory of recapitulation was destroyed in 1921 by Professor Walter Garstang
in a famous paper; since then no respectable biologist has ever used the theory of
recapitulation, because it was utterly unsound, created by a Nazi-like preacher, named
Haeckel."—*Ashley Montagu, debate held April 12, 1980, at Princeton
University, quoted in L.D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma, p. 119.
"The rapid development of this science [of embryology] was due principally to the
enthusiasm created by the spreading of the theories announced by Darwin and Haeckel, and
that the `almost unanimous abandonment' of the recapitulation theory has left considerably
at a loss those investigators who sought in the structure of the organisms the key to
their remote origin or to their relationships."—*A.Weber, quoted in E.R.
Hooper, Does Science Support Evolution? (1947), p. 75. [*Weber is at the University of
Geneva.]
They declare it to be utter nonsense.
"What is it [evolution] based upon? Upon nothing whatever but faith, upon belief
in the reality of the unseen—belief in the fossils that cannot be produced, belief in
the embryological experiments that refuse to come off. It is faith unjustified by
works."—*Authur N. Field.
"The pharyngeal arches and clefts [creases] are frequently referred to as
branchial arches and branchial clefts in analogy with the lower vertebrates, [but] since
the human embryo never has gills called `branchia,' the term pharyngeal arches and clefts
has been adopted for this book."—*Jan Langman, Medical Embryology, 3rd ed.
(1975).
"Seldom has an assertion like that of Haeckel's `theory of recaptitulation,'
facile, tidy, and plausible, widely accepted without critical examination, done so much
harm to science."—*Gavin de Beer, A Century of Darwin (1958).
"As a law, this principle has been questioned, it has been subjected to careful
scrutiny and has been found wanting. There are too many exceptions to it."—*A.F.
Huettner, Fundamentals of Comparative Embryology of the Vertebrates, p. 48.
"The theory of recapitulation . . should be defunct today."—*Stephen
J. Gould, "Dr. Down's Syndrome," Natural History, April 1980, p. 144.
"This law has been seriously questioned and is so obviously inapplicable in many
instances that as a law it is now of historical interest only."—*W.R.
Breneman, Animal Form and Function (1954), p. 407.
"[The] biogenetic law has `been demonstrated to be wrong by numerous subsequent
scholars,' according to Bock, who was a biology professor at Columbia . .
"Raup and Stanley call the biogenetic law `largely in error'; Ehrlich and Holm
note its `shortcomings' and its place in `biological mythology'; Danson says that it is
`intellectually barren'; de Beer refers to the `evidence against the "biogenetic
law" of recapitulation in Haeckel's sense'; Encyclopedia Britannica calls it `in
error'; and even Mayr of Harvard describes the biogenetic law as `invalid.' In fact,
Haeckel, the formulator of the "biogenetic law,' supported it with `faked'
drawings."—W.R. Bird, Origin of the Species Revisited, Vol. 1, pp. 196-197.
[See Bird for sources.]
"Anatomically homologous parts in different related organisms appear to have quite
different embryonic origins. This is almost impossible to reconcile with orthodox
Darwinian or neo-Darwinian theory, and it is by no means evident at the time of writing
how such problems may be overcome."—*D. Oldroyd, "Charles Darwin's
Theory of Evolution: A Review of Our Present Understanding," Biology and Philosophy
(1986), p. 154.
The scientific evidence does not agree with the theory.
"A number of questions have been asked by serious scholars: First, if the
developing embryo is supposed to reenact the stages in the evolutionary history of the
race, why are so few stages included? Why would we find some of them appearing in the
wrong order? Why should we not find thousands of steps instead of only a few? Why does the
embryo go through some stages that could not possibly have been included in the history of
the animal? How can such stages as the egg, larva, pupa, and adult of a butterfly be
explained? Why do some parts of an embryo show recapitulation and other parts never show
it?"—*Cora Reno, Fact or theory? (1953), p. 69.
"One favorite example was the human heart. Supposedly, the heart passed through a
worm, fish, frog, and reptile stage before reaching its final form. It is true that at one
stage or another the heart in the human embryo has one chamber (as in the worm), two
chambers (as in the fish), three chambers (as in the frog), and four chambers with the
connection of the two sides (as in the reptile). But it should be noted that the heart in
human beings starts out with two chambers which fuse into one for a time. This sequence
actually reverses the stages of supposed evolution. There are reasons for each stage. The
`reptile stage' is necessary to shunt the blood around the lungs until after birth. Since
oxygen is received from the placenta before birth there is no use in sending a large
supply of blood to the lungs when it is not needed."—J.N. Moore and H.E.
Slusher, Biology: A Search for Order in Complexity (1970), p. 424.
". . so that the facts as we know them lend no support to the theory of
recapitulation."—*A. Sedgwick, Darwinism and Modern Science, p. 174.
"We see the development in the amniotic embryo of three successive kidney
structures: pronephros, mesoniphros, and metanephros. It is often stated or implied that
these three are distinct kidneys that have succeeded one another phylogenetically as they
do embryologically. However, there is little reason to believe this. The differences are
readily explainable on functional grounds."—*A. Romer and *T. Parsons, The
Vertebrate Body (1986), p. 407.
"After fifty years of research and close examination of the facts of embryology,
the recapitulation theory is still without satisfactory proof."—*A. Sedgwick,
Darwinism and Modern Science, p. 176.
"Structures as obviously homologous as the alimentary canal in all vertebrates can
be formed from the roof of the embryonic gut cavity (sharks), floor (lamprys, newts), roof
and floor (frogs), or from the lower layer of the embryonic disc, the blastoderm, that
floats on the top of heavily yolked eggs (reptiles, birds). It does not seem to matter
where in the eggs or the embyros the living substance out of which homologous structures
come from. Therefore homologous structures cannot be pressed back to similarity of
position of the cells of the embryo or the parts of the egg out of which these structures
are ultimately differentiated."—*Gavin R. de Beer, Homology, An Unsolved
Problem (1971), p. 13 [italics his].
"Now that the appearances of the embryo on all stages are known, the general
feeling is one of disappointment; the human embryo at no stage is anthropoid [animal-like]
in its appearance."—*Sir Arthur Keith, quoted E.R. Hooper, Does Science
Support Evolution? (1947), p. 76.
They continue to teach and publish this error.
"The biogenetic law was widely accepted by biologists and served as the basis for
the surge of embryological research that continues unabated to this day. Moreover, the
biogenetic law has become so deeply rooted in biological thought that it cannot be weeded
out in spite of its having been demonstrated to be wrong by numerous subsequent scholars.
Even today both subtle and overt uses of the biogenetic law are frequently encountered in
the general biological literature as well as in more specialized evolutionary and
systematic studies."—*W. Bock, "Book Review," Science, May 1969,
pp. 684-685 [Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University].
"This generalization was originally called the biogenic law by Haeckel, and is
often stated as `ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.' This crude interpretation of
embryological sequences will not stand close examination, however. Its shortcomings have
been almost universally pointed out by modern authors, but the idea still has a prominent
place in biological mythology."—*Paul R. Erlich and Richard W. Holm, Process
of Evolution (1963), p. 66.
The theory has been utterly rejected by competent scientists.
"It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny."—*George
Gaylord Simpson and *William S. Beck, Life: An Introduction to Biology (1965), p. 241.
"The theory of recapitulation has had a great and, while it lasted, regrettable
influence on the progress of embryology."—*Gavin R. de Beer, Embryos and
Ancestors (revised ed., 1951), p. 10.
"Well, the biogenetic law—embryologic recaptulation—I think was debunked
back in the 1920's by the embryologists."—*Dr. David Raup, as taken from page
16 of an approved and verified transcript of a taped interview conducted by Luther D.
Sunderland on 27 July 1979. See also Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma (1984), p. 111.
"Surely the biogenic law is as dead as a doornail."—*Keith Stewart
Thomson, "Ontogeny and Phylogeny Recapitulated," American Scientist, May-June
1988, p. 273.
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