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Pauli D. Ojala and Matti Leisola
Translation: I. Chistyakova (Christian Scientific and Apologetic Center)
Translated with permission from creation.com

Ernst Haeckel

Embryology was once called Entwicklungsgeschichte- "the evolutionary history of organisms", believing that each organism repeats this history in its development. The typology of Ernst Haeckel absorbed the ideas of Goethe, the classification constructions of Cuvier, Lamarck's "mechanisms" of inheritance of acquired characteristics - and placed all this in the system of Darwinian phylogenesis.

The falsification of drawings depicting the development of the embryo is not the only falsification of Haeckel. Haeckel constructed the first universal phylogenetic tree and described the first ape-man before any actual evidence was found. He accompanied his article "Moneron" with artistic sketches of the spontaneous generation of life from inorganic matter, which then, during the period of the spread of the evolutionary doctrine (up to the 1920s), wandered from textbook to textbook.

Thanks to the legacy of Haeckel, myths about the absence of pain in newborns, abortion laws, psychoanalysis, and even the sexual revolution have received a logical “justification”. Haeckel supplied materialism with a whole arsenal of slogans and new terms. He founded the League of Monists, which publicly proclaimed evolutionism as the supreme deity of science and inspired ordinary people that science denies "dualism" - the idea of ​​the coexistence of spirit and matter. This idea turned out to be equally attractive to socialists and "proto-fascists": this is evidenced by the numerous letters that came to Haeckel - a Darwinian demagogue - from all over the world. Recently found letters sent to him from Scandinavia show that Haeckel's views prevailed in Darwinism not only in Germany but also in the Nordic countries.

Ernst Haeckel - Darwin's heir

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834-1919) was professor of zoology at the University of Jena from 1862 to 1909. In this post, he succeeded the eminent morphologist Karl Gegenbaur, who resigned in 1862 (and later moved to Heidelberg). Haeckel got a place at the university even before the spread of evolutionary teachings. He studied invertebrates - in particular, radiolarians (amoeba-like protozoa with a bizarre mineral skeleton), sponges and annelids. In his scientific work, he described more than 3,500 species of radiolarians.

Like Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Haeckel married his cousin (the deeply religious Emma Darwin was against the publication of her husband's research). Anna Haeckel (nee Sete) died on the day of her husband's thirtieth birthday, and her death aroused in him an aversion to the spiritual. Hegel's "General Morphology" is an explosion of feelings of a hardened person who, out of grief, could not even attend the funeral of his beloved wife. In a letter to Darwin, Haeckel wrote: after Anna's untimely death, he doesn't care what they think of him.

Darwin avoided discussing how his theory relates to Christianity; Haeckel even opposed the idea of ​​dualism, which presupposes the coexistence of matter and spirit, ansich(as such) - and therefore called his views "monism".

It was Haeckel, and not Darwin, who stamped out the ill-conceived terms one after the other. Actually, thanks to the newly introduced terminology, Haeckel managed to succeed. In the scientific community, "ecology", "type", "phylogenesis", "ontogenesis", "protists", "palingenesis", "coenogenesis", "gastrula", "blastula" and "morula" are still popular. Haeckel's terms took root even despite the fact that the most important evidence and drawings were forged.

Olaf Breidbach, director of the Haeckel House Museum in Jena, points out the fundamental classificatory differences between Haeckel's typology and Darwin's phylogeny. The term "morphology" was introduced by the German thinker Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Haeckel combined the ahistorical views of Goethe with the radical constructions of Darwin. In order to "reveal the true structure of nature," Haeckel added to the theory of gradual evolutionary development proposed by Darwin the idea of ​​preformed "ontogenesis" (individual development of the organism). To do this, he borrowed the classification system of Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) and reworked it in accordance with the Darwinian concept of phylogenesis.

Haeckel was 25 years younger than Darwin. He gained fame and position in no small measure due to his biased approach to the study of embryonic development and, in particular, due to the recognition of the founder himself evolutionary theory. Later editions of The Origin of Species (Chapter XIV) say:

“Professor Haeckel ... has devoted his vast knowledge and talent to the study of what he calls phylogeny, or the lines of kinship that link all organic beings. When constructing such [genealogical] series, he relies mainly on embryological signs ... "

As a result of Haeckel's popularizing activities, his ideas had a greater influence on science than Darwin's. The main work of the tireless Jena professor "General Morphology" was an attempt to systematize all biology in accordance with Darwin's theory. Haeckel's "phylogenetic trees" included all forms of life. Haeckel wrote this book in just a year in places where he was once happy with his wife. If Darwin wrote only three hours a day, then Haeckel, broken by the loss, on the contrary, completely lost sleep. According to contemporaries, he could sleep three to four hours a day. Darwin, whose academic titles were limited, as far as is known, to a master's degree humanities and whose obtained "copies" were mostly safely eaten by the researcher himself, admired Haeckel's energy and scientific approach. He did not stop praising the young professor:

“When trying to trace the genealogy of mammals, and therefore of man, descending lower and lower along the steps of the animal kingdom, we plunge into more and more dark areas of science ... Anyone who wants to know what mind and knowledge can give must turn to the writings of prof. Haeckel".

Often, following Darwin, the idea of ​​recapitulation is mistakenly attributed to Carl von Baer (1792-1876) or equated to a simple similarity of embryos. But Darwin mentioned in this context the Estonian German von Baer, ​​who at that time was already in old age, by mistake. A year before von Baer's death, Darwin apparently did not have his work.

Picture 1. Vulgar evolutionary racism as presented by Ernst Haeckel in the famous book "The Evolution of Man" (German edition 1874), where the infamous drawings of embryos were published.

In 1859, Darwin published The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favorable Races in the Struggle for Life. There was only one illustration in the book. But in the introduction to the next Darwinian work on human evolution, there was already a whole cavalcade of drawings: the ill-fated Haeckelian embryos. Until the publication of The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin did not undertake to extrapolate his theory to humans. But by that time, the works of the ambitious Haeckel had already begun to appear. And paying tribute to a colleague, the elderly Darwin wrote in the introduction to his new book: “Nevertheless, the idea that man, along with other species, represents the descendant of some ancient ... type, is not at all new ... is now supported by many famous naturalists and philosophers like ... and in particular Haeckel ... The latter, in addition to his excellent work "Generelle Morphologie" (1866), recently published in 1868, and the second edition in 1870, his "Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte", in which he comprehensively analyzed human pedigree. If this book had appeared before my essay had been written, I probably would not have finished it. Almost all the conclusions I have come to are confirmed by Haeckel, and his knowledge is in many respects much more complete than mine.

Demagogue-dogmatist of European scale

By 1914, Haeckel had been accepted as a member of almost a hundred professional and scientific societies. According to contemporaries, after Haeckel retired, his theories turned, in fact, into egocentric dogmatism. For example, in 1911, during lengthy discussions, and later in correspondence with the founder of Finnish genetics, Harry Federley, Haeckel stubbornly denied Mendel's laws.

Haeckel's classic work "World Riddles" ( Die Weltratsel, 1899) became one of the most popular books in the history of science. In Germany, the first edition was published in more than a hundred thousand copies and sold out within a year. By 1919, the book had already been reprinted ten times and translated into 30 languages. By 1933, nearly half a million copies had been sold in Germany.

This book inspired the revolt of both the “right” and the “left” alike. Indeed, it is difficult to find a point of contact in the twentieth century that would unite political extremists of all stripes and persuasions better than the ideology of evolutionism. The late Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) argued that Haeckel's books

“Undoubtedly, more than the works of any other scientist, including Darwin and Huxley (as the latter frankly admitted), managed to convince the whole world of the validity of the theory of evolution.”

Haeckel's theory of recapitulation influenced both exact sciences(for example, paleontology) and humanitarian fields of knowledge (in particular, forensic anthropology and psychoanalysis). Paradoxically, its influence can be traced even to the sexual revolution, the Scouting movement, and the behavioral hypothesis " tabula rasa". Wilhelm Ostwald mentions the interscientific lobby of the monists in his "Monistic Sermons". Haeckel's drawings, in which he depicted a naked woman surrounded by lustful ape-like males, can rightfully be considered the forerunners of Sigmund Freud's "recapitulation pansexualism".

Although Haeckel's academic merit in Jena was long gone, he continued to be an iconic figure on the European continent. He entered into polemics with church authorities and promoted nationalism. The militant professor was convinced that the laws of nature (as he understood them) should become the laws of society, and offered to save nations from biological degeneration, calling for help anti-clericalism, rationalism, materialism, racism (Figure 1), patriotism, eugenics and the idea of ​​​​the superiority of the Aryan race .

Haeckel first used the vague expression "labyrinth of ontogenesis" in "World Riddles". This book did not need any illustrations or detailed explanations. All twenty chapters consisted of discussions about the "embryology of the soul" and the "phylogenesis of the soul." Images of a human embryo with gill slits, tail, fins and furrows, illustrating the idea of ​​external similarity of vertebrate embryos, remain one of the most common illustrations in biology textbooks, although they are fake.

In 1906, Haeckel organized the League of Monists in Jena ( Monistebund). By 1911, it numbered almost 6,000 people, among whom were theologians of the most radical persuasion. League groups met in 42 cities in Germany and Austria.

Underestimated cell complexity

Decades have passed since Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), as a result of his experiments with sterile media, set by him in 1859-1862, it would seem that he finally said goodbye to the idea of ​​spontaneous generation of life. But Haeckel continued to keep faith in the supernatural evolutionary possibilities of proteins. In his opinion, shapeless deposits of gypsum on seabed were proof of the existence of the simplest forms of life. When popularizing this idea, not only the discovery of Mendel's "latent factors" ("Anlagen"), but also Pasteur's observations were ignored.

Haeckel imagined and drew a group of precellular protoplasmic organisms, which he called "moners" (Figure 2). He believed that

“there should be absolutely no organs in their structure, they should consist entirely of formless, primitive homogeneous matter ... just some formless, mobile clot of mucus or silt, which is a protein compound of carbon.”

Figure 2. The cycle of reproduction of monera - the alleged intermediate link between inanimate matter and living organisms. The figure shows the "details" of the spontaneous generation of a living organism. This is one of the most obvious falsifications among the illustrations given in the writings of Haeckel. (From the Swedish edition of The History of the World, p. 127).

Until the last reprint in the 1920s, Haeckel's History of the World was printed unchanged. The detailed description of the fictitious "life particles" seems to have been a deliberate deception, since Haeckel was an outstanding connoisseur of marine organisms and even published art albums with their real images. In its original form, the article about "moners" consisted of 70 pages of text and included 30 figures.

Thomas Henry Huxley (Huxley) (1825-1895) - grandfather of Julian Huxley and Aldous Huxley - allegedly confirmed in 1868 the existence of Haeckel's "moneron" and named it Bathybius haeckelii. However, he later refuted this discovery (when it turned out that he had observed a siliceous mass). By the way, he owns an aphorism: "Science is an organization of common sense, where many beautiful theories have been destroyed by ugly facts."

The correspondence between Huxley and Haeckel shows that the British Isles and continental Europe differed markedly in spirit. Perhaps this is partly why England offered ideological resistance to the German Nazis with their "racial hygiene". The English edition of General Morphology did not include Haeckel's main arguments about the origin of man, nor his "system of monism". Huxley, being an ardent champion of Darwinism, nevertheless cut out entire chapters from Haeckel's main work. Huxley himself was agnostic- by the way, it was he who coined the term "agnosticism".

To designate the hypothetical particles of heredity, Haeckel introduced the concept of "plastidula". These "memory molecules" were thought to be the precursors of genes. In the West, quasi-scientific theories of chemical evolution have tended towards the DNA/RNA primacy; in the socialist countries, the dogma about the primacy of protein was more popular. In general, Haeckel's "solid foundation" of nihilistic materialism suited the Soviet system perfectly. Haeckel and his views were admired by Lenin (1870-1924). Under the influence of Haeckel's ideas, Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976), the inventor of harmful agricultural practices that became one of the causes of famine in the Soviet Union, also acted. Lysenko was a favorite of Stalin (1878-1953) and, of course, was completely subordinate to the leader. In a eulogy published in 1953 in the Pravda newspaper, Lysenko notes that "Comrade Stalin devoted time to the most careful study of the most important problems of biology", "directly edited the draft report" On the Situation in Biological Science", explained his corrections to me in detail, gave instructions on how to present individual passages of the report.

Haeckel also denied the theory of entropy (counter-evolution). He believed that life differs from inorganic matter only in the degree of organization. Memory is only common function any organized mother. After the discovery of liquid crystals, in particular albumin, all matter began to be considered alive; even electrons were regarded as primitive life. The "specific physical and chemical properties of coal" were considered to be the mechanical causes of the "specific motor phenomenon" called life. It was believed that life continues to spontaneously arise wherever suitable conditions are formed.

In 1878, Haeckel formulated the concept of "cell souls" and "soul cells", and with this he laid the foundation for the idea of ​​"unity" based on "plastidules", invisible homogeneous elementary molecules of protoplasm. His last published work DieKristallsehen, 1917) was devoted to the development of "descriptive crystallography" and "physiology" of "psychosomatic" crystals. According to Haeckel, the "souls of atoms" interact with each other through attraction, repulsion and crystallization. He endowed cells with a soul, and considered matter to be composed of cells.

It must be remembered that at the beginning of the 20th century, life was not defined in terms of information theory, as is customary today after the revolutionary discoveries of DNA. Back in the 1960s, cells were thought to be just reagent vessels containing complex chemical mixtures maintained at constant temperature and pressure. Information about metabolism was just emerging, and scientists still believed that cellular processes could be described as a complex series of random collisions that occur as a result of the diffusion of substances in a limited space.

Fraud as a system

Haeckel was not a consistent materialist because driving force evolution considered some mystical forces inside matter itself. Denying the teachings of Gregor Mendel (1823-1884), based on countless experiments, was a monstrous mistake. New traits did not appear in peas "from nothing". Haeckel completely went over to the side of anti-Mendelian "science", which believed that the environment has a direct effect on organisms and as a result new races arise.

Figure 3 The first comprehensive family/phylogenetic tree compiled by Ernst Haeckel. Pay attention to the fictitious "moner" at the foot of the tree. Haeckel transferred the same drawings from book to book. (Illustration from the 5th edition of The Evolution of Man).

In his recent book, Richard Weikart specifically notes that at the monist congress, Haeckel opposed the spiritual principle and stubbornly defended determinism, denying the free will of man. Nature and man are one, therefore, in order to survive, it is necessary to adapt to the "ecological" community. It seems that Haeckel's concept of "ecology" originally had a proto-fascist meaning.

Haeckel made his considerable contribution to various fields of the natural sciences. Even before the discovery of any remains of the first alleged human ancestor, he had already given this ancestor a name: Pithecanthropus alalus(non-speaking monkey-man). Later, it was Haeckel's associate anthropologist Eugène Dubois (1858-1940) who discovered the Java Man. The Haeckelian roots of this find are hidden by renaming: now the "Javanese man" is called Homo erectus, but it was originally called Pithecanthropus erectus.

In his first phylogenetic tree, Haeckel included the entire animal kingdom (Figure 3). He presented it in the form of a series - from simple to complex, and filled the voids with imaginary creatures. The various embryonic phases were given names corresponding to the links in this evolutionary chain. Significant signs in the images of embryos already known to us were called "heterochrony" (evolutionary changes in the relative timing of the appearance and rates of development of signs). When Haeckel faced the problem of whether to attribute lower organisms to the animal kingdom or the vegetable kingdom, he invented another new concept - “protists”.

Even half a century after the publication of The Origin of Species, biologists continued to argue heatedly about the principle of natural selection. Darwin was revered for the idea of ​​common descent, although, in essence, he simply made the first attempt at a causal explanation of persistent sexual selection.

Even aside from the fact that Darwin meticulously edited his autobiography and letters before 1860, downplaying the pioneering contributions of Alfred Wallace (1823-1913), it is clear that Darwin was following the tradition of Malthus's rationale for maintaining a "class society." During the years of the Industrial Revolution, which took place in the childhood of a scientist, in London, even girls under 12 years old were often forced to work more than 100 hours a week. Darwin himself belonged to high society. Ironically, it was Charles's cousin, Francis Galton (1822-1911), who coined the term "eugenics" (racial hygiene), and referred to his noble family as "hereditary genius" - after the title of his own work, published in 1869.

However, Charles Darwin, who spent his life in social visits or hunting in the forest, never tried to transfer his evolutionary ideas, "observed" in nature, to the hierarchy of English society. Haeckel, on the other hand, insisted ordinary people, prominent representatives of German science and countless officials of all ranks - until, in the end, his "remarkable" biogenetic law was recognized as an inexhaustible storehouse of evolutionary information.

From infanticide to genocide

The methodological vagueness of Haeckel's reasoning created the ground for a more hostile attitude towards "inferior" races and people than the teachings of Darwin. However, Darwin also substantiated the characteristic high society Malthusian indifference and lack of compassion:

“In the struggle for existence, the more civilized peoples of the so-called Caucasian race defeated the Turks. If we look at the world in the not too distant future, we will see what an immense number of lower races will be destroyed throughout the world by more highly developed races!

Haeckel emphasized the physical similarity of people and animals, and considered human thought to be just a physiological process. His comparative embryology transformed man from a special creature into one of the innumerable members of the animal kingdom.

In 1904, in addition to his bestseller The Mysteries of the World, Haeckel published the book Bizarre Forms of Nature. It proclaimed that newborns are born deaf and devoid of consciousness - from which the author further concluded that at birth a person has neither a soul nor a spirit. Haeckel advocated the killing of newborns with pathology or mutilation. He called it an "act of mercy" - as well as the killing of any terminally ill or handicapped person:

“Modern society artificially supports the lives of hundreds of thousands incurable people- crazy, lepers, cancer patients and so on. Their suffering is diligently prolonged, without benefiting either them or society as a whole ... With a total population of Europe of three hundred and ninety million people, at least two million are mentally ill people, of which more than two hundred thousand are incurable. How much suffering for the patients themselves, how much adversity and grief for their loved ones, how much personal and social expenses! How much suffering and waste could be saved if people finally decided to free the terminally ill from indescribable torture with just one dose of morphine!

In his controversial but groundbreaking study (1971), Daniel Gasman reminds us of Hegel's words about what his conclusions were based on:

“The Spartans carried out a thorough examination and selection of all newborns. The weak, sick, or suffering from some physical infirmity were killed. Only perfectly healthy and strong children were allowed to live, and only they subsequently continued the race.

Haeckel was ahead of Hitler in promoting the Spartan worldview of "nature over care" - and therefore is directly responsible for the Nazi atrocities.

From infanticide, “corporal” science and “corporal” law moved on to substantiating the legitimacy of the extermination of entire peoples:

"... morphological differences between two generally recognized species - for example, sheep and goats - are much less significant than ... between a Hottentot and a man of the Teutonic race."

Haeckel divided people into two categories - "curly" and "straight-haired". The former, in his opinion, were "incapable of real internal culture and higher intellectual development". And "the symmetry of all parts of the body and that harmonious development, which we consider integral to the perfect human beauty", according to Haeckel, could only be found among the Aryans.

“The mental activity of savages has risen not much higher than highly developed mammals, especially primates, with which they are united by genealogical relationship. All their interests are reduced to the physiological needs of nutrition and reproduction, or the satisfaction of hunger or thirst in the crudest animal form ... one can speak of their intelligence no more (or no less) than the intelligence of the most intelligent animals.

“... such lower races as the Vedas or the Australian Negroes are psychologically closer to mammals - primates and dogs - than to civilized Europeans. Therefore, we must give their life a completely different value ... their only interests are food and reproduction ... many highly developed animals, especially monogamous mammals and birds, have risen to more high step development than the lower savages.

Already more than half a century ago, anthropologists rejected Haeckel's racist drawings of the brain, skulls, faces (Figure 4), ears and hands of representatives of human races and primates. "Embryology" began to be called "developmental biology", trying to get rid of not only the scandalous episode in the history of this science, but also from its original name. Entwicklungsgeschichte(evolutionary history of organisms).

With the recent emergence of methods for growing embryonic cells, it has become clear that the idea of ​​embryological recapitulation is still alive (despite emerging stem cell legislation affecting the use of fertilized embryos for scientific purposes and regulating the activities of transnational corporations). An example is the widely circulated university textbook by Gerhart and Kirschner, which talks about the "ability to develop" and the need to transform the "unipolar Haeckel model" into a "bipolar Haeckel", "two-dimensional Haeckel" and "three-dimensional Haeckel model". Obviously, no one was going to reject the idea of ​​recapitulation. It has taken root as a scientific myth.

Proto-fascism

Fascism is a heterogeneous political movement associated with events such as the First World War, Treaty of Versailles and October Revolution. He was also influenced by the pervasive Haeckel legacy.

Daniel Gasman is criticized for misinterpreting Haeckel's ideas in his aforementioned work: in particular, he was unable to find direct references to the writings of Ernst Haeckel in the documents of the Nazi aristocracy. Nevertheless, Gasman shows that "Hackelism" influenced a wide range of widely separated currents - from National Socialism to Marxism, from psychoanalysis to Theosophy and the free thought movement. Even German liberal theology and the theosophy of Rudolf Steiner are built on the shaky scientific foundation of Haeckelian evolutionism.

Richard Wyckart's book From Darwin to Hitler (2004) complements Gasman's research. It tells how the Nazis sought to hush up passages that they did not want in Haeckel's works - in particular, the fact that Haeckel spoke out in favor of homosexuality, pacifism and feminism. In his analytical work, Gasman does not criticize Darwinism, because he does not consider Haeckel a real Darwinist. According to Gasman, Nazi ideology could only echo Darwinism by pure chance, but in relation to "Hackelism" it is its natural consequence. (Indeed, Haeckel wrote a lot about natural selection, although he also adhered to Lamarckism; at the same time, Darwin considered him his like-minded person.) Wykart also writes about other people who influenced Nazi ideology- such as Friedrich Ratzel, Ludwig Woltmann, Theodor Fritsch, Alfred Ploetz, Dietrich Eckart.

Haeckel skillfully felt the conjuncture. In The World's Riddles one can find the full range of arguments put forward against traditional values. Haeckel's drawings became a source of inspiration for symbolist poets, contemporary art and aesthetics of avant-garde modernism. "Haeckelianism" has a complex relationship with fascism, modernism, and positivism.

The establishment of "Haeckelism" in the Scandinavian countries

In Scandinavia, Darwinism, at least in its popular form, was essentially "Haeckelism." Haeckel's vulgar extrapolations - both verbal and visual - were easy to grasp. In 1907, before the first editions of the classic books of Haeckel and Darwin appeared in Finnish, a contemporary wrote:

“But even more zealous were his [Darwin's] supporters, especially the aforementioned Huxley from England and Ernst Haeckel from Germany. The latter especially contributed to the rapid spread of "Darwinism" on the European continent ... Without a doubt, it is to Haeckel that our general public owes their acquaintance with "Darwinism"» [emphasis added].

The influence Haeckel's views and ideas had on his contemporaries can be judged by the following fact: the Haeckel House Museum recently published a catalog of almost 40,000 letters sent to him and answers written by him. In addition, we found Haeckel's remarkable correspondence in Finland. In particular, Harry Federley, the founder of Finnish genetics and eugenics, caught our attention. Anthropology in Finland was not infected with racial hygiene. The topic of the correspondence was not “Sami”, “Gypsies”, “Jews”, etc.: instead, they discussed “degenerates”, “insane”, “crazy”, “alcoholics” and “criminals”.

A review of Haeckel's Swedish correspondence leads to the following conclusion:

“Serious criticism of Haeckel's ideas in letters is almost never found. Haeckel corresponded with many leading Swedish scientists and cultural figures, therefore, most likely, both the philosophical ideas of monism and Darwinism penetrated into Sweden due to the popularity of Haeckel's books.

Most of Haeckel's 39 Swedish correspondents were members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the same one that elects Nobel laureates. Haeckel's followers here also held a variety of political persuasions.

Conclusion

When we talk about "Haeckelianism" we are reminded again and again of the words from 1 Corinthians 12:23: "And those who seem to us less noble in body, we take more care of them."

Directly opposite ideas were formed in the critical years of the spread of evolutionary ideology. It was a violent intellectual revolution. Along with this ideology, views were adopted that the current apologists for evolution would simply recoil from. Haeckel was lifted up to the "seat of Moses" and handed over to him the "keys of understanding." The biogenetic law, the linear evolution of cultures, the spontaneous generation of life, the denial of entropy, and Lamarckian mechanisms tipped the scales in favor of the theory of evolution.

Were Haeckel's drawings a deliberate falsification, or did he himself not notice his own desires to wishful thinking? Hard to say. However, one thing is clear: Haeckel's materialism and outright anti-Christian and anti-Semitic rhetoric were in demand. Haeckel's teaching was accepted almost as a heuristic principle, not limited to embryos and recapitulation.

Ernst Haeckel was a Darwinian demagogue, and the scientific community has been criminally frivolous in reproducing his falsifications. "Self-regulation" of the process scientific research, maybe it allows you to correct some minor errors, but it is too liberal in terms of errors made in order to prove the “necessary” theory. As a result, scientists only strain the mosquito, while swallowing the camel.

Has Haeckelism succeeded in conquering other countries as well? This can be evidenced by the huge number of still unexamined letters stored in the archives of the Haeckel House Museum in Jena.

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Links and notes

1. The article is based on the following publications: Ojala, P.J., Haeckelian legacy of popularization - vertebrate embryos and the survival of the fakest, Challenges for Bioethics from Asia, Fifth Asian Bioethics Conference (Tsukuba, Japan), Eubios Ethics Institute Vol. 5, pp. 391 - 412, 2004; and also Ojala, P.J., Vahakangas, J.M. and Leisola, M., Evolutionism in the Haeckelian shadow - Harry Federley, the father of the Finnish genetics and eugenics legislation, as a recapitulationist and a Monist propagator, Yearbook for European Culture of Science (Stuttgart, Germany) 1(1):61-86, 2005.
2. Sander, K., Ernst Haeckel’s ontogenetic recapitulation: irritation and incentive from 1866 to our time, Annals in Anatomy 184:523 533.2002.
3. Collected letters of C. Darwin online, document 4555, dated July 1864.
4. http://www2.uni-jena.de/biologie/ehh/haeckel.htm - August 7, 2005
5. Breidbach, O., The former synthesis - Some remarks on the typological background of Haeckel’s ideas about evolution, Theory in Biosciences 121:280-296, 2002
6. Darwin, C. The Origin Of The Species, 6th London edition, 1872; introduction to Part II. Quoted from: Ch. Darwin, "The Origin of Species", 1872; introduction to part II - http://charles-darwin.narod.ru/chapter14.html - March 25, 2009.

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel was born on February 16, 1834 in the province of Potsdam, which at that time was part of Prussia. He studied at the "Cathedral High School" in Merseburg. After leaving school in 1852, Haeckel continued his medical studies in Berlin and Würzburg. Later, he entered the University of Jena, where, under the guidance of Karl Gegenbaur, he defended his doctoral dissertation in zoology. As a student, Haeckel showed an interest in embryology. In 1857, Haeckel received the degree of doctor of medicine and received a license to practice own practice. But the profession of a doctor stopped liking Haeckel immediately after he met his first patients.

Career

From 1859 to 1866, Haeckel worked with animal species such as annelids, sponges and rays. During his travels in the Mediterranean region, he discovered more than 150 new types of rayfish. And between 1859 and 1887 he discovered thousands of new species. In 1862, Ernest Haeckel became lecturer in comparative anatomy at the University of Jena, a position he held for 47 years until 1909. In 1866, Haeckel, together with Hermann Fall, visited the Canary Islands, where he met Thomas Huxley, Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell.

Haeckel proposed an improved version of Étienne Serres's biogenetic law, in which he argued that there is a close relationship between the biological development of an organism, or ontogeny, and their evolution and phylogeny. To illustrate the biogenetic law, Haeckel used drawings of embryos and proposed the concept of heterochronism - changes in the time of fetal development during evolution.

Darwin's idea of ​​the origin of species influenced a work written in Germany by Haeckel called The Natural History of Creation.

In 1866, Haeckel published the book General Morphology of Organisms, which was a generalization of Darwin's idea, the German philosophy of nature and Lamarck's evolutionary theory, which Haeckel accordingly called "Darwinismus". He used morphology to reinterpret the theory of evolution due to the fact that there were not enough organic remains for the development of embryology that could be used as evidence of kinship. He even went further and argued that the origin of mankind can be traced back to South Asia, where the first people come from. He believed that primates from South Asia bear a strong resemblance to humans. He also abandoned Darwin's idea that the primates of Africa had a resemblance to humans.

Haeckel believed that part of the ancient continent of Gondwana in the Indian Ocean was the source of human development, which later moved to other parts of the world. In his book History of Creation, Haeckel describes the migration routes that the first people used when they got out of Gondwana.

The number of Haeckel's drawings includes more than 100 copies, among which are images of animals, and especially aquatic animals.

Haeckel also studied philosophy and wrote such works: "The Riddle" and "The Riddle of the Universe and the Freedom of Learning and Teaching."

Personal life and death

In 1867 Haeckel married Agnes Huschke. The couple had two daughters, Emma and Elisabeth, and a son named Walter. After the death of his wife in 1915, Haeckel became morally unstable. In 1918 he sold his big house"Carl Zeiss Foundation". Ernst Haeckel died on August 9, 1919 in Germany.

Main works

Radiolaria (1862)
"Siphonophora" (1869)
"Monophyletischer Stambaum der Organismen from "Generelle Morphologie der Organismen"" (1866)
"Naturliche Schöpfungsgeschichte" (1868)
Monera (1870)
"Calcareous Sponges" (1872)
"Freie Wissenschaft und freie Lehre" (1877)
"Deep-Sea Medusae" (1881)
"Indische Reisebriefe" (1882)
"Siphonophora" (1888)
"Deep-Sea Keratosa" (1889)
Radiolaria (1887)
"Die systematische Phylogenie" (1894)
"Die Welträthsel" (1895-1899)
"Über unsere gegenwärtige Kenntnis vom Ursprung des Menschen" (1898)
"Aus Insulinde: Malayische Reisebriefe" (1901)
Kunstformen der Natur (1904)
"Wanderbilder" (1905)

Devoting his life to the study of wildlife, Ernst Haeckel made many discoveries and made a great contribution to science. More about scientific activity find out the scientist later in the article.

Ernst Haeckel: biography

The German philosopher and naturalist E. Haeckel was born in Potsdam in 1834. After graduating from school in Meserburg, he studied medicine and natural science at the Universities of Berlin and Würzburg. He defended his thesis in zoology at the University of Jena. In 1858 he received a medical degree.

Ernst Haeckel showed an outstanding interest in microscopic anatomy and zoology. In 1859, he went on an expedition to Italy, where he studied plankton, sponges, worms, and discovered new types of radiolarians. Upon his return, the scientist takes the post of professor, and then associate professor at the University of Jena and teaches comparative anatomy.

Since 1863, an active begins. He delivers a speech on Darwinism, publishes his printed works, formulates V late XIX century, the explorer goes on an expedition to Egypt, Algeria, the islands of Madeira and Ceylon. Later he traveled to Syria, Corsica, Tenerife, Norway, Gibraltar and other places, studying them. animal world and making sketches.

Ernst Haeckel marries Agnes Huschke in 1867. They have a son Walter, daughters Emma and Elizabeth. The death of his wife in 1915 greatly affected the health and well-being of the scientist. He died in Germany on August 9, 1919.

Research and publications

Obtaining a medical degree did not affect professional activity scientist. In many ways, his studies and worldview were influenced by communication with Charles Darwin. Ernst Haeckel began publishing books in 1866. His first work is called General Morphology of Organisms. Some time later, the book "Natural History of the World Creation" is published, where he speaks out in support of evolutionary theory.

In 1866, he forms an improved version of the biogenetic law formulated several years earlier. In this regard, Ernst Haeckel builds the theory of gastrea, which explains the origin of multicellular organisms from unicellular organisms. Thanks to this, Haeckel becomes known in scientific circles.

In 1874, the publication "Anthropogeny, or the History of the Development of Man" is published, in which he sets out his next theory about the existence of an intermediate link between ape and man.

During the expedition in Africa and Asia, he writes works on jellyfish, deep-sea fish, radiolarians, after which he dedicates the book "Systematic Phylogeny" to the study of these organisms. In total, Ernst Haeckel wrote about 26 works, some of them have been translated into Russian.

General morphology of organisms

Another discipline in the development of which Ernst Haeckel made a significant contribution is ecology. In his first book, General Morphology of Organisms, the scientist puts forward a theory about the need to separate it into a separate biological discipline. In his opinion, the complex processes of interaction between living organisms and their relationship with the environment should be the subject of study of a science called ecology.

Ernst Haeckel believed that the main task of this discipline is the study of organic and inorganic environmental conditions to which living organisms are forced to adapt. Under the inorganic nature, the scientist understood climatic factors, such as light, moisture, heat, as well as the composition of soil and water. Haeckel referred to organic all types

biogenetic law

Inspired by evolutionary theory, Haeckel formulated a law that is also called the Haeckel-Muller law. It is based on the assumption that time repeats the forms of the main stages of its evolution. That is, by observing the development of the embryo, one can trace how the natural formation his kind.

For the first time, such a hypothesis was put forward by Charles Darwin in the publication "The Origin of Species", but it was not very clear. In 1864, Fritz Müller, in For Darwin, says that historical development species is reflected in the development of the individual. Two years later, Haeckel, on the basis of his own research, gave a clear formulation of these thoughts under the name of the biogenetic law.

The law is often used as a confirmation of the Darwinian theory, although at present there are many facts that can refute its correctness. For example, in the initial stages, the development of vertebrates is not the same. Similarities are noted only at later stages.

Theory of gastrea

Based on the biogenetic law, Ernst Heinrich Haeckel creates a theory that explains the origin of multicellular organisms from unicellular organisms. In his opinion, the first multicellular creature had similar features with the gastrula - an embryonic form consisting of a layer of external and internal cells.

According to the theory, a single-celled organism began to divide, in which the daughter cells did not disperse, but formed a cluster. Subsequently, they began to differ in functional and anatomical features - some were responsible for movement, others for digestion. So, according to Haeckel's theory, a multicellular organism was formed, which was called gastrea. He reminded the first intestinal animals.

Conclusion

During his life, Ernst Heinrich Haeckel published many works, introduced the terms ecology, pithecanthropus, ontogenesis and phylogenesis into science. Exploring the marine fauna on expeditions, he discovered more than a hundred species of radiolarians. Haeckel was among the first zoologists in Germany to join Darwin's theory. Supporting the evolutionary theory in his research, he tried to determine the system of development of the animal kingdom, and formulated the theory of the origin of multicellular organisms.

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What is known about this scientist layman? Nothing. The biology teacher and diligent student may recall that his name is associated with the Haeckel-Müller biogenetic law. That's all. Let's try to fill this gap.

"I'll prove!" was the motto of his life. And Haeckel proved, not very embarrassed in the means. It even happened that he drew non-existent animals or saw in the microscope not what was there, but what he wanted to see. He "proved" all his life and died, confident in his victory. He believed in everything he talked about, and said and wrote everything that his rich imagination only suggested to him. Some of his views and generalizations went beyond the limits of exact knowledge into the realm of assumptions, and therefore much of them later turned out to be incorrect or one-sided. Nevertheless, Ernst Haeckel left a very noticeable mark in science, and not only in it.

Ernst Heinrich Haeckel was born on February 16, 1834 in Potsdam. He studied medicine and natural science at the Universities of Berlin, Würzburg and Vienna, and in 1857 received a medical degree. In 1865–1909 he is a professor at the University of Jena. In Jena, Haeckel created scientific school comparative anatomy, embryology and phylogenetics. Among his many students were our compatriots, zoologist and ethnographer N.N. Miklukho-Maclay and paleontologist V.O. Kovalevsky.

Haeckel's personality as a thinker and tribune attracted young people from all over Europe to him. He was an excellent orator and popularizer of science. Here, for example, is how he described the siphonophore jellyfish: “Imagine an elegant, slender houseplant, the leaves and multi-colored flowers of which are transparent, like glass, and which, wriggling, cuts through the water with the most graceful and agile movements, and you will have an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthis amazing, beautiful and graceful animal. Ernst Haeckel was a scientist and an artist rolled into one. Early in his career, he even wanted to be a landscape architect. The beauty of organisms led him to science.

He devoted more than 20 years of his life to the study of unicellular animals. The foundation of this work was his Monograph on Radiolarians (1862). On the ornamental structures of radiolarians, Haeckel defended his doctoral dissertation. Twenty-five years later, he published another monograph on radiolarians based on the results of the expedition on board the Challenger. In it, he described more than 4 thousand species of these animals and admired the fabulous wealth of the world of radiolarians, extracted during this expedition to light from the depths of the oceans. Often rimmed with spikes, the delicately perforated, lattice-like skeletons of radiolarians, constructed from silica, appear in an unfathomable variety of forms.

Haeckel was a versatile and prolific scientist. He conducted many laboratory and field studies, collected rich material, which was then used by other scientists. For his time, his writings were very progressive. It was Haeckel who introduced the term "ecology". Darwin's ideas had the strongest influence on Haeckel. He accepted Darwin's theory on faith without even knowing it properly, and defended it against his opponents with such vehemence that Charles Darwin once said of him: "It would be better if he loved less."

While Darwin continued to work in retreat at Down, Haeckel fought for recognition of his teachings in university auditoriums and congresses, in the general press and in special writings. But his activities were not limited to this.

In 1863, Haeckel gave a public speech on Darwinism at a meeting of the German Scientific Society, and in 1866 his book General Morphology of Organisms was published. In it, he not only defended Darwin's theory, but also tried to supplement it. He said: “Physiologists look at the body as a machine. Zoologists and morphologists look at him with the same surprise as savages look at a steamer. It is not right". And Haeckel began to prove that the body must be looked at in a special way.

In two thick volumes, numbering more than a thousand pages, typed in small print, everything that the author could think of and summarize was set forth. Two years later, The Natural History of the Universe appeared, where the evolutionary approach he developed was presented in a more popular form.

In 1866, Ernst Haeckel, together with F. Müller, formulated the biogenetic law, according to which ontogeny is a short and quick repetition of phylogeny, i.e. each organism in its individual development repeats the stages of evolutionary development. This law is familiar to us from the school biology course: the human embryo first looks like a fish, then an amphibian, and then a mammal.

In 1866, E. Haeckel built the first three-kingdom phylogenetic tree of vertebrates and a tree of mammals, but only in 1874 did he try to present the history of human origin from primitive unicellular moners to anthropoid apes on a single genealogical tree. The tree was crowned with a man. In fairness, it should be noted that the first to create such a tree was not Ernst Haeckel, but Russian scientists A.P. Bogdanov and P.S. Pallas, but the German scientist knew nothing about their work.

In 1874, Haeckel published Anthropogeny, or the History of Human Development, in which the problems of human evolution were discussed. He owns the idea of ​​the existence in the historical past of a form intermediate between ape and man, which he called Pithecanthropus.

No other fantasy of Haeckel has provoked such sharp criticism from his contemporaries. Despite everything, Haeckel continued to defend his views. Haeckel's ideas captured the young Dutch physician Eugène Dubois so much that he left for the Sunda Islands in 1884 and began to excavate in the hope of finding Pithecanthropus. In 1891, the search for Dubois was crowned with success, and three years later, in 1894, a message was published about the discovery of the first remains of Pithecanthropus.

In all the old universities of the world, the teaching of the course of zoology begins with a demonstration of Haeckel's drawings of radiolarians, striking in accuracy and beauty. Not only Haeckel's zoological sketches are well known, but also his beautiful watercolors.

Ernst Haeckel's book "The Beauty of Forms in Nature" without exaggeration can be called a landmark work. In any wealthy house, she was not just an ornament: at every opportunity, she was taken out of the shelf, shown to the guests and looked at with great pleasure herself - everyone, from the smallest to the oldest family members. This is truly an "opus magicum" - and the mysterious strings of the pages of his "World Mysteries" and "Wonders of Nature" from the book "The Miracle of Life" gradually initiate us into their consonance. Now, as before, the book continues to captivate the imagination with its fabulous pictures.

Amazing drawings of morphological forms sometimes look as simple and naive as drawings from a children's book. With their simplicity and clarity, they sometimes resemble the compositions of Karl Larson, and the light transparency of the color makes them related to the works of Runge, especially with his allegorical painting “Morning”. The composition of the drawing is fraught with rhythmic dynamics, similar to the repetitive rhythms of Ravel's Bolero. This amazing property of the central composition - a unique find by Ernst Haeckel - was developed specifically for this book. Everything here serves to reveal the idea of ​​ecology to the reader with the help of visual drawings.

From a huge pool of biological preparations, most of which were examined and classified by himself, Haeckel selects individual samples, and then draws them, describing each object in detail. At the same time, he tries to arrange the drawing symmetrically with respect to the center of the sheet so that the main form and the forms extending from it to the edges of the page reflect the relationship of these organisms in nature. Neither the characteristic environment, nor the conditions of their habitat, as well as the features of the interaction between these individuals, were displayed here; in this work, Haeckel followed primarily the artistic principles of composition. A variety of natural forms are presented in a rather harmonious order, and their plasticity is successfully conveyed with the help of color. The charm of the wisdom of life radiated by these illustrations is realized through the symmetrical form introduced by Haeckel and called by him "organic form", which entered the history of art as "the form of organic development".

During his many travels, Haeckel visited the countries of Europe, Madeira, Ceylon, Egypt, Algeria, Syria, studied their flora and fauna. From these trips, he brought not only descriptions, but also wonderful watercolor drawings, giving an idea of ​​the nature of these places and the unique vegetation.

Drawings by Ernst Haeckel can be used in biology lessons. In the 6th grade in the lessons of botany while studying unicellular algae and mosses, his watercolors can illustrate the whole variety of tropical vegetation, different forms of stems. In the 7th grade, in zoology lessons, his drawings will serve as excellent illustrative material in the study of unicellular animals, coelenterates, nudibranchs and cephalopods. There are wonderful drawings that can be demonstrated when studying a variety of turtles, lizards.

After 1891, Haeckel completely devoted himself to the development of the philosophical aspects of evolutionary theory. Haeckel did not like the Catholic Church very much and attacked it fiercely, but he did not reject religion, he simply invented his own. He becomes a passionate apologist for monism - a scientific and philosophical theory, designed, in his opinion, to replace religion, and founds the "League of Monists". “We will build temples in honor of the new religion. We will create a new religion, great and reasonable, based on scientific principles. Then all mankind will be reborn,” he assured his listeners.

Ernst Haeckel died in Jena on August 9, 1919. German scientists carefully preserve both the Phyletic Museum, founded by Haeckel in 1908, and the Villa Medusa, Haeckel's house, in which in 1916 he organized his Phyletic Archive. Here, in addition to the Haeckel library, there is also an archive containing more than 30 thousand letters from Haeckel and his entourage, over 800 watercolors.

Ernst Haeckel's drawings are contained in his book "The Beauty of Forms in Nature", published by the Werner Regen publishing house in St. Petersburg in 2007. They are also posted on the website http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ernst Haeckel.

The birth of ecology is associated with the name of the German scientist Ernst Haeckel (1834 - 1919). Studying at three universities (Berlin, Würzburg and Vienna), he had the opportunity to get a thorough education, listening to the lectures of outstanding teachers. At the University of Berlin, Haeckel worked at the chair of Johann Müller (1801 - 1858), a well-known researcher in comparative physiology, anatomy and embryology of marine invertebrates and an outstanding teacher who instilled in Haeckel an interest in the study of marine fauna. In 1861, Haeckel received a position as Privatdozent at the Department of Comparative Anatomy in Jena, and in 1862, after defending his dissertation, he became an ordinary professor in this department. All further life of Haeckel was connected with Jena.

E. Haeckel made many trips: around the Mediterranean (1859-1860), to the Canary Islands (1866-1867) together with his assistant N.N. Miklukho-Maclay (Russian traveler and scientist), to Norway (1869), to the Red Sea (1873), Ceylon (1881 - 1882), Sumatra. E. Haeckel is known to biologists as a scientist who widely promoted the formulated J.L. Agassiz famous triad - "the principle of triple parallelism": phylogenetic schemes, genealogical trees should be built on the basis of a combination of comparative anatomical, comparative embryological and paleontological studies. In the two-volume General Morphology of Organisms (1866), Haeckel not only introduces into scientific use today common terms"ontogeny" (individual development) and "phylogenesis" (historical development), but also formulates the "basic biogenetic law", according to which ontogeny is a short and concise repetition (recapitulation) of phylogeny.

E. Haeckel's theory of Gastreya, as one of the theories of the colonial origin of multicellular organisms, had many unfounded assumptions and is currently of only historical interest to science. In his own specific studies on the system and phylogeny of radiolarians, calcareous sponges, jellyfish, Haeckel not only demonstrated the productivity of the methods of phylogenetic analysis developed by him, but also how the artist was able to show the beauty and diversity of life forms. In all the old universities of the world, the teaching of the course of zoology begins with a demonstration of Haeckel's drawings of radiolarians, striking in accuracy and beauty.

But the merit of E. Haeckel in the context of presenting the history of ecology is that he was the first to introduce the term "ecology" into scientific use, gave a clear definition of its content. The term was introduced in 1866 in the book of the scientist “General Morphology of Organisms”, in which E. Haeckel gave his definition of ecology as a science: “By ecology we mean the general science of the relationship of organisms with the environment, where we refer to broad sense all conditions of existence. Speaking of "organisms", E. Haeckel, as was customary then, did not mean individual individuals, but considered organisms as representatives of specific species.

The main direction formulated by E. Haeckel corresponds to the modern understanding of autecology, i.e. ecology certain types. For a long time, the main development of ecology was in line with the autecological approach. Its development was greatly influenced by the theory of Charles Darwin, which showed the need to study the natural totality of plant and animal species that are continuously rearranged in the process of adaptation to environmental conditions, which is the basis of the evolutionary process.

As shown above, formulating the concept of ecology as new science, E. Haeckel built it on the basis of a large amount of factual material accumulated in biology during its long development. During the entire previous period of the formation of biological knowledge, there was an accumulation of not only descriptions of individual species, but also materials on their way of life, individual generalizations. So, back in 1798, T. Malthus described the equation of exponential population growth, on the basis of which he built his demographic concepts. The logistic growth equation was proposed by P.F. Verhulst-Pearl in 1838. J.B. Lamarck in "Hydrogeology" actually anticipated the concept of the biosphere. The French physician W. Edwards (1824) published the book The Influence of Physical Factors on Life, which laid the foundation for ecological and comparative physiology, and J. Liebig (1840) formulated the famous Law of the Minimum, which has not lost its significance in modern ecology.