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Recapitulation

From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

The now discredited theory of recapitulation was first set forth in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel, who stated that organisms repeat their evolutionary history during embryo development. This theory was summed-up by the phrase created by Haeckel, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

Ontogeny is the embryonic development process.
Phylogeny is a species evolutionary history.

1 Recapitulation and Darwin
2 Related References
3 External links
4 See Also

Recapitulation and Darwin

However Haeckel wasn't the only one responsible for propagating evolutionary myths. Charles Darwin himself in fact thought such was the way. According to Darwin,

“

the embryonic or larval stages show us, more or less completely, the condition of the progenitor of the whole group in its adult state. (Darwin, 1859, pp. 338, 345)

”

What is being said here by Darwin is that when a human being for example is within the womb and as it develops that is it tracing our direct ancestral lineage. Pure atheistic assumptions of Darwin fit nicely within the wider scope of evolution and this has been carried over to the established school system in America. You can still find traces of recapitulation theory in modern day biology textbooks.

Vertebrates are similar at early stages of development, but this can be said about every living creature that contains DNA. Because every living thing that contains DNA builds on four bases called Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and Thymine. Simply because the same four bases establish life's true uniqueness, but produce something radically different is no different than similar embryonic stages at one point than the result being something radically dissimilar. In fact this can be seen as traces of an intelligent designer working efficiently, using similar stages of development when it is possible but changing the outcome as determined.

After the fertilization period animal embryos assume a process called, "cleavage" which the already fertilized egg separates into either hundreds or thousands of tiny cells. But what is really important about this stage of embryonic development is that unique body axes are determined, i.e. head-to-tail, front-to-back, etc. They are similar up to a point, each embryo divides into many cells but each major group of organisms follows a determined cleavage path or pattern, in other words among vertebrates mammals to birds cleave very differently.