Ernst Haeckel
From Palaeos
Haeckel was a zoologist, an accomplished artist and illustrator, and later a professor of comparative anatomy. He was one of the first to consider psychology as a branch of physiology. He also proposed many now ubiquitous terms including "phylum" and "ecology." His chief interests lay in evolution and life development processes in general, including development of nonrandom form, which culminated in the beautifully illustrated Kunstformen der Natur (Art forms of nature).
Haeckel advanced the "recapitulation theory" which proposed a link between ontogeny (development of form) and phylogeny (evolutionary descent), summed up in the phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". He supported the theory with embryo drawings that have since been shown to be oversimplified and in part inaccurate, and the theory is now considered an oversimplification of quite complicated relationships. Haeckel introduced the concept of "heterochrony", which is the change in timing of embryonic development over the course of evolution.
[edit] References
- Richard Milner, The Encyclopedia of Evolution: Humanity's Search for Its Origins, Henry Holt, 1993
- Art Forms from the Ocean: The Radiolarian Atlas of 1862, by Ernst Haeckel, Prestel Verlag, 2005 ISBN 3-7913-3327-5
[edit] Links
- Marine Biological Laboratory Library - An exhibition of material on Haeckel, including background on many Kunsformen der Natur plates
- University of California, Berkeley - Ernst Haeckel biography
- Ernst Haeckel – Evolution's controversial artist. A slide-show essay about Ernst Haeckel.
- Kunstformen der Natur, scanned (from biolib.de Stuebers Online Library)
- PNG alpha-transparencies of Haeckel's "Kustformen der natur"
- Proteus - An animated documentary film on the life and work of Ernst Haeckel
- Ernst Haeckel Haus and Ernst Haeckel Museum in Jena
