It goes deeper than that. As I intend to explain in my reply to Paul's post, to be fraud Haeckel had to intentionally want to deceive people. As I intend to show, with statements from developmental biologists who use Haeckel's ideas and who see the same evidence everyday that Haeckel saw, Haeckel did not intend to deceive anyone. Fraud was never proven, only insinuated by contemporaries jealous of Haeckel's public success and by modern scientists fearful of being tainted by what they perceive as Haeckel's overzealousness. His data, his insights, his conclusions still live in the study of developmental biology.
Haeckel's so-called fraud is a creationist canard that should have died and been buried years ago. I intend to start nailing down the coffin myself.
Kevin L. O'Brien