>I don't know where you get your information from, but it isn't from the primary
>literature, that's for sure. At least, you haven't quoted from any.
See Michael Richardson et al., "There is no highly conserved stage in the
vertebrates: implications for current theories of evolution and development,"
_Anatomy and Embryology_ 196 (1997): 91-106. The URL provided by Art
Chadwick includes some of the figures from this paper, which evaluates
the accuracy of Haeckel's drawings.
See also:
Hall, Brian. 1995. Homology and Embryonic Development. Evolutionary Biology
28: 1-37.
Horder, T.J.. 1989. Syllabus for an Embryological Synthesis. In Complex Organismal
Functions, eds. D.B. Wake and G. Roth. New York: John Wiley.
Nieuwkoop, P.D. and Sutasurya, L.A. 1976. Embryological evidence for a possible
polyphyletic origin of the recent amphibians. Jl. Embry. exp. Morph.
35(1):159-167.
Raff, Rudolf, Gregory Wray, and Jonathan J. Henry. 1991. Implications of Radical
Evolutionary Changes in Early Development for Concepts of Developmental
Constraint. In New Perspectives in Evolution, eds. L. Warren and
H. Koprowski; New York: Wiley-Liss; pp. 189-207.
These citations provide a good introduction to the relevant literature.
Kevin L. O'Brien also wrote:
>>"In fact, the biogenetic law was collapsing under (a) the weight of contrary
>>evidence and (b) its impracticality as a research tool, even before the rise of
>>the neo-Darwinian synthesis (Rasmussen 1991)."
>Rasmussen is wrong (no surprise, since he is an historian, not a biologist).
Rasmussen was trained at the University of Chicago as a biologist, under
an NSF fellowship. See, e.g., his publication "A New Model of Developmental
Constraints as Applied to the Drosophila System," _Journal of Theoretical
Biology_ 127 (1987): 271-299. His historical work is scrupulously accurate,
in any event. (Nick and I were graduate students together.)
>Strict recapitulation (as Haeckel envisioned it) was never refuted, it was
>abandoned when Mendelian genetics was rediscovered, because that offered a
>clearer picture of the mechanism of ontogeny and its true relationship to
>phylogeny.
How exactly does Mendelian genetics provide a clearer picture of the
mechanism of ontogeny? If doesn't help to parrot Stephen Jay Gould if
the point you're making is nevertheless unclear, or wrong.
>Yet because embryologists knew that the basic form of the biogenetic
>law was right (they could see it for themselves), they combined it with von
>Baer's laws and eliminated all of Haeckel's philosophical claptrap. They later
>combined it with Mendelian genetics to create an amazingly versatile research
>tool that has helped to unlock the secrets of ontogeny and has shown how
>evolution is linked to ontological development.
I'd like to see one application of Haeckel's biogenetic law, as he formulated
it, from the recent primary literature. Or even within the past three
decades.
>Have you ever compared embryos through a microscope?
Yes.
>I saw exactly what Haeckel saw. Have you ever compared
>Haeckel's drawings with real embryos? I have; Haeckel's drawings are
>surprisingly accurate considering their simplicity.
Please describe exactly what you saw. Which species, at which
stages?
>Have you ever done research
>in developmental biology in which you used the modern version of the biogenetic
>law as a guide to your work? I have.
Interesting: let's have the details.
>If you answered no to these questions, I
>would say then that between the two of us, I am the authority in this manner,
>since I have tested Haeckel's basic claims and found them true-to-life.
As you like, but you cannot have tested Haeckel's basic claims and found
them true-to-life. They're not. There is no more likelihood of a successful
test of Haeckel's biogenetic law than there is of Darwin's notion of the
inheritance of acquired characteristics.
>The
>question is, will you accept the word of a working scientist and other
>developmental biologists, or will you continue to believe your secondary and
>tertiary sources (probably creationist), because they allow you to deny a
>fundamental basis of modern evolutionary theory?
None of the sources I cited is creationist. And I cannot accept your word
because the available evidence refutes it.
Paul Nelson