Haeckel's contributions to biology briefly. Haeckel: fraud to popularize evolutionary ideas

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Pauli D. Ojala and Matti Leisola
Translation: I. Chistyakova (Christian Scientific 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. Ernst Haeckel's typology absorbed Goethe's ideas, Cuvier's classification structures, Lamarckian “mechanisms” of inheritance of acquired characteristics - and placed all this in the system of Darwinian phylogenesis.

The forgery of drawings depicting the development of an embryo is not the only Haeckelian falsification. 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 origin of life from inorganic matter, which then, during the period of the spread of evolutionary teaching (until the 1920s), wandered from textbook to textbook.

Thanks to Haeckel's legacy, myths about the absence of pain in newborns, laws in favor of abortion, psychoanalysis and even the sexual revolution received 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 highest deity of science and inspired ordinary people that science denies “dualism” - the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe 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, the Darwinist demagogue, from all over the world. Recently discovered 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 replaced the outstanding morphologist Karl Gegenbaur, who resigned in 1862 (and later moved to Heidelberg). Haeckel received a position at the university even before the spread of the doctrine of evolution. He studied invertebrates - in particular, radiolarians (amoeba-like protozoans 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 first cousin (the deeply religious Emma Darwin was against publishing her husband's research). Anna Haeckel (nee Sethe) died on her husband's thirtieth birthday, and her death awakened in him an aversion to the spiritual. Hegel’s “General Morphology” is an explosion of feelings of a bitter man 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 did not care what they thought of him.

Darwin avoided discussing how his theory related 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” ill-conceived terms one after another. Actually, thanks to the newly introduced terminology, Haeckel managed to succeed. “Ecology”, “phylum”, “phylogeny”, “ontogenesis”, “protists”, “palingenesis”, “coenogenesis”, “gastrula”, “blastula” and “morula” are still popular in the scientific community. 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 classification 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 Goethe's ahistorical views with Darwin's radical theories. In order to “reveal the true structure of nature,” Haeckel added to Darwin’s theory of gradual evolutionary development 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 Darwin's concept of phylogeny.

Haeckel was 25 years younger than Darwin. He gained fame and position in no small part due to his biased approach to the study of embryonic development and, in particular, due to the recognition of the founder of evolutionary theory himself. In later editions of the Origin of Species (chapter XIV) it is said:

“Professor Haeckel... has devoted his vast knowledge and talent to the study of what he calls phylogeny, or the lines of relationship connecting all organic beings. When constructing such [genealogical] series, he relies primarily on embryological characteristics...”

As a result of Haeckel's popularization 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, Haeckel, broken by 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 of Arts degree and whose obtained “specimens” were mostly safely eaten by the researcher himself, admired Haeckel’s energy and scientific approach. He never ceased to praise the young professor:

“When trying to trace the genealogy of mammals, and therefore of man, descending lower and lower through the steps of the animal kingdom, we plunge into darker and darker areas of science... Anyone who wants to know what intelligence and knowledge can give should turn to the works of Prof. Haeckel."

Often, the idea of ​​recapitulation, following Darwin, is mistakenly attributed to Karl von Baer (1792-1876) or equated with simple similarity of embryos. But Darwin mentioned in this context the Estonian German von Baer, ​​who was already in old age at that time, 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 of 1874), where the infamous drawings of embryos were published.

In 1859, Darwin published his work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. There was only one illustration in the book. But in the introduction to Darwin’s next work, dedicated to human evolution, there was already a whole cavalcade of drawings: Haeckel’s ill-fated 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 his colleague, the elderly Darwin wrote in the introduction to his new book: “Nevertheless, the idea that man, on a par 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 especially Haeckel... The latter, in addition to his excellent work “Generalelle Morphologie” (1866), recently published, in 1868, and in the second edition in 1870, his “Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte”, in which he comprehensively analyzed pedigree of a person. If this book had appeared before my essay was written, I, in all likelihood, would not have finished it. Almost all the conclusions to which I have come are confirmed by Haeckel, and his knowledge is in many respects much more complete than mine.”

Demagogue-dogmatist on a European scale

By 1914, Haeckel had been accepted as a member of nearly a hundred professional and scientific societies. According to contemporaries, after Haeckel retired, his theories essentially turned into self-centered dogmatism. For example, in 1911, during lengthy discussions, and later in correspondence with the founder of Finnish genetics, Harry Federley, Haeckel persistently 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 had a circulation of more than one hundred thousand and was sold out within a year. By 1919, the book had already been reprinted ten times and translated into 30 languages. By 1933, almost half a million copies were sold in Germany.

This book inspired rebellion on both the “right” and the “left.” Truly, 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

“Without a doubt, to a greater extent than the works of any other scientist, including Darwin and Huxley (as the latter openly admitted), they managed to convince the whole world of the validity of the theory of evolution.”

Haeckel's theory of recapitulation has influenced both the hard sciences (for example, paleontology) and the humanities (for example, forensic anthropology and psychoanalysis). Paradoxically, its influence can be traced even in the sexual revolution, the scout movement and the behaviorist hypothesis " tabula rasa" Wilhelm Ostwald mentions the interscientific monist lobby in his “Monist Sermons.” Haeckel's drawings, in which he depicted a naked woman surrounded by lustful ape-like males, can rightly be considered the forerunners of Sigmund Freud's “recapitulating pansexualism.”

Although Haeckel's academic achievements at Jena were 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 proposed to save nations from biological degeneration, calling for help anticlericalism, 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 needed neither illustrations nor detailed explanations. All twenty chapters consisted of discussions about the “embryology of the soul” and “phylogenesis of the soul.” Images of a human embryo with gill slits, tail, fins and furrows, illustrating the idea of ​​the external similarity of vertebrate embryos, remain one of the most common illustrations in biology textbooks, although they are fakes.

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

The underappreciated complexity of the cell

Decades have passed since Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), as a result of experiments with sterile media carried out by him in 1859-1862, seemed to finally say goodbye to the idea of ​​​​the spontaneous generation of life. But Haeckel continued to believe in the supernatural evolutionary capabilities of proteins. In his opinion, shapeless deposits of gypsum on the seabed were evidence of the existence of the simplest forms of life. In popularizing this idea, not only Mendel's discovery of "latent factors" ("Anlagen"), but also Pasteur's observations were ignored.

Haeckel imagined and drew a group of precellular protoplasmic organisms, which he called "monera" (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 kind of shapeless, mobile clot of mucus or silt, which is a protein compound of carbon.”

Figure 2. The reproduction cycle of Monera - a supposed 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 Haeckel's works. (From the Swedish edition of The History of Peacemaking, p. 127).

Until the last reprint in the 1920s, Haeckel's History of Peacemaking was published unchanged. The detailed description of the fictitious “particles of life” apparently represented a deliberate deception, since Haeckel was an outstanding expert on 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 drawings.

Thomas Henry Huxley (Huxley) (1825-1895) - grandfather of Julian Huxley and Aldous Huxley - allegedly confirmed the existence of Haeckel's "moneron" in 1868 and named it Bathybius haeckelii. However, he later disproved this discovery (when it turned out that he had observed a siliceous mass). By the way, he owns the 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 were markedly different in spirit. Perhaps this is partly why England showed ideological resistance to the German Nazis with their “racial hygiene.” The English edition of General Morphology did not include either Haeckel's main arguments about the origin of man or 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 hypothetical particles of heredity, Haeckel introduced the concept of “plastidules”. These “memory molecules” were considered to be the precursors of genes. In the West, quasi-scientific theories of chemical evolution tended to favor the idea of ​​DNA/RNA primacy; In socialist countries, the dogma of the primacy of protein was more popular. In general, Haeckel’s “solid foundation” of nihilistic materialism suited the Soviet system perfectly. Lenin (1870-1924) admired Haeckel and his views. Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976), the inventor of harmful agricultural techniques that became one of the causes of famine in the Soviet Union, also acted under the influence of Haeckel’s ideas. Lysenko was a favorite of Stalin (1878-1953) and, of course, was completely subordinate to the leader. In a laudatory speech published in 1953 in the Pravda newspaper, Lysenko notes that “Comrade Stalin devoted time to a careful study of the most important problems of biology”, “directly edited the draft report “On the situation in biological science”, explained to me in detail his corrections, gave instructions on how to present certain parts of the report.”

Haeckel also rejected the theory of entropy (counter-evolution). He believed that life differs from inorganic matter only in the degree of organization. Memory is only a general function of any organized mother. After the discovery of liquid crystals, in particular albumin, all matter began to be considered alive; even electrons were seen 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 arise.

In 1878, Haeckel formulated the concept of "cellular souls" and "soul cells", and with this laid the foundation for the idea of ​​"unity" based on "plastidules", invisible homogeneous elementary molecules of protoplasm. His last published work ( DieKristallsehen, 1917) was dedicated 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 consist of cells.

It must be remembered that at the beginning of the twentieth century, life was not defined from the perspective of information theory, as is customary today after the revolutionary discoveries of DNA. Back in the 1960s, cells were thought of as little more than 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 resulting from the diffusion of substances in a limited space.

Fraud as a system

Haeckel was not a consistent materialist, since he considered certain mystical forces to be the driving force of evolution inside matter itself. Rejecting the teachings of Gregor Mendel (1823-1884), based on countless experiments, was a monstrous mistake. New signs did not appear in peas “out of nowhere.” Haeckel completely came over to the side of anti-Mendelian “science”, which believed that the environment has a direct effect on organisms and as a result of this new races arise.

Figure 3. The first comprehensive family/phylogenetic tree compiled by Ernst Haeckel. Note the fictitious "monera" at the base of the tree. Haeckel transferred the same drawings from book to book. (Illustration from the 5th edition of Human Evolution).

In his recent book, Richard Weikart specifically notes that at the monist congress, Haeckel opposed the spiritual principle and stubbornly defended determinism, denying human free will. Nature and man are one, therefore, for survival it is necessary to adapt to the “ecological” community. It seems that Haeckel’s concept of “ecology” initially had a proto-fascist meaning.

Haeckel made his considerable contribution to various fields of natural sciences. Even before any remains of the first supposed human ancestor were discovered, he had already given this ancestor a name: Pithecanthropus alalus(non-speaking ape-man). Later, it was Haeckel's colleague, the anthropologist Eugene Dubois (1858-1940), who discovered "Javan Man". The Haeckelian roots of this find are hidden by the renaming: now “Javanese man” is called Homo erectus, but it was originally named 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 empty spaces with imaginary creatures. The various embryonic phases were given names corresponding to the links in this evolutionary chain. Significant features in images of embryos already known to us were called “heterochrony” (evolutionary changes in the relative timing of the appearance and rate of development of features). When Haeckel was faced with the problem of whether to classify lower organisms in the animal kingdom or the plant kingdom, he invented another new concept - “protists”.

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

Even if we ignore the fact that Darwin carefully edited his autobiography and letters before 1860, detracting from the pioneering merits of Alfred Wallace (1823-1913), it is clear that Darwin followed the tradition of Malthus, who argued for the preservation of a “class society”. During the years of the industrial revolution, which occurred during the scientist’s childhood, 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' 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 on 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 contrary, persistently convinced ordinary people, outstanding representatives of German science and countless officials of all ranks of this - until, in the end, his “wonderful” biogenetic law was recognized as an inexhaustible reservoir 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 Darwin's teachings. However, Darwin also made a case for the Malthusian indifference and lack of compassion characteristic of high society:

“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 near 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 similarities between 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 countless representatives of the animal kingdom.

In 1904, in addition to his bestseller “World Riddles,” Haeckel published the book “Bizarre Forms of Nature.” It declared that newborns are born deaf and without consciousness - from which the author further concluded that at birth a person has neither soul nor spirit. Haeckel advocated the killing of newborns with pathology or disfigurement. He called it an "act of mercy" - like the killing of any terminally ill or disabled person:

“Modern society artificially supports the lives of hundreds of thousands of incurable people - crazy people, lepers, cancer patients, and so on. Their suffering is carefully prolonged, bringing no benefit either to them or to society as a whole... With a total European population of three hundred and ninety million people, at least two million are mentally ill people, of whom more than two hundred thousand are incurable. How much suffering for the sick themselves, how much hardship and grief for their loved ones, how much personal and public expenses! How much suffering and waste could be eliminated if people finally decided to free the terminally ill from indescribable torture with just one dose of morphine!”

In his controversial but pioneering study (1971), Daniel Gasman reminds us of Hegel's words about the basis of his conclusions:

“The Spartans conducted a thorough examination and selection of all newborns. Those who were weak, sick, or suffering from any physical infirmity were killed. Only completely 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 before care" - and therefore bears direct responsibility for Nazi atrocities.

From infanticide, “corporeal” science and “corporal” law moved on to justifying the legality of the extermination of entire peoples:

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

Haeckel divided people into two categories - “curly-haired” and “straight-haired”. The first, 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 that we consider integral to perfect human beauty,” according to Haeckel, could only be found among the Aryans.

“The mental activity of savages has not risen much higher than highly developed mammals, especially primates, with whom they are united by genealogical kinship. All their interests come down 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 Australian blacks are psychologically closer to mammals - primates and dogs - than to civilized Europeans. We must therefore assign a completely different value to their lives... their only interests are food and reproduction... many highly developed animals, especially monogamous mammals and birds, have risen to a higher stage of development than the lower savages.”

Already more than half a century ago, anthropologists rejected Haeckel's racist drawings of the brains, skulls, faces (Figure 4), ears and hands of representatives of the 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 its original name Entwicklungsgeschichte(evolutionary history of organisms).

With the recent advent of methods for growing embryonic cells, it has become obvious that the idea of ​​embryological recapitulation is still alive (despite the emerging legislation on stem cells, which affects the use of fertilized embryos for scientific purposes and regulates the activities of transnational corporations). An example is the widely circulated university textbook by Gerhart and Kirschner, which talks about “developmental capacity” and the need to transform the “unipolar Haeckelian model” into “bipolar Haeckelian”, “two-dimensional Haeckelian” and “three-dimensional Haeckelian” models. 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, the Treaty of Versailles and the October Revolution. He was also influenced by the pervasive Haeckelian legacy.

Daniel Gasman has been criticized for misinterpreting Haeckel's ideas in his above-mentioned work: in particular, he failed to find direct references to the writings of Ernst Haeckel in the documents of the Nazi aristocracy. Nevertheless, Gasman shows that “Huckelism” influenced a huge range of widely separated movements - 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 Weikart's book From Darwin to Hitler (2004) complements Gasman's research. It tells how the Nazis sought to suppress objectionable passages in Haeckel's works - in particular, the fact that Haeckel spoke out in favor of homosexuality, pacifism and feminism. In his analytical work, Gasmen does not criticize Darwinism, because he does not consider Haeckel a real Darwinist. According to Gesmen, Nazi ideology could only have something in common with Darwinism by pure chance, but in relation to “Haeckelism” 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 a like-minded person.) Weikart also writes about other people who influenced Nazi ideology - such as Friedrich Ratzel, Ludwig Woltmann, Theodor Fritsch, Alfred Ploetz, Dietrich Eckart.

Haeckel skillfully sensed the situation. In "World Mysteries" one can find a complete set of arguments put forward against traditional values. Haeckel's drawings became a source of inspiration for symbolist poets, modern art and the aesthetics of avant-garde modernism. “Haeckelianism” has a complex relationship with fascism, modernism and positivism.

Approval 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 understand. In 1907, even before the first editions of the classic books of Haeckel and Darwin appeared in Finnish, one of his contemporaries wrote:

“But his [Darwin’s] supporters turned out to be even more zealous, 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 its 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 replies written by him. In addition, we discovered Haeckel’s remarkable correspondence in Finland. In particular, the founder of Finnish genetics and eugenics, Harry Federley, caught our attention. Anthropology in Finland was not contaminated by racial hygiene. The subject of the correspondence was not “Sami”, “Gypsies”, “Jews”, etc.: instead, “degenerates”, “feeble-minded”, “crazy”, “alcoholics” and “criminals” were discussed.

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

“You practically won’t find any serious criticism of Haeckel’s ideas in letters. 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. The local admirers of Haeckel's views also held varied political beliefs.

Conclusion

Speaking of “Haeckelianism,” we again and again recall the words from 1 Corinthians 12:23: “And those who seem to us to be less noble in the body, we take more care of.”

Directly opposite ideas were formed during the critical years of the spread of evolutionary ideology. It was a violent intellectual revolution. Along with this ideology, views were accepted that today’s apologists for evolution would simply recoil from. Haeckel was lifted up to the “seat of Moses” and given 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 towards the theory of evolution.

Were Haeckel's drawings a deliberate falsification, or did he himself not notice his own desires to pass off wishful thinking? Hard to say. However, one thing is clear: Haeckelian 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 showed criminal frivolity in reproducing his falsifications. “Self-regulation” of the scientific research process may allow one to correct some minor errors, but it is too liberal in terms of mistakes made in order to prove the “needed” theory. As a result, scientists only strain out the mosquito while swallowing the camel.

Did “Haeckelism” manage to conquer other countries? This can be evidenced by the huge number of still unexamined letters stored in the archives of the Haeckel House Museum in Jena.

Acknowledgments

Articles on the topic

Links and notes

1. The article was written 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 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 Charles 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: Charles Darwin, “The Origin of Species”, 1872; introduction to part II - http://charles-darwin.narod.ru/chapter14.html - March 25, 2009.

Ernst Haeckel

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel(1834-1919) - German naturalist and philosopher. An adherent of Darwin's theory, he contributed greatly to its dissemination with his popular writings.

From 1852 he studied medicine and natural science at the Universities of Berlin, Würzburg and Vienna. In 1857 he received a medical diploma. From 1861 he was a private assistant professor, and from 1865 a professor at the University of Jena (Germany), having been convicted of scientific fraud, he resigned in 1909.

In philosophy, Haeckel is a representative of materialistic monism, approaching the views of the Greek philosophical school of the Ionians, where he introduces the evolutionary principle.

Evolutionary biology

Ernst Haeckel is a representative of the phylogenetic trend in biology, developing hypothetical schemes for the origin of some organic forms from others.

Haeckel is the author of the theory of “gastrea”, as the original organism from which the entire animal world originated, and the biogenetic law, according to which the main stages of its evolution are, as it were, reproduced in the individual development of an organism. He constructed the first family tree of the animal kingdom.

In developing his theory, he took advantage of A. Kovalevsky’s observations on the formation of germ layers in some animals, and the “biogenetic law”, which states that every animal in its embryonic, individual development goes through the same changes that it underwent during its gradual development as a species, from other animals.

The theory of gastrea brought him fame and was recognized by a significant part of scientists until relatively recently. The biogenetic law is currently also considered a scientific falsification.

In 1874, Haeckel published Anthropogenie, or the History of Human Development (Anthropogenie, or Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen; Russian translation 1919), which discussed the problems of human evolution. He came up with the idea of ​​the existence in the historical past of a form intermediate between ape and man, so he very actively supported attempts to find an ape-like ancestor (the hypothesis has still not been confirmed).

Eugenics

Ernst Haeckel was a supporter of eugenics - “social control of human evolution”, the doctrine of the targeted “improvement” of the gene pool of humanity by actively prohibiting unwanted people (sick, weak, etc.) from having children.

In 1933, the government of Nazi Germany issued a law “On the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring.” One of the main ideologists of Germany's eugenic policy was Ernst Haeckel. Until 1939, about 300 thousand people were sterilized in Germany.

Also, with the beginning of the Nazi war program, “euthanasia” was introduced for the “humane” extermination of the Jewish population, which was equated to monkeys. The peoples of Africa, Asia and the Slavic nations were also recognized as close to monkeys. Mediterranean peoples were also considered “half-breeds”. Such a theory provided a justification for the monstrous crimes of the Nazis, justifying their acceptability within the framework of the struggle for the “genetic purity of the race.”

Criticism of Haeckel's works

Haeckel's drawings are widely known, used by him in many works, including Anthropogenie oder Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen (1874, Engelmann, Leipzig). These drawings illustrate the Biogenetic Law, formulated by Müller in 1864 and then reformulated by Haeckel in 1866 as “Ontogeny is the recapitulation of phylogeny”. These figures depict embryos of eight vertebrate species in the early stages of development. The illustrations supposedly confirm the thesis that the development of the embryo repeats the stages of development of the ancestors.

In 1997 in the magazine Anatomy and Embryology An article was published in which a group of researchers, having studied Haeckel's drawings in detail and comparing them with modern photographs of embryos of the same animals at the same stages of development, came to the conclusion that Haeckel's drawings did not contain many important details. Haeckel's drawings were also called falsified in a review based on this article in the magazine "Science".

In 2003 in the magazine Biol Philos an article was published in which the work of Richardson et al in Anatomy and Embryology characterized as being based on highly misleading photography. At work Josiah Batten

The German naturalist and philosopher Ernst Heinrich Haeckel was a controversial and, to some extent, scandalous personality. He was fond of bold theories, made discoveries, was accused of falsifications, became a theorist of scientific racism and the founder of the science of ecology.

Achievements and contributions to science

Ernst Haeckel was born in 1834 in the Prussian city of Potsdam. As a young man, he attended three universities, studying medicine and science. Later, he never associated himself with medical practice and devoted himself to the study of living nature and the development of various theories related to the origin and development of life.

Haeckel traveled extensively throughout the Mediterranean, Asia and Northern Europe, collecting material for scientific work. As a result of his trips, he discovered about 120 species of radiolarians, published monographs on these single-celled organisms, as well as jellyfish, some deep-sea fish and other interesting organisms.

One of his books, The Beauty of Form in Nature, influenced art more than science. This is a lithographic publication that contained 100 prints with images of mosses, orchids, mollusks, radiolarians, bats, lizards, made according to sketches by Ernst Haeckel himself. The publication was appreciated by architects, sculptors and modern artists, many of whom parodied or were inspired by its illustrations.

Throughout his scientific career, the researcher published about 26 papers, he taught at the university and received four awards for his contributions to the field of biology and natural science. One of Haeckel's students was anthropologist and biologist Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay.

Ecology of Ernst Haeckel

While studying the life and structure of various organisms, the scientist drew attention to the important role of the habitat. He believed that living beings are formed and developed under the influence of external conditions to which they must adapt.

Of course, Ernst Haeckel was not the first person to notice the connection between habits, the external form of organisms and habitat. Lamarck, Zimmerman, Boyle and even Aristotle were interested in these questions before him. However, it was Haeckel who introduced the concept of “ecology” in his work “General Morphology of Organisms” and substantiated this direction as a new scientific direction.

Evolution and biogenetic law

Ernst Haeckel's scientific work and worldview were greatly influenced by Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. He supported and developed this topic in every possible way - he gave presentations on Darwinism, and outlined his vision of the concept in the works “General Morphology of Organisms”, “Natural History of the World”, “Anthropogeny”.

While exploring the problems of evolution, the scientist developed his own hypothesis - the “gastrea theory.” On its basis, Ernst Haeckel introduced the definition of the biogenetic law, later called the Haeckel-Müller law. According to it, every living organism in its individual development repeats the basic forms that its species passed through during the stages of evolution. The scientist argued that all embryos are similar and possess the features of distant ancestors (for example, they have a tail, gills, etc.), but as they develop, they increasingly acquire individual features characteristic of the modern species.

As proof of the biogenetic law, he cited his own illustrations depicting the development of embryos of various animal species. They clearly demonstrated the similarity of forms at the initial stage of development of organisms. For a long time, Haeckel's theory was considered expedient and completely correct. But over time it was expanded, and some of its provisions were refuted.

Criticism and accusations

The activities of Ernst Haeckel made a significant contribution to the development of science, but it cannot be called unambiguous. The scientist was often criticized and accused of falsifying certain facts in order to justify his own conjectures and assumptions. Thus, the journals Anatomy and Embryology and Science in 1997 and the journal Natural History in 2000 argued that Haeckel falsified his drawings and did not indicate many important details that refute his theory. In turn, the journal Biology & Philosopher came out in support of the scientist and accused other publications of manipulation.

Haeckel's philosophical views were also criticized. Developing the theme of evolution, he became fascinated by the ideas that human races originated from different ancestors and were formed in different places. His statements were quickly picked up by racist propagandists and contributed to the spread of Nazism.

German naturalist who contributed to the development and propaganda of natural historical materialism. Follower of Charles Darwin. He received his education at the Universities of Berlin and Würzburg. In 1857 he defended his doctoral dissertation “On the tissues of crayfish.” From 1861 - privat-docent, and in 1862-1909. - Professor at the University of Jena. E. Haeckel is the author of a number of original studies on the zoology of invertebrates, phylogeny of plants, animals and other issues of biology. These studies and in particular the monographs “On Radiolarians” (1862), “On Calcareous Sponges” (1872), “On Jellyfish” (1880), “Systematic Phylogeny” (1894-96) characterize E. Haeckel as one of the greatest biologists 19 V. However, his books and articles devoted to the generalization and popularization of the achievements of natural science, especially evolutionary theory, are most famous. The most famous of these works are: “General Morphology of Organisms” (1866), “Natural History of the Universe” (1868), “Anthropogeny, or the History of Human Development” (1874) and especially “World Mysteries” (1899) and “Miracles of Life” (1904). Haeckel is the author of the term “ecology”.

Based on the theory of Charles Darwin, E. Haeckel developed the doctrine of the laws of origin and historical development of living nature. He saw the significance of this teaching in the fact that it allows one to systematically trace the historical connection of related group organic forms and depict it in the form of a “family tree.” E. Haeckel formulated the theory of gastrea, according to which all multicellular animals descended from one common ancestor - a hypothetical primitive creature, which was a double sac floating by means of cilia, which he called “gastrea”. In fact, the data underlying this theory belongs to the Russian scientist A. O. Kovalevsky, whose work Haeckel carefully studied. However, Kovalevsky, as noted by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, always treated E. Haeckel’s theory of gastrea with restraint. The key to understanding phylogenesis, according to Haeckel, is the study of the individual development of living organisms - ontogenesis. In this regard, Haeckel formulated and substantiated in the form of a biogenetic law the idea of ​​the connection between phylogeny and ontogenesis, developed by Darwin. E. Haeckel came up with the idea of ​​the existence in the historical past of an intermediate form between monkey and man - Pithecanthropus, an idea that was brilliantly confirmed later (in the 90s of the 19th century) by the discovery of remains of such a form on the island of Java. The great merit of E. Haeckel is also the fact that he replenished taxonomy, morphology and other branches of biology with many new factual data. E. Haeckel, trying to reconcile Darwinism with Lamarckism, believed that the variability of biological species is the result of the interaction between adaptation and heredity. E. Haeckel emphasized the determining role of the external environment in the life and development of living organisms, in particular in the origin of hereditary changes. He recognized the possibility of inheritance of characteristics acquired by organisms during their individual lives. Defending and developing Darwinism, Haeckel sharply criticized R. Virchow when he opposed the teaching of evolutionary theory in educational institutions.

E. Haeckel is one of the most progressive scientists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a representative of natural historical materialism. However, in a number of cases he moved away from materialism. In some of his statements he approached Kantianism, for example, speaking about the unknowability of substance. E. Haeckel himself called his worldview “monism,” renounced the name “materialist,” and defended the union of science and religion.

E. Haeckel was one of the founders and ideologists of “social Darwinism”. Unlawfully extending the laws of living nature to the phenomena of social life, he explains, for example, the division of society into classes by the action of natural selection, the class struggle by the action of the law of struggle for existence, etc. Speaking in defense of the teaching of Darwinism, E. Haeckel tried to “rehabilitate” it in in the eyes of the state, proving that Darwinism is essentially an allegedly anti-socialist doctrine. E. Haeckel compared society to an organism and believed that improvement of the social system is possible on the basis of expanding knowledge in the field of biology and anthropology. Approving European colonial policy with the help of racist arguments, E. Haeckel said that the so-called. savages (Australians, Vedas, Akka, etc.) are intellectually closer to monkeys and other higher mammals than to cultivated Europeans. These views were consistent with his positive attitude towards Bismarck’s policies, and at the end of his life – with chauvinistic sentiments during the First World War.

Bibliography

1. Biographical dictionary of figures in natural science and technology. T. 1. – Moscow: State. scientific publishing house "Big Soviet Encyclopedia", 1958. - 548 p.

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Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel(German) Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel ; 1834-1919) - German naturalist and philosopher. Author of the terms Pithecanthropus, phylogeny, ontogeny and ecology.

The path in science

Darwinian ideas had the strongest influence on Haeckel. He gave a public speech about Darwinism at a meeting of the German Scientific Society, and in 1866 his book “General Morphology of Organisms” (“General Morphology of Organisms”) was published. Generelle Morphologie der Organismen"). Two years later, “The Natural History of Peacemaking” appeared (“ "; Russian translation), where the evolutionary approach he developed was presented in a more popular form, and in Haeckel he published the work “Anthropogeny”, or “The History of Human Development” (“ Anthropogenie", or " Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen"; Russian translation 1919) is the first comprehensive study in history to discuss the problems of human evolution.

Haeckel developed a theory of the origin of multicellular organisms (the so-called theory of gastrea) (), formulated a biogenetic law, according to which in the individual development of an organism the main stages of its evolution are reproduced, and built the first family tree of the animal kingdom.

The gastrea theory brought him fame and was accepted by most scientists until relatively recently. Currently, evolutionists, along with the theory of gastrula, consider as a well-founded theory of phagocytella, proposed by I. I. Mechnikov in 1879-1886, as well as the theory of synzoospores and primary sedentarity of multicellular organisms, developed by A. A. Zakhvatkin, and others.

For zoological research he made trips to Heligoland and Nice, and worked in Naples and Messina. Traveled to Lisbon, Madeira, Tenerife, Gibraltar, Norway, Syria and Egypt, Corsica, Sardinia and Ceylon. Haeckel was one of the first German zoologists to support Darwin's theory. Based on this theory and embryological data, Haeckel made an attempt to provide a rational system of the animal kingdom based on the phylogeny of animals. Haeckel paid special attention to the importance of the history of individual development, or ontogeny, for the question of the origin of the species itself or its phylogeny. The starting point for Haeckel's views was a stage of embryonic development, which Haeckel called gastrula. Haeckel believed that this stage replicates the common ancestor of all animals. Haeckel called this supposed progenitor gastrea and tried to explain how various types of the animal kingdom developed from it. The doctrine of gastraea was later recognized as erroneous.

In 2003, the journal Biology & Philosophy published an article in which the above 1997 work in Anatomy and Embryology characterized as being based on misleading photographs. founded on highly misleading photography ). When removing extraneous elements and bringing the images to a single scale and orientation, the difference between Haeckel’s drawings and photographs of embryos turns out to be not so significant. Josiah Batten quotes Haeckel in which he points out the fact that most of the drawings and diagrams used in teaching contain errors.

Philosophical views

Afterwards, Haeckel devoted himself entirely to developing the philosophical aspects of evolutionary theory. He becomes a passionate apologist for “monism” - a scientific and philosophical theory designed to replace religion, and founded the “League of Monists” with the aim of popularizing a racist version of social Darwinism. Haeckel's views are expressed in the books “World Riddles” (“ Welträtsel", 1899; Russian translation) and “The Miracle of Life” (“ Lebenswunder", 1914).

Confession

• In 1864 he received the Kotenius Medal.
• In 1894 he was awarded the honorary Carl Linnaeus Medal for continuing the Linnaean tradition in modern biology.
• In 1900 - the Darwin Medal.

Plants named after Haeckel

• Aptenia haeckeliana(A. Berger) Bittrich ex Gerbaulet
• Cousinia haeckeliaeBornm.
• Eugenia haeckelianaTrimen
• Gagea × haeckeliiC. W. Dufft & M. Schulze
• Huperzia haeckelii(Herter)Holub
• Mesembryanthemum haeckelianumA. Berger
• Peratetracoilanthus haeckelianus(N.E.Br.) Rappa & Camarrone
• Platythyra haeckelianaN.E.Br.

Bibliography

1. « Die Radiolarien"(1862)
2. « Beitrage z. Naturgeschichte d. Hydromedusen"(1865)
3. « Generelle Morphologie d. Organismen"(2nd ed., 1866) (for a presentation of the views developed by Haeckel in this book, see Mechnikov, “The Doctrine of Organic Forms, Based on the Theory of Transformation of Species” (1869)
4. (B., 1868, 7th ed., 1879)
5. « Studien über Moneren und andere Protisten"(1870)
6. « Ueber dem Entstehung und dem Stammbaum d. Menschengeschlechts"(4th ed., 1881)
7. « Entwicklungsgeschichte der Siphonophoren"(Utrecht, 1869)
8. « Ueber Arbeithsteilung in Natur und Menschenleben"(B., 1869)
9. « Das Leben in d. grössten Meerestiefen"(B., 1870)
10. « Gastraea theory"("Jenaische naturw. Zeitschrift" 1874)
11. « Anthropogenie"(3rd ed., 1877)
12. « Ziele und Wege der heutigen Entwickelungsgeschichte"(1875)
13. « Arabische Korallen"(1876)
14. « Die Perigenesis d. Plastidule"(1876-1877)
15. « Die heutige Entwickelungslehre im Verhältniss zur Gesammtwissenschaft"(Stuttgart, 1877)
16. « Das Protistenreich etc. d. niedersten Lebewesen"(1878; in Russian translation "The Kingdom of Protists", St. Petersburg, 1881);
17. « Gesammelte populäre Vorträge etc."(1878-1879)
18. « Das System der Medusen"(1880-1881)
19. « Ursprung und Entwickelung der tierischen Gewebe"(1884)
20. « Indische Reisebriefe"(2nd ed. 1884, translated into Russian in “Foreign Bulletin”)
21. « Die Radiolarien"(1887-1888)
22. « Report on the Radiolaria collected by H. M. Challenger"(Report Challenger, vol. 18, part. 40, 1888): "Report on the Deap-Sea Keratosa" (ibid., Zoology, vol. 32, part. 82, 1888)
23. « System der Siphonophoren auf phylogenetischer Grundlage entworfen"("Jenaische Zeitschr.", vol. 22, 1888)
24. « Report on the Siphonophora collected by H. M. Challenger"(Report Chall., vol. 28, part. 77, 1888).
25. « Kunstformen der Natur"(1899-1904)

Translations into Russian

• “The Doctrine of the Development of Organisms” (“Nature”, 1876)
• “On the development of organisms” (ibid., 1877).

Modern publications in Russian

• Haeckel, Ernst. Beauty of forms in nature. - St. Petersburg. : Werner Regen Publishing House, 2007. - P. 144. - ISBN 5-903070-08-6.
• Haeckel, Ernst. Beauty of Form in the Deep Sea: Atlas of Radiolarians 1862 / Introduction by Olaf Breidbach. - St. Petersburg. : Werner Regen Publishing House, 2009. - P. 116. - ISBN 978-5-903070-21-3.

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Notes

Literature

• Haeckel, Ernst // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.

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