Albatrossity2
Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007
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I have completed my survey of biology textbooks, testing the assertion in EE that "many" modern textbooks repeat Haeckel's error. The spreadsheet with complete data can be downloaded here.
Here are the highlights. I reviewed 36 books dating back to 1980 up through this year (26 college-level intro, 5 advanced college-level, 2 developmental biology textbooks, 2 high school level, and one that can be used in either high school or at the college intro level). 28 of these do NOT even mention Haeckel or the "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" aphorism. Of the 8 that do mention him, 2 of these are creationist texts (Pandas and People, and the Bob Jones University "Biology for Christian Classrooms) and 2 are advanced college-level books. Only one (the BJU creationist text) reproduces the original Haeckel woodcuts. 23 of them have some figure showing comparative embryology; about half of these are photos and the other half are drawings.
Excluding creationist books, then, 6 out of the 36 mention Haeckel, and exactly none of them repeat his error.
Please pass this along to your coauthors, Paul. And please amend your book.
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Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
- Pattiann Rogers
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