The Survival and Reproduction of Haeckel's Embryo Drawings
Haeckel's embryo drawings, as comparative plates, were at first only copied into biology textbooks, rather than texts on the study of embryology. Even though Haeckel's program in comparative embryology virtually collapsed after the First World War, his embryo drawings have often been reproduced and redrawn with increased precision and accuracy in works that have kept the study of comparative embryology alive. Nevertheless, neither His-inspired human embryology nor developmental biology are concerned with the comparison of vertebrate embryos. Although Stephen Jay Gould's 1977 book Ontogeny and Phylogeny helps to reassess Haeckelian embryology, it does not address the controversy over Haeckel's embryo drawings. Nevertheless, new interest in evolution in and around 1977 inspired developmental biologists to look more closely at Haeckel's illustrations.
Read more about this topic: Embryo Drawing
Famous quotes containing the words survival, reproduction, embryo and/or drawings:
“The principle of avoiding the unnecessary expenditure of energy has enabled the species to survive in a world full of stimuli; but it prevents the survival of the aristocracy.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“Although Samuel had a depraved imagination—perhaps even because of this—love, for him, was less a matter of the senses than of the intellect. It was, above all, admiration and appetite for beauty; he considered reproduction a flaw of love, and pregnancy a form of insanity. He wrote on one occasion: “Angels are hermaphrodite and sterile.””
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“Even in civilized communities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of development.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Negres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness”
—Frank O’Hara (1926–1966)