Recapitulation Theory
The theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism—and often expressed as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"—is a biological hypothesis that in developing from embryo to adult, animals go through stages resembling or representing successive stages in the evolution of their remote ancestors. With different formulations, such ideas have been applied and extended to several fields and areas, including the origin of language, biology, cognition and mental activities, anthropology, education theory and developmental psychology. While examples of embryonic stages show that molecular features of ancestral organisms exist, the theory of recapitulation itself has been viewed within the field of developmental biology as a historical side-note rather than as dogma. By contrast, there is no consensus against its validity outside of biology; recapitulation theory is still considered plausible and applied by some researchers in fields like the study of the origin of language, cognitive development, behavioral development in animal species, and others.
Read more about Recapitulation Theory: Origins, Haeckel, Modern Status
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