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
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of gov’t as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by gov’t. Somewhere in between and in gradations is the group that has the sense that gov’t exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)