Ernst Haeckel

"Haeckel" redirects here. For other uses, see Haeckel (disambiguation).

Ernst Haeckel
Born
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel

(1834-02-16)16 February 1834
Potsdam, Kingdom of Prussia
Died9 August 1919(1919-08-09) (aged 85)
Jena, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Germany
Alma mater
Known forRecapitulation theory
Spouse(s)Anna Sethe, Agnes Huschke
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
  • Zoology
  • Natural History
  • Eugenics
  • Philosophy
  • Marine Biology
InstitutionsUniversity of Jena
Author abbrev. (botany)Haeckel
Author abbrev. (zoology)Haeckel
Signature

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (German: [ɛʁnst ˈhɛkl̩]; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919)[1] was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms and coined many terms in biology, including ecology,[2] phylum,[3] phylogeny,[4] and Protista.[5] Haeckel promoted and popularised Charles Darwin's work in Germany[6] and developed the influential but no longer widely held recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny") claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarises its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny.

The published artwork of Haeckel includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures, collected in his Kunstformen der Natur ("Art Forms of Nature"), a book which would go on to influence the Art Nouveau artistic movement. As a philosopher, Ernst Haeckel wrote Die Welträthsel (1895–1899; in English: The Riddles of the Universe, 1900), the genesis for the term "world riddle" (Welträtsel); and Freedom in Science and Teaching[7] to support teaching evolution.

Haeckel was also a promoter of scientific racism[8] and embraced the idea of Social Darwinism.[6][9] He was the first person to characterize the Great War the "first" World War, which he did as early as 1914.

  1. ^ Ernst Haeckel at the Encyclopædia Britannica
  2. ^ Haeckel, Ernst (1866). Generelle Morphologie der Organismen [The General Morphology of Organisms] (in German). Vol. 2. Berlin, (Germany): Georg Reimer. From p. 286: "Unter Oecologie verstehen wir die gesammte Wissenschaft von den Beziehungen des Organismus zur umgebenden Aussenwelt, wohin wir im weiteren Sinne alle "Existenz-Bedingungen" rechnen können." (By "ecology" we understand the comprehensive science of the relationships of the organism to its surrounding environment, where we can include, in the broader sense, all "conditions of existence".)
  3. ^ Haeckel, Ernst (1866). Generelle Morphologie der Organismen [The General Morphology of Organisms] (in German). Vol. 1. Berlin, (Germany): G. Reimer. pp. 28–29. Haeckel noted that species constantly evolved into new species that seemed to retain few consistent features among themselves and therefore few features that distinguished them as a group ("a self-contained unity"). "Wohl aber ist eine solche reale und vollkommen abgeschlossene Einheit die Summe aller Species, welche aus einer und derselben gemeinschaftlichen Stammform allmählig sich entwickelt haben, wie z. B. alle Wirbelthiere. Diese Summe nennen wir Stamm (Phylon)." (However, perhaps such a real and completely self-contained unity is the aggregate of all species which have gradually evolved from one and the same common original form, as, for example, all vertebrates. We name this aggregate [a] Stamm [i.e., race] (Phylon).)
  4. ^ (Haeckel, 1866), vol. 1, p. 29: "Die Untersuchung der Entwicklung dieser Stämme und die Feststellung der genealogischen Verwandtschaft aller Species, die zu einem Stamm gehören, halten wir für die höchste und letzte besondere Aufgabe der organischen Morphologie. Im sechsten Buche werden wir die Grundzüge dieser Phylogenie oder Entwicklungsgeschichte der organischen Stämme (Kreise oder "Typen") festzustellen haben." (The investigation of the evolution of these phyla and the identification of the genealogical kinship of all species that belong to a phylum—we deem [this] the highest and ultimately specific task of organic morphology. In the sixth book, we will have to establish the outline of this "phylogeny" or history of the evolution of the organic phyla (groups or "types").)
  5. ^ (Haeckel, 1866), vol. 1, pp. 215 ff. From p. 215: "VII. Character des Protistenreiches." (VII. Character of the kingdom of Protists.) From p. 216: "VII. B. Morphologischer Character des Protistenreiches. Ba. Character der protistischen Individualitäten. Der wesentliche tectologische Character der Protisten liegt in der sehr unvollkommenen Ausbildung und Differenzirung der Individualität überhaupt, insbesondere aber derjenigen zweiter Ordnung, der Organe. Sehr viele Protisten erheben sich niemals über den morphologischen Werth von Individuen erster Ordnung oder Plastiden." (VII. B. Morphological character of the kingdom of protists. Ba. Character of the protist Individualities. The essential tectological character of protists lies in the very incomplete formation and differentiation of individuality generally, however particularly of those of the second order, the organs. Very many protists never rise above the morphological level of individuals of the first order or plastids.)
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Watts et al., 2019 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Freedom in Science and Teaching. German 1877, English 1879, ISBN 1-4102-1175-4.
  8. ^ Hawkins, Mike (1997). Social Darwinism in European and American Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 140.
  9. ^ Hawkins, Mike (1997). Social Darwinism in European and American Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 137.