HAECKEL'S DIAGRAMS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 861, 6 July 1910, Page 8

HAECKEL'S DIAGRAMS.

A. STARTLING CONFESSION, . (COIBTCNICATED.); ...In view of the attention at present, being given to the theories of the German evolutionist, Haeckel, the following facts.cannot fail to be' l interesting .to .your readers: — ■Professor Haeckel belongs to an association of monists, whose chief objects arc- to prove that man was evolved gradually—developed, step by step from lower animals; to refute' ' the Bible; and to do away with the belief in the . immortality of the: individual soul, and in a- personal God,and Crear' tor. In February last, on attaining his. seventy-fifth 'birthday, he retired from the chair of zoology at Jena. Shortly, before ho retired there.was a startling, exposure made of some of the methods by which he tried to bolster up socalled science against-Christianity. Over his. own. signaturo.he' was. compelled by other; scientists to make very : serious admissions as to statements in his scientific writings. •'. He had takeit draw.ings' of other biologists and altered; them: taking.away-15 or 16 vertebrae from one monkey embryo aaid changing, th© same. He, also altered a human embryo so as to contain 11 vertebrae, not occurring in the. original—thus, if possible, to bridge' the, chasm between .man and the highest of the: lower ani-. mals/ There is an extract from his' own confession that appeared last Jaau-' a'ry hi the "Munchner AHgemeine Zeitung," in which he says: "To put an end to this unsavoury dispute I 'begin at once with'-a contrite confession.thata small per cent. (6 or 8 per cent.) of my embryo diagrams are really forgeries . ;. '.' those, namely, for

which the observed material is so incomplete or insufficient as to,compel us . . . to. fill in and reconstruct the missing links by hypothesis and comparative I should feel utterly condemned and annihilated by the admission were: it not that hundreds of the bast observers and most reputable biologists lie under the same charge. The great majority of all mor- s phological, anatomical, histological, and embryological diagrams are not true to nature, but are more'or less doctored; schematised, and reconstructed." '_ Needless to say, the, attempt to justify himself by such an allegation evoked widespread indignation. In a milder document signed by 46 professors, representing ,25 German, and Austrian universities and scientific schools, and in a stronger declaration., signed' by' 25 scientists .representing 19. universities and laboratories in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, •', HaeckelV method of doctoring his diagrams to prove his theories has'been emphatic-' ally condemned and repudiated. The' following sentence of Sir Oliver Lodge's may be added as a.fitting commentary: "If they (Haeckel and his friends).set up to teach that mind and what they call matter are so intimately connected: that no transcendence is possible, that the .term soul signifies only the sum of plasm movements in the ganglion celk—then such ; philoso-' phers must be content with an audience, of uneducated persons." .'. ' '