Historical Figures Codexery

Ernst Haeckel

German zoologist, artist, and popularizer of Darwin who coined 'ecology' and the 'Biogenetic Law'.

He discovered and named thousands of new species and coined many biological terms including ecology, phylum, and phylogeny.[1] Haeckel promoted Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the influential but disproven recapitulation theory.[1] The German zoologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, and artist Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel lived from 16 February 1834 until 9 August 1919.[2]

Quick Facts

Birth name
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel
Born
16 February 1834
Birthplace
Potsdam, Kingdom of Prussia
Died
9 August 1919
Place of death
Jena, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Germany
Workplaces
University of Jena
Spouse
Anna Sethe, Agnes Huschke
Education
  • University of Berlin
  • University of Würzburg
  • University of Jena

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

He studied medicine in Berlin and Würzburg with notable scientists including Rudolf Virchow and Johannes Peter Müller.[3] In 1857 he earned a doctorate in medicine and received a license to practice, but found the occupation less worthwhile after contact with suffering patients.[4] Between 1859 and 1866 he worked on radiolarians, sponges, and annelids, naming nearly 700 new species of radiolarians during a Mediterranean trip.[5] Haeckel's first wife Anna Sethe died in 1864, and he later dedicated beautiful jellyfish species such as Desmonema annasethe to her memory.[6]

He retired from teaching in 1909 and died on 9 August 1919.[4][7] Potsdam, then within the Kingdom of Prussia, was the birthplace of Ernst Haeckel on 16 February 1834.[3] Charles Darwin was visited by Haeckel at Down House in Kent on 21 October.[8]

What the cited sources add

The declaration states that the concept of race is the result of racism, not its prerequisite.[9] It notes that Haeckel made a fateful contribution to a form of racism seemingly based on science through his classification of human "races" into a family tree.[9] A University of Cambridge account describes how Haeckel's embryo illustrations were challenged as forgeries soon after their publication 140 years ago.[10] The same source reports that expert critics accused Haeckel of drawing embryos more alike than they really are.[10]

Haeckel's published lecture "Monism as Connecting Religion and Science" from 1892 argues that the monistic idea of God recognizes the divine spirit in all things.[11]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Ernst Haeckel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Haeckel, "Generelle Morphologie der Organismen", Georg Reimer, 1866; Haeckel, "Generelle Morphologie der Organismen", G. Reimer, 1866, p. 28–29; (Haeckel, 1866), vol. 1, p. 29: "Die Untersuchung der Entwicklung dieser Stämme und die Feststellung der genealogischen Verwandtschaft aller Species, die zu ein; Robinson, "Ernst Haeckel German embryologist Britannica", Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 February 2022; (Haeckel, 1866), vol. 1, pp. 215 ff. From p. 215: "VII. Character des Protistenreiches." (VII. Character of the kingdom of Protists.) Fr en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Ernst Haeckel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Ernst Haeckel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Di Gregorio, "From Here to Eternity: Ernst Haeckel and Scientific Faith", Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005, p. 26; "Ernst Haeckel" (article),German Wikipedia, 26 October 2006, webpage: DE-Wiki-Ernst-Haeckel: last paragraph of "Leben" (Life) section.; "Ernst Haeckel" (article),German Wikipedia, 26 October 2006, webpage: DE-Wiki-Ernst-Haeckel: last paragraph of "Leben" (Life) section. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Ernst Haeckel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Ernst Haeckel" (article),German Wikipedia, 26 October 2006, webpage: DE-Wiki-Ernst-Haeckel: last paragraph of "Leben" (Life) section. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Ernst Haeckel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Ernst Haeckel" (biography), UC Berkeley, 2004, webpage: BerkeleyEdu-Haeckel.; "Ernst Haeckel" (biography), UC Berkeley, 2004, webpage: BerkeleyEdu-Haeckel. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Ernst Haeckel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Haeckel, "The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel", p. 14, 50; Innes, "From Here to Eternity: Ernst Haeckel and Scientific Faith, Religion, Theology, and Natural Science, Vol. 3 by Mario di Gregorio", Journal of the History of Biology, 2006, p. 214–216 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Ernst Haeckel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Ernst Haeckel" (article),German Wikipedia, 26 October 2006, webpage: DE-Wiki-Ernst-Haeckel: last paragraph of "Leben" (Life) section.; "Ernst Haeckel" (article),German Wikipedia, 26 October 2006, webpage: DE-Wiki-Ernst-Haeckel: last paragraph of "Leben" (Life) section.; Kutschera, "Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919): The German Darwin and his impact on modern biology", Theory in Biosciences, 1 May 2019, p. 1–7 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Ernst Haeckel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Richards, "The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought", University of Chicago Press, 2008, p. 173–174 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, "Jenaer Erklärung", www.shh.mpg.de, 10 September 2019. facts only, no text reused. shh.mpg.de
  10. "Haeckel's embryos: The images that would not go away | University of Cambridge", 6 July 2015. facts only, no text reused. cam.ac.uk
  11. Haeckel, "Monism as Connecting Religion and Science", 1892. facts only, no text reused. gutenberg.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Ernst Haeckel (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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