RECAPITULATION

"Recapitulation" (also called the "Biogenetic law") is the theory that, at different stages in your development as an embryo, you had the organs of your supposed evolutionary ancestors. Here is the story behind this false theory, which has repeatedly been repudiated by competent scientists. Evolutionary theory is a myth. God created everything; the evidence clearly points to it. Nothing else can explain the mountain of evidence. This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia, brought to you by Creation Science Facts.

In the list below, full caps at the beginning of a hyperlink show it begins a new page.

CONTENTS: Recapitulation

Introduction: Ernst Haeckel's fraud adds no credibility to evolution
The "Chicken Sac": Actually your first blood-making organ
The "Lizard Tail": Actually an important part of your spine
The "Fish Gills": Actually your middle ear, parathyroids, and thymus
*Ernst Haeckel: The fraud who got it started

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This material is excerpted from the book, RECAPITULATION. An asterisk ( * ) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the books this Encyclopedia is based on, only 164 statements are by creationists.

INTRODUCTION

This theory is not merely foolish; it is the result of an outright hoax, initially developed by *Ernst Haeckel in 1866.

In the 19th century, when relatively little was known about the human body, some evolutionists came up with a strange idea which does not agree with modern scientific facts. Then, in order to make the theory appear even more convincing, one of those men produced woodcut illustrations which were soon afterward proven to be hoaxes.

The concept of "recapitulation" is based on the fact that there are similarities among embryos of people, animals, reptiles, birds, and fish. All creatures are so tiny when they first begin life that one would expect certain similarities to initially exist between, say, a fish and a bird. All babies begin as extremely tiny round balls and all look similar for the first few weeks. When very small, there is only one ideal way for them to develop. The problem here is size and packaging. Literally thousands of structures and organs are developing within a very small space.

The evolutionary theory of "recapitulation" declares that human embryos have organs which are leftovers from evolutionary ancestors. Human embryos are said to have a yolk sac like a chicken, a tail like a lizard, and gill slits like a fish! Is this true? No, it is not. Reputable scientists laugh at the idea, but evolutionists keep saying it is so.

THE "CHICKEN SAC"

In a baby chick, the yolk sac is its source of nourishment until it hatches. This is because the chick is in a shell, without a connection to its mother.

In a human, the only similarity of this bulging sac is its shape. Your blood is made in your bones; but, when you were an embryo, you had no bones! So God gave you a tiny sac-like organ to initially make your blood for you. That is what that sac is for. It takes blood to make the bones which will make the blood! You have reason to be thankful for that little sac.

THE "LIZARD TAIL"

When you were an embryo, your spine was longer than your body. Therefore, it stuck out and looked like a "tail." This is because your spine is very complicated and it initially required extra space to develop. Later your body grew larger and perfectly fit the length of the spine. Would you rather that all your spine was not formed back then? God does everything just right. The complex nerves in your spine needed that extra length in order to grow properly.

THE "FISH GILLS"

The evolutionists call these "gill slits." These are three little folds you had in your neck when you were an embryo. Why were they there? Carefully examining them, we find no gills to extract oxygen out of water, and no gill slits (no openings) of any kind. These are not gill slits! There are no slits and no gills.

Scientists now know that the upper fold eventually develops into the middle ear canals, the middle fold changes into the parathyroids, and the bottom fold becomes the thymus gland.

Once again the evolutionists are wrong. In fact, they are wrong all the time! When a person bases his ideas on a false premise, all his conclusions will be incorrect. And evolutionary theory is based on the concept that everything made itself.

*ERNST HAECKEL

Before concluding this study on recapitulation, we should consider *Haeckel himself.

*Haeckel invented the word, "recapitulation," also calling it the "biogenetic law." He said that embryos repeat (recapitulate) the shapes of their evolutionary forebearers.

But he needed proof for his theories, first proclaimed in 1866; so, since he had drafting ability, he doctored sketches of embryos, to make them appear alike! In 1874, he published his fraudulent charts, and fooled many people in Germany into believing that evolution must be true.

Later, a leading German embryologist, *Wilhelm His, Sr., exposed the hoax for what it was. He printed sketches of what those embryos really looked like, and declared *Haeckel to be a liar and a fraud.

But the facts about the fraudulent aspect of *Haeckel's work have never been widely published in English. Instead, you will find the recapitulation theory in standard schoolbooks, along with similarities, mimicry, and vestiges.—pp. 38-39, 41.

The human heart. Some lower level creatures have a single chamber in their heart, others have two or three. So, if we—who have four chambers in our hearts—"recapitulated" lower creatures while we were embryos, we should have first one, then two, then three, and then four chambers in our hearts, as we progress through our embryonic development.

But the truth is that, when you were conceived, you first had two chambers in your heart. They later fused into a single chamber. Eventually, before birth, they developed into four chambers. So, instead of the evolutionary 1-2-3-4, humans have 2-1-4.

Basic flaw. There is a basic flaw in *Haeckel's theory. It is this:

Man is supposed to have descended from a bird. And an animal, whose ancestor was a fish, which got tired of swimming around, came out of the water and spent the rest of its life on land while giving birth to nonfish.

But, aside from the oddity of such a yarn, why do fish embryos also have—not only their own fish gills,—but also the bird yoke sac and the animal tail? Did the fish descend from the bird? It is clear that *Haeckel's theory does not even agree with itself.

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SCIENTISTS SPEAK ABOUT RECAPITULATION: The experts are disgusted with this hoax, yet it continues to be printed in books.