Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud (2015)
Hopwood, Nick (Author)
Haeckel, Ernst (Author)
University of Chicago Press
Physical Details: vii + 388 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English
Pictures from the past powerfully shape current views of the world. In books, television programs, and websites, new images appear alongside others that have survived from decades ago. Among the most famous are drawings of embryos by the Darwinist Ernst Haeckel in which humans and other vertebrates begin identical, then diverge toward their adult forms. But these icons of evolution are notorious, too: soon after their publication in 1868, a colleague alleged fraud, and Haeckel's many enemies have repeated the charge ever since. His embryos nevertheless became a textbook staple until, in 1997, a biologist accused him again, and creationist advocates of intelligent design forced his figures out. How could the most controversial pictures in the history of science have become some of the most widely seen? In Haeckel's Embryos, Nick Hopwood tells this extraordinary story in full for the first time. He tracks the drawings and the charges against them from their genesis in the nineteenth century to their continuing involvement in innovation in the present day, and from Germany to Britain and the United States. Emphasizing the changes worked by circulation and copying, interpretation and debate, Hopwood uses the case to explore how pictures succeed and fail, gain acceptance and spark controversy. Along the way, he reveals how embryonic development was made a process that we can see, compare, and discuss, and how copying---usually dismissed as unoriginal---can be creative, contested, and consequential. With a wealth of expertly contextualized illustrations, Haeckel's Embryos recaptures the shocking novelty of pictures that enthralled schoolchildren and outraged priests, and highlights the remarkable ways these images kept on shaping knowledge as they aged.
...MoreReview Erik L. Peterson (2017) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". American Historical Review (pp. 1302-1303).
Review Hsiang-Fu Huang (June 2017) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 293-295).
Review Donna Roberts (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 429-432).
Review Kate MacCord (2015) Review of "Life's Blueprint: The Science and Art of Embryo Creation". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 103-106).
Review Liborio Dibattista (2017) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza (pp. 791-793).
Review Frederick B. Churchill (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 719-720).
Review Robert J. Richards (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 865-867).
Review Andrew S. Reynolds (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (pp. 165-167).
Review Federica Turriziani Colonna (2016) Review of "Stations in the Field: A History of Place-Based Animal Research, 1870--1930". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 107-113).
Review Nils Petter Hellström (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". Archives of Natural History (pp. 367-368).
Review Federica Turriziani Colonna (2016) Review of "Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud". British Journal for the History of Science.
Similar Citations
Article
Hopwood, Nick;
(2006)
Pictures of Evolution and Charges of Fraud: Ernst Haeckel's Embryological Illustrations
(/isis/citation/CBB000670195/)
Thesis
Wellner, Karen L.;
(2014)
Lessons from Embryos: Haeckel's Embryo Drawings, Evolution, and Secondary Biology Textbooks
(/isis/citation/CBB001567645/)
Article
Henning Hufnagel;
Nick Hopwood;
Frank Jäger;
Nicolas Wanlin;
(2016)
Kreatives Kopieren: Ernst Haeckels Embryonenbilder
(/isis/citation/CBB488755501/)
Article
Nöthlich, Rosemarie;
Wetzel, Nadine;
Hoßfeld, Uwe;
Olsson, Lennart;
(2006)
“Ich acquirirte das Schwein sofort, ließ nach dem Niederstechen die Pfoten abhacken u. schickte dieselben an Darwin”---Der Briefwechsel von Otto Zacharias mit Ernst Haeckel (1874--1898)
(/isis/citation/CBB000933670/)
Chapter
Wells, Jonathan;
(2003)
Haeckel's Embryos and Evolution: Setting the Record Straight
(/isis/citation/CBB000501890/)
Article
Grell, Karl G.;
(1979)
Die Gastraea-Theorie
(/isis/citation/CBB000003179/)
Article
Rinard, Ruth G.;
(1981)
The problem of the organic individual: Ernst Haeckel and the development of the biogenetic law
(/isis/citation/CBB000011932/)
Article
Oppenheimer, Jane M.;
(1982)
Ernst Heinrich Haeckel as an intermediary in the transmutation of an idea
(/isis/citation/CBB000019934/)
Article
Schmitt, Stéphane;
(2003)
Homeosis and Atavistic Regeneration: The “Biogenetic Law” in Entwicklungsmechanik
(/isis/citation/CBB000600372/)
Book
Breidbach, Olaf;
(2006)
Visions of Nature: The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel
(/isis/citation/CBB000741537/)
Article
Tikkanen, Karin Westin;
(2012)
The Consequences of Truth
(/isis/citation/CBB001210570/)
Article
Mitchell, Benjamin David;
(2014)
Capturing the Will: Imposture, Delusion, and Exposure in Alfred Russel Wallace's Defence of Spirit Photography
(/isis/citation/CBB001420117/)
Article
McVicker, Donald;
(2007)
Elephant Pipes and Israelite Tablets: The Controversy between the United States Bureau of Ethnography and the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences
(/isis/citation/CBB000930952/)
Article
Tammiksaar, Erki;
Brauckmann, Sabine;
(2004)
Karl Ernst von Baer's Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere II and Its Unpublished Drawings
(/isis/citation/CBB000610028/)
Book
Roberts, Noel Keith;
(2000)
From Piltdown Man to Point Omega: The Evolutionary Theory of Teilhard de Chardin
(/isis/citation/CBB000100298/)
Article
Hopwood, Nick;
(2005)
Visual Standards and Disciplinary Change: Normal Plates, Tables and Stages in Embryology
(/isis/citation/CBB000773901/)
Article
Brauckmann, Sabine;
(2011)
Axes, Planes and Tubes, or the Geometry of Embryogenesis
(/isis/citation/CBB001221526/)
Article
Volker Wissemann;
(2008)
Johannes Reinke (1839-1931) – Botany, a study of pure divine service
(/isis/citation/CBB501385295/)
Book
Gasman, Daniel;
(1998)
Haeckel's monism and the birth of Fascist ideology
(/isis/citation/CBB000082507/)
Book
Müller, Fritz;
Breidbach, Olaf;
(2008)
Für Darwin und andere Schriften zur Biologie
(/isis/citation/CBB001232002/)
Bulletin of the History of Archaeology
Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Medizinhistorisches Journal
Journal of the History of Biology
Be the first to comment!