Ernst Haeckel
German biologist, philosopher, physician, and artist (1834–1919) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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.
Ernst Haeckel | |
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| Born | Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834-02-16)16 February 1834 |
| Died | 9 August 1919(1919-08-09) (aged 85) Jena, Germany |
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| Known for | Recapitulation theory |
| Spouse(s) | Anna Sethe, Agnes Huschke |
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| Institutions | University of Jena |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Haeckel |
| Author abbrev. (zoology) | Haeckel |
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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 Riddle 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.