Haeckel's Embryos - Images, Evolution, and Fraud

Drawings by the Darwinist Ernst Haeckel of human and other vertebrate embryos, which begin almost identical and diverge toward their adult forms, are images of the past that have achieved a long life in books, journals, TV shows, and webpages, even though they have been plagued by controversy from the start. Within months of publication in 1868 a colleague alleged fraud, and Haeckel’s many enemies have elaborated the charge ever since. Yet these images, the most contested in the history of science, have lived on, becoming textbook classics and the most influential representation of the relations between evolution and development--until 1997 when a biologist accused Haeckel again, and adherents of "intelligent design” forced publishers to take his icons of evolution out of their books. How could what were already the most controversial pictures in science history have gone on to a career as some of the most widely seen embryological illustrations? Icons of Darwinism tells the extraordinary story of Haeckel’s embryos for the first time. Beginning with their creation, Nick Hopwood emphasizes the subtle innovations made during the circulation and copying of the images, as they were interpreted and debated following their first publication. He uses their story to explore how pictures of knowledge succeed and fail, become accepted, and spark controversy. Along the way, Icons of Darwinism both depicts how embryonic development was made a process we can see and debate and reveals how copying--the epitome of the unoriginal--is after all creative, contested, and consequential.