Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny
Welcome to the phylogeny world. This word was first used by Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) when he was attempting to visualise trees of life to explain relationships between living organisms from an evolutionary perspective. His drawings of evolutionary trees first appear as plates in the second volume of Generelle Morphologie.
Haeckel was a bit of a wordsmith coining the words ecology, phylum and Protista as well as a host of others. The words he used are heavy with meaning, both scientific and artistic.
My responses to the ideas of phylogeny and Haeckel's work can be seen in the drawings.
My own take on phylogeny can be summarised as strap lines;
The pattern of evolution.
The bio-archaeology of evolution.
The time trace of life.
The history of evolution.
The tree of life.
In many ways the concepts behind phylogeny can be seen to be the limits of our perception of life. A couple of quotes may be of use here:
'Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world'
Arthur Schopenhaus
Studies in Pessimism
And
'No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe
is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine
owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.'
John Donne
Meditations XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
Quotes on phylogeny/evolution
'Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution' (Dobzhansky)
'Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' (Haeckel)
'Phylogeny is generalised transformation' (Patterson)
'[There are only two things of interest about an organism:] what is it and where does it fit?' (attributed to Patterson)
'All this was merely a bewildering chaos of facts until given meaning by the evolutionary theory' (Mayr)
'It is, however, very difficult to establish the precise lines of descent, termed phylogenies, for most organisms' (Ayala)
'Fossils ... have clouded rather than clarified our attempts to reconstruct phylogeny' (Fortey)
'Many trends singled out by evolutionary biologists are ex post facto rendering of phylogenetic history' (Eldredge)
'[The] tree of life is ... a mystical concept alluding to the interconnectedness of all life on our planet ... a metaphor for common descent in the evolutionary sense ... a motif in various world theologies, mythologies and philosophies' (Wikipedia)
Haeckel was a bit of a wordsmith coining the words ecology, phylum and Protista as well as a host of others. The words he used are heavy with meaning, both scientific and artistic.
My responses to the ideas of phylogeny and Haeckel's work can be seen in the drawings.
My own take on phylogeny can be summarised as strap lines;
The pattern of evolution.
The bio-archaeology of evolution.
The time trace of life.
The history of evolution.
The tree of life.
In many ways the concepts behind phylogeny can be seen to be the limits of our perception of life. A couple of quotes may be of use here:
'Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world'
Arthur Schopenhaus
Studies in Pessimism
And
'No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe
is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine
owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.'
John Donne
Meditations XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
Quotes on phylogeny/evolution
'Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution' (Dobzhansky)
'Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' (Haeckel)
'Phylogeny is generalised transformation' (Patterson)
'[There are only two things of interest about an organism:] what is it and where does it fit?' (attributed to Patterson)
'All this was merely a bewildering chaos of facts until given meaning by the evolutionary theory' (Mayr)
'It is, however, very difficult to establish the precise lines of descent, termed phylogenies, for most organisms' (Ayala)
'Fossils ... have clouded rather than clarified our attempts to reconstruct phylogeny' (Fortey)
'Many trends singled out by evolutionary biologists are ex post facto rendering of phylogenetic history' (Eldredge)
'[The] tree of life is ... a mystical concept alluding to the interconnectedness of all life on our planet ... a metaphor for common descent in the evolutionary sense ... a motif in various world theologies, mythologies and philosophies' (Wikipedia)