Ontogeny...

Waaaay back in 1976, I was sittting it my AP Biology class, and the teacher wrote the phrase "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" on the board. We were all told to memorize it, but it was never explained. (We were dissecting a fetal pig and also learning the genus & species names of the common flora around the school at the time {Acer rubrum, anyone?}, but other than that, I don't know how the phrase related to what we were studying.
Of course I looked it up, now that we have this wonderful machine at our fingertips, but all I get are entries like "embryological law", "biological paradigm",...and I'm still pretty much as clueless as I was when I was 17. Anyone willing to explain what it is/was? Was it a big secret or something? Was he teaching us something that might be frowned upon by some, like....evolution?

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
Waaaay back in 1976, I was sittting it my AP Biology class, and the teacher wrote the phrase "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" on the board. We were all told to memorize it, but it was never explained. (We were dissecting a fetal pig and also learning the genus & species names of the common flora around the school at the time {Acer rubrum, anyone?}, but ...[text shortened]... ng? Was he teaching us something that might be frowned upon by some, like....evolution?

Try this:

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/ontogeny.htm


GRANNY.

You might want to take into account that the above link is from the Missouri Association for Creation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontogeny_recapitulates_phylogeny

It's the idea that the embryo and fetus go through different forms in the order of it's evolutionary ancestry; thus a human would look like a fish, amphibian, reptile and then mammal in the womb.

It's been discredited.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
You might want to take into account that the above link is from the Missouri Association for Creation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontogeny_recapitulates_phylogeny

It's the idea that the embryo and fetus go through different forms in the order of it's evolutionary ancestry; thus a human would look like a fish, amphibian, reptile and then mammal in the womb.

It's been discredited.

and yet that's what the AP Biology department was teaching it's college prep students in my day. Disturbing...

Originally posted by smw6869
Try this:

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/ontogeny.htm


GRANNY.

many thanks GRANNY. Explains a lot...

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
and yet that's what the AP Biology department was teaching it's college prep students in my day. Disturbing...

I tell you, I've discovered a secret gold mine in science education. There is almost no decent competition.

Of course depending on when 'your day' was, it might not have been discredited yet.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I tell you, I've discovered a secret gold mine in science education. There is almost no decent competition.

Of course depending on when 'your day' was, it might not have been discredited yet.

My final year of high school was the great bicentennial year, 1976.

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
My final year of high school was the great bicentennial year, 1976.

Don't know about you young punks You were not even born when the first sputnik was launched!