Assignment

Course: Evolutionary Biology

Submitted to: Dr. Mahendra Pratap

Submitted by: Charudutt Poonia

Disadvantage of Recapitulation
Theory
Biogenetic law, also called Recapitulation Theory, postulation,
by Ernst Haeckel in 1866, that ontogeny recapitulates
phylogeny. The development of the animal embryo and young
traces the evolutionary development of the species. The theory
was influential and much-popularized earlier but has been of
little significance in elucidating either evolution or embryonic
growth.
There are numerous criticisms about the Biogenetic Law such
as:
1. The enthusiasm of Haeckel, however, led to an erroneous
and unfortunate exaggeration of the information, which
embryology could provide.
2. The development of vertebrate embryo is based on the
recapitulation of ancestral stages; but it is no longer seems
convincing or even interesting to biologists at all.
3. Haeckel misstated the evolutionary principle. It is now firmly
established that ontogeny does not recapitulate the phylogeny.
4. There is no evidence that entire stages of vertebrates
embryos are recapitulated.
5. An organism cannot move from adulthood back through
adolescence into childhood, or that a butterfly cannot move
from its adult flying stage back through the pupa into its larval
stage. Such ideas are quite absurd. But how Haeckel claimed
that an organism has to pass through the stages of its
evolutionary history during its development.
6. Haeckel was totally dishonest and dangerously naughty basis
for the theory of embryonic recapitulation, and the fact that it
has long since been discredited scientifically, it is a false idea
that human beings retrace their evolutionary past in the womb.
7. A natural law can only be established as an induction from
facts. Haeckel was of course unable to do this. Haeckel altered
the illustrations of them to fit his theory. The Biogenetic law as
a proof of evolution is valueless.
Baer’s Law also contradicts with Biogenetic Law. Von Baer's
Law dictates that in an early stage of a chick embryo might be
recognizable as a member of the phylum Vertebrata, but not as
any particular subtaxon. Later, as structural specialization
continues, it is recognizable as a member of the class Aves, and
finally as a member of a particular species, Gallus domesticus.
The embryos of higher animals resembles the embryos and not
the adult of ancestors

Paleontological Evidence of Evolution

Paleontology is the study of the history of life on Earth as based
on fossils. Fossils are the remains of plants, animals, fungi,
bacteria, and single-celled living things that have been replaced
by rock material or impressions of organisms preserved in rock.
Paleontologists use fossil remains to understand different
aspects of extinct and living organisms. Individual fossils may
contain information about an organism’s life and environment.
Much like the rings of a tree, for example, each ring on the
surface of an oyster shell denotes one year of its life. Studying
oyster fossils can help paleontologists discover how long the
oyster lived, and in what conditions. If the climate was
favorable for the oyster, the oyster probably grew more quickly
and the rings would be thicker. If the oyster struggled for
survival, the rings would be thinner. Thinner rings would
indicate an environment not favorable to organisms.

Some fossils show how an organism lived. Amber, for instance,

is hardened, fossilized tree resin. At times, the sticky resin has
dripped down a tree trunk, trapping air bubbles, as well as
small insects and some organisms as large as frogs and lizards.
Paleontologists study amber called fossil resin to observe these
complete specimens. Amber can preserve tissue as delicate as
dragonfly wings. Some ants were trapped in amber while eating
leaves, allowing scientists to know exactly what they ate, and
how they ate it. Even the air bubbles trapped in amber are
valuable to paleontologists. By analyzing the chemistry of the
air, scientists can tell if there was a volcanic eruption or
other atmospheric changes nearby.

The behavior of organisms can also be deduced from fossil

evidence. Paleontologists suggest that hadrosaurs, duck-billed
dinosaurs, lived in large herds, for instance. They made
this hypothesis after observing evidence of social
behavior,including a single site with approximately 10,000
skeletons.

Fossils can also provide evidence of the evolutionary history of

organisms. Paleontologists infer that whales evolved from
land-dwelling animals, for instance. Fossils of extinct animals
closely related to whales have front limbs like paddles, similar
to front legs. They even have tiny back limbs. Although the
front limbs of these fossil animals are in some ways similar to
legs, in other ways they also show strong similarities to the fins
of modern whales.
 Picture Source Internet

Hypothesis for Origin of Life

There are many views on how life originated on earth. The
earth is said to have come into existence 5 billion years ago and
life on earth came into existence only a billion years after that.
There were many scientists who studied the fossils and
performed experiments to postulate their versions of the
theory of evolution. These theories explained below:

Theory of Special Creations

The theory of special creation is proposed that life on earth is
created by a supernatural power, the GOD. According to the
Christian belief, god has created the universe, planet,
animal,plant and human in six natural days. Similar beliefs are
also been proposed by other religion as well. There are believes
in the theory of special creation.
These points are as follows:
A. All living organisms were created same day [NO DIFFERENCE
IN THEIR APPEARANCE].
B. They were created in the present form [NO EVOLUTION].
C. Their bodies and organs are fully developed to meet the
requirement to run the life.

Theory of spontaneous generations

The theory of spontaneous generation or abiogenesis assumes
that non-living material in a spontaneous manner give rise to
life. There are several observations supporting this theory,
which are as follows:
• Hair of horse tail dipped in the water gives rise to horsehair
worm, gordius.
• Fly larvae develops on rotten meat.
• In ancient Egypt, it was believe that frog, snake, crocodiles in
the mud of nile river warmed with sun.
• Van Helmont claimed that he can produce mice from the dirty
shirt and hadful of wheat grains kept in dark cupboard in 3
weeks.

Theory of Catastrophism
This is the extension of the theory of special creation. This
theory assumes that life is originated by the creation and it is
followed by catastrophe due to geographical disturbances.
Each catastrophe destroyed the life completely whereas each
creation forms life different from the previous one. Hence,
each round of catastrophe/creation is responsible for
evolvment of different types of organisms on earth. The critism
of the current theory is same as previous one, No scientific
experiment to support the hypothesis and mostly be based on
imaginery concepts.
Theory of Cosmozoic
This theory was put forward by Richter and strongly supported
by Arrhenius. The theory assumes that life was present in the
form of resistant spores and appeared on earth from other
planet. Since the condition of earth was supporting the life,
these spores grew and evolved into different organisms. This
theory was also known as “theory of panspermia or spore
theory”. The theory initially got the support from the fact that
fossils of microorganism were found in meteorites in 1961. But
no mechanism is known about the transfer of spores from
other planet or whether these spores could survive the journey
in space. The absence of life forms on any planet except earth
and no details about the spores, its origin and mechanism of
crossing interplanetary space and reaching earth. In addition,
this theory doesn’t add much into the fundamental details
about origin of life. No scientific experiment were given to
support the theory. As a result, the hypothesis didn’t receive
much attention.

Theory of Eternity of Life

This theory assumes that life had no beginning or end. It
believes that life has ever been in existence and it will continue
to be so ever. It further believe that there is no question of
origin of life as it has no beginning or end. The theory is also
known as steady state theory. The main objection against the
proposed theory that it could not be able to explain; evidences
support that initially earth forms and then life appeared on it.

Modern Theory
The modern theory is also known as “chemical theory” or
theory of primary abiogenesis. In the modern theory, the
hypothesis of abiogenesis was proposed with a condition that
the non-living materials can give rise to life in the condition of
primitive earth. The condition of the primitive earth is different
from the present conditions which donot permit abiogenesis.
The idea of chemical theory was put forward by two scientist,
A.I. Oparin and J.B.S Haldane.
It has made following assumptions
1. Spontaneous generation of life under the present
environment is not possible.
2. Earth’s atmosphere ~1 billion years is very different from
the current conditions.
3. Primitive earth’s atmosphere was reducing in nature.
4. Under these conditions, the chemical molecules (inorganic
molecules) react with each other through a series of reactions
to form organic substances and other complex biomolecules.
5. The solar energy and UV radiation provided the energy for
the chemical reactions.

Experimental Evidences supporting chemical theory: The

hypothesis proposed by Haldane didn’t find much support
without scientific experimentation. To conclusively support the
chemical theory, miller and urey conducted experiment in
mimicking primitive earth environment. The experimental
design used for the experiment is given in the Figure. The
experimental setup consists of a glass flask, a condenser, and a
liquid flask interconnected with tubes and a source of electric
spark to provide energy. He introduced a mixture of methane
(CH4), ammonia (NH3), and hydrogen (H2) in the ratio of [Link]
and water (H2O) vapor at 8000 C. he allowed to circulate the
mixture into this closed glass apparatus for 18 days
continuously. He provided energy in the form of spark by
supplying electricity of 75000 volts through two electrodes. The
electric sparks mimicks lighting in the primitive earth
atmosphere. While passing the mixture, gases were passes
through a liquid flask to simulate the volcano. The mixture was
collected from the stop cock and analyzed using
chromatographic and calorimetric techniques. The analysis of
mixture indicates the presence of amino acids such as glycine,
alanine, aspartic acid, nitrogen base adenine and simple sugar
ribose. In addition, he found hydrogen cynide (HCN),
formaldehyde (HCHO) and other active intermediate
compounds such as acetylene and cyanoacetylene.

The chemical reactions which might explain the formation of

these compounds are as follows:
References

 deBeer GR. An Atlas of Evolution. Nelson, New York, 1964.

 Waddington CH. Principles of Embryology. George Allen and Unwin
Ltd., London, 1956.
 Simpson GG, Beck WS. Life: An Introduction to Biology. Harcourt,
Brace and World, Inc. New York, 1965.
 Richardson M, Keuck G. Haeckel’s ABC of evolution and development.
Biol. Rev. 2002; 77:495-528.
 Christian JL. Philosophy: An Introduction to the Art of Wandering,
2nd edn. Halt, Rinchart and Wiston, 1977.
 Ahad MA. The direct evidences (paleontology/ fossils) of evolution
opposite to Darwin’s theory and even opposite to human evolution
(descent of man) from the lower animal like chimpanzee. Am. J. L.
Res. Sci. 2015; 3(1):56-76.
 Abzhanov, Arhat (2013). "von Baer's law for the ages: lost and found
principles of developmental evolution".
 [Link]
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