A question about the foetus/embryonic stage

[dave_c]

Is it true the foetus form gills in one stage and also looks reptilian in another stage? (I remember my GCSE biology teacher telling us this back in the day, he also claimed it was yet more proof for evolution)

[Clanad]

The scientific sounding term is "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", first proposed by Ernst Haeckel in 1866, has been thoroughly discredited. I first heard it as evolutionary gospel in Geology 101 years ago...

[rojash]

Didn't realise you were that old, Clanad :-)

[jimmer]

Recapitulation in the literal sense that Haeckel meant it has been falsified ( by science Clannad ). The gills your teacher refered to are not the same as fish gills but are gill like structures which help form other structures during development, for example, the lower jaw. However, modern biology still supports a revised version of recapitulation in the sense that bodily structures which evolved earlier in a group of animals generally appear earlier in embryonic development ( e.g. the backbone in vertibrates )

jim

[Azimov]

Wasn't ORP written about more recently by Gould?
I thought it was a respected theory with much going for it in terms of evidence!
I like the theory myself.