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From: gjphw@ihuxm.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: An aquatic phase in human evolution
Message-ID: <976@ihuxm.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-May-84 11:21:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxm.976
Posted: Mon May  7 11:21:26 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 8-May-84 00:33:54 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 29



   This is just a quick note about the "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"
 phrase mentioned in an article by D. Breslau (gargoyle!dan).  I claim that
 this relationship does not have many supporters among contemporary biologists.

   In a book called "Darwinism Defended", the author (a Canadian historian of
 science specializing in biology and evolution) asserts that Darwin had
 rejected the direct relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny in one of his
 latter books.  I do not recall if a alternative relationship was mentioned in
 the text.

   Several years ago, Carl Sagan wrote a book about human evolution and his
 views called "The Dragons of Eden".  I read both that book and a review of it
 in SCIENCE magazine.  The reviewer said that Sagan has a very engaging book
 but that his treatment of fetal development and the evolution of the brain was
 out of date (by more than 20 years) and not generally supported by most
 contemporary biologists.  Not being a biologist, I cannot say what the present
 attitudes are toward ontogeny, phylogeny, and human brain evolution.

   This note is intended to forestall a long and hopeless discussion about the
 relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny.  Ontogeny does not necessarily
 recapitulate phylogeny.
-- 

                                    Patrick Wyant
                                    AT&T Bell Laboratories (Naperville, IL)
                                    *!ihuxm!gjphw