{"id":8914,"date":"2019-05-22T16:12:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/recapitulation_theory_-or_biogenetic_law\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:12:53","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:12:53","slug":"recapitulation_theory_-or_biogenetic_law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/recapitulation_theory_-or_biogenetic_law\/","title":{"rendered":"Recapitulation theory (or biogenetic law)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The brainchild of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.famousscientists.org\/ernst-haeckel\/\" data-editable-link=\"https:\/\/www.famousscientists.org\/ernst-haeckel\/&amp;target=_self\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ernst Haeckel<\/a>&nbsp;(1834-1919). &nbsp;The theory held that an ontogenetic sequence is a recapitulation in proper order of the corresponding sequence in phylogeny, with the absolute time from conception to maturation remaining the same from ancestors to descendants. &nbsp;In other words, organisms repeat the adult stages of their ancestors during their own ontogeny (metaphorically, they &#8216;climb up their own family tree&#8217;). &nbsp;The theory has been summarized with the catch phrase &#8220;ontogeny repeats phylogeny&#8221;. &nbsp;The theory eventually lost its credence when it was shown to be incompatible with Mendelian genetics.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"mendelian_genetics\">Mendelian genetics<\/a>, <a href=\"modern_synthesis\">Modern synthesis<\/a>, <a href=\"neo-darwinism\">Neo-Darwinism<\/a>, Ontogeny. Phylogeny<\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The brainchild of&nbsp;Ernst Haeckel&nbsp;(1834-1919). &nbsp;The theory held that an ontogenetic sequence is a recapitulation in proper order of the corresponding sequence in phylogeny, with the absolute time from conception to maturation remaining the same from ancestors to descendants. &nbsp;In other words, organisms repeat the adult stages of their ancestors during their own ontogeny (metaphorically, they &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/recapitulation_theory_-or_biogenetic_law\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Recapitulation theory (or biogenetic law)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-8914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}