Ernst Haeckel book review – Spectrum of Science

In this book, zoologist Rainer Wellman tells of an exciting life of biomedical science with many discoveries. Ernst Haeckel became known as the “German Darwin” in the nineteenth century. This was the era of the important and fundamental discoveries of natural scientists such as Humboldt and Darwin. As a biologist, Haeckel was a strong advocate of Darwin’s theory of evolution, which he developed further and made known to the general public. The basics of human development through evolutionary mechanisms are recognized today and belong naturally to our general knowledge. It is difficult to imagine what obstacles and hostilities the scientific representatives of evolution had to deal with at that time. Not only church representatives, but also scientists violently attacked Heckel because the results of his research did not fit into the traditional worldview. This was not factual criticism, but it was highly polemical. Haeckel countered this with an extensive research program, the results of which became widely known and resulted in academic publications and expert lectures. This is how Heikal quickly became famous.