Exam question on fraudulent Haeckel embryos
Just thought you might find it interesting and frustrating to know that even in this years NSW HSC Biology exam, the fraudulent embryos originally drawn by Haeckel were used in the multiple choice section of the exam!
These frauds were exposed soon after Haeckel published them and again in the late 1990s by articles in the journals Anatomy and Embryology, Science, and New Scientist. (See Fraud rediscovered for references.) The NSW Education Department should be asked about this.
Tags: Australia, embryos, haeckel, new south wales
With Haeckel’s embryos I can tell you that their “amphibian” picture is likely the biggest fraud of all. I mean, frogs and toads, which make out the overwhelming majority of the amphibian class, completely break the visual pattern. Frogs & toads are usually the clear pattern breaking exceptions I like to point people to.
See the article: van Niekerk, E., Countering revisionism—part 1: Ernst Haeckel, fraud is proven, Journal of Creation 25(3):89–95, 2011. [Ed: Note pdf of article will be available sometime after December 2012.]
The problem is that every choice the students were given was wrong.