Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny
Oh, those geese! They’ve opened the floodgates to thoughts of life and all its mystery and grandeur. My skull is awash in musings.
I have no time for Creationists and their glib “Intelligent Design” cousins. I know better. I have lived a billion years of evolutionary history in my short lifetime. It exists within my DNA, my very soul.
“Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” – of all the things I learned as a biology major, this phrase was, by far, the most profound and glorious. The phrase comes to mind often, at least once or twice a year, although I graduated from college more than 30 years ago. It comes to me when I’m beset with mundane cares; the frivolous or self-absorbed worries of my daily life.
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny…it’s poetic, is it not? These three words encapsulate the miracle of life. It refers to the fact that the human fetus (any mammalian fetus, for that matter) develops through every stage, every phylum of life. I began my journey as a single cell…a human paramecium. I then morphed into a multi-cellular being. I grew cilia and swam in an amniotic sea. I lived as a worm with a simple alimentary canal before I developed my digestive tract with the remnants of an herbivore’s suite of stomachs. I developed a notochord, and later grew a spine. I had a tail once, before my bones fused to form my coccyx. My brain began as a reptilian brain (before it grew into the befuddled organ it is today). I grew gills! Imagine that!! I was a fish for a month or two (good times, good times). My eyes developed from sightless, sensory orbs into functional lenses. In the space of nine months, I lived the life of every being that lived on this planet over the course of billions of years. I am Life. I am the dream, the struggle, and the reality of Life surging, yearning, growing, and manifesting itself in all of its glory.
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny…it takes my breath away.
I have no time for Creationists and their glib “Intelligent Design” cousins. I know better. I have lived a billion years of evolutionary history in my short lifetime. It exists within my DNA, my very soul.
“Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” – of all the things I learned as a biology major, this phrase was, by far, the most profound and glorious. The phrase comes to mind often, at least once or twice a year, although I graduated from college more than 30 years ago. It comes to me when I’m beset with mundane cares; the frivolous or self-absorbed worries of my daily life.Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny…it’s poetic, is it not? These three words encapsulate the miracle of life. It refers to the fact that the human fetus (any mammalian fetus, for that matter) develops through every stage, every phylum of life. I began my journey as a single cell…a human paramecium. I then morphed into a multi-cellular being. I grew cilia and swam in an amniotic sea. I lived as a worm with a simple alimentary canal before I developed my digestive tract with the remnants of an herbivore’s suite of stomachs. I developed a notochord, and later grew a spine. I had a tail once, before my bones fused to form my coccyx. My brain began as a reptilian brain (before it grew into the befuddled organ it is today). I grew gills! Imagine that!! I was a fish for a month or two (good times, good times). My eyes developed from sightless, sensory orbs into functional lenses. In the space of nine months, I lived the life of every being that lived on this planet over the course of billions of years. I am Life. I am the dream, the struggle, and the reality of Life surging, yearning, growing, and manifesting itself in all of its glory.
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny…it takes my breath away.
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posted by Jonas | 1/30/2006 11:02:00 AM
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