Frozen Evolution. Or, that’s not the way it is, Mr. Darwin. A Farewell to Selfish Gene.

According to this law, in the ontogenesis of each species, the individual structures are formed gradually from structures that are common to all the members of the highest taxon to the structures of common members of gradually lower and lower taxa, to which the given species belongs. The historically older von Bauer’s law, which Darwin also mentioned as one of the important documents for the validity of his theory of evolution, is actually substantively more correct that the newer Haeckel’s recapitulation theory. However, there are many exceptions to both the recapitulation theory and von Bauer’s law. In a great many species, the route through which the ontogenesis of a certain structure reaches a certain stage can be modified and some stages can even be omitted in some species (see XII.7.3). It is, however, true that it rarely occurs that the order in which the individual stages appear is reversed and that there would thus be a flagrant breaking of von Bauer’s law and this also the recapitulation theory.