Embryonic Recapitulation and Similarities Questions and Answers

What is embryonic recapitulation? Is it valid? Was it used to deceive people? Is it invoked to defend abortion?

• Recent Insights from Developmental Biology ((ST) True Origins website)
• Ernst Haeckel: Evangelist for Evolution and Apostle of Deceit
• Embryonic Fraud Rediscovered

What about claims that some babies have been born with gill slits — is this true?

• A fishy story
• Human gills — Is it true that humans have occasionally been born with gills? (Christian Answers Network)
• Does the human fetus temporarily develop gills, a tail, and a yolk sac? (Christian Answers Network)
• The human umbilical vesicle (‘yolk sac’) and pronephros—Are they vestigial?

Are the similarities between living things evidence for common ancestry or common design?

• What about similarities and other such arguments for evolution?
• Are look-alikes related?
• Argument: common design points to common ancestry
• Saddle up the horse, it’s off to the bat cave