A LABOR PAPER’S HERO: ERNST HAECKEL.

New Zealand Tablet, 18 September 1919, Page 35

A LABOR PAPER’S HERO: ERNST HAECKEL.

With that fatal proclivity for forcing under the notice of the workers men who are notorious for nothing but their attacks on Christianity, the Australian Worker pays a gushing tribute in its last issue to the late Ernst Haeckel. Haeckel was not a socialist, nor even a moderate Labor man; but the Worker says his theories on evolution, though at first, derided, “are now accepted by almost every anthropologist of distinction throughout the world.” According to the Worker this is a “triumph of truth.” Possibly the line of reading followed by the writer of the article may have induced him to hold that opinion; otherwise ho displays open contempt for the intelligence of his readers, and malice towards the faith of a largo section of Labor supporters. For Haeckel died utterly discredited as a scientist. He was convicted of publishing in his book on evolution the same picture in one place for the human foetus, and in another place for the foetus of a monkey. When he was exposed he excused himself by saying that all scientists were accustomed to fake such pictures. No biologist, from Huxley to the present day, would dare to use the name. of Haeckel as an authority for any statement of fact. Just before the war he had a big discussion with Wassman on evolution, which shattered his pretensions, and made him the laughing-stock even of the rationalist scientists. Why the Worker, which has no space to give some of the most distinguished Labor leaders, should laud this German quack is a puzzle to us. The article is on a par with the idiotic ‘Tool’s Talk,” in which Mr. Boote uses his Labor paper to vent his half-baked opinions about religion, apparently under the impression that there is some antagonism between the A.W.U. and Christianity. — Catholic Press.