Recapitulation theory is not supported (Talk.Origins)

Claim CB701.1:

The biogenetic law that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny (that is, that the embryological stages of a developing organism follow the organism's evolutionary history) is false, yet embryological stages are still claimed as evidence for evolution.

Source:
 * Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 76-77.

CreationWiki response:

This is not relevant, since recapitulation is still used as evidence for Evolution despite being proven false. Labels such as gill slits, yoke sacs, and tails are still applied to structures that serve totally different purposes despite those labels' being proved erroneous.

However in both embryological and adult characters, one has to assume Evolution to construct phylogenies. In both cases common characteristics can only be considered evidence for Evolution if one assumes Evolution to begin with, since they only suggest relationships within Evolution theory. From a design standpoint it makes sense that a single designer would reuse not only parts but genetic programming instructions as well; this is done in human design all the time.

Some degree of parallelism between embryological development and theoretical Evolutionary phylogeny is not unexpected. According to Evolution, life started with single cell organisms, and most multi cellular organisms start out as a single cell, so some degree of parallelism would be expected between the two.

The simplest most likely explanation for the degree of parallelism that actually exists is the fact that both involve going from a single cell to a complex organism. The most important difference though is that embryological development is a real process resulting from a preprogrammed plan of development while Evolutionary phylogeny is a purely theoretical process with no plan at all.