\The Human family tree\". An 1886 French illustration copied by Camille Flammarion from Table 12 of Haeckel's 'Anthropogenie', 1874. Haeckel's appealing image has been widely copied in school text books and popular accounts for over a century, showing the power of the image. Haeckel chose to show the evolutionary tree as ascending to the apes, with man evolved from them and at the very pinnacle. The impression of evolutionary progress this gives accorded with Haeckel's own views and those of most evolutionary scientists at the time. He has been strongly critisised since for both being highly speculative, and giving the impression that mammals in general, and humans in particular, are the most highly evolved organisms. The Nazi's used such thinking as a pseudo-scientific basis for their extreme eugenics and racially motivated ethnic cleansing policies."