Penguin Eggs Put Evolutionary Thinking on Ice

A long, long, time ago, on a continent far, far away, a scientific expedition met its demise. In addition to trying to reach the South Pole, the Scott expedition wanted to prove Darwinian evolution by observing Haeckel's "law of recapitulation" in action with Emperor penguin eggs.

Emperor Penguins / Photo credit: Dr. Paul Panganis, National Science Foundation

Looks like the telegraph lines were down, because they were apparently unaware that Haecke's embryo drawings were known to be faked. The "law of recapitulation" was never true. Still, the expedition found out for themselves that recapitulation doesn't work. That's because there is no particles-to-penguin evolution, the facts support creation.

During January–March 1912, Captain Robert Scott and four other optimistic members of the British Antarctic Terra Nova Expedition braved the bitter-cold summer weather of Antarctica’s Ross Ice Sheet, hoping to be the first to discover the South Pole. Another hope of his team’s quixotic quest was to acquire early-development-stage emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) eggs for marshaling scientific evidence trying to prove the so-called “law” of phylogenetic recapitulation, which holds that embryos reflect the stages of their evolutionary past as they develop. Many assumed this theory, championed by Ernst Haeckel and Charles Darwin, would provide the missing mechanism for justifying Darwin’s natural selection theory.

It was Captain Scott’s second—and last—expedition to Antarctica. One survivor, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, called it “the worst journey in the world.”

To read the rest, click on "Penguin Eggs to Die For".