Congrats on having your article published online, Floodnut. It made for an interesting read. It raised a few questions in my mind, however, and not having researched penguins as much as yourself, I was hoping you might be able to provide some answers:
Actually, you may have researched penguins more than I have. You seem to have more answers than I do.
1) It seems every time Galápagos penguins are discussed, the Humboldt Current is inevitably mentioned. This is a cold-water current that runs from the antarctic up to the Galápagos, in which Galapagos penguins spend most of their time. Why do you make no reference to this in your article when it has such strong bearing on penguin evolution and biogeography?
I did not make reference to the current because I was not "discussing" Galapagos penguins, rather, I just
mentioned them as an example of a variety that lived in warmer climates.
2) You make mention of the "evolutionary view" of penguins in your article, but never cite any of the original research. What studies are you referring to when you mention that "penguins are believed by evolutionists to have originated in the Antarctic and developed as they radiated out from there"? I would be curious to read them for myself.
Since I dropped out of college about 4 years ago I no longer have access to the scholarly literature, but there is a plethora of information on the net, and the source of the study mentioned in the article upon which I was commenting had information in some published materials. If you will go to the LA Times article you will see some names of scientists who specialize in penguins, along with the authority who was originally commenting on the fossil finds. Do a net search on those individuals to satisfy you curiosity about penguins, or go to any on-line dictionary or encyclopedia or various natural history museum web-sites and you will find more info. Some might recommend wiki but it has come into disrepute of late.
3) From the little bit of reading that I've done, it is mentioned quite often that Galápagos penguins have a hard time keeping cool on equatorial islands. If you feel the Galápagos penguins originated on these islands, why do you think God would have created them with so much insulation?
I miss the part in my article where I suggest that the penguins "originated" on those islands. Their ancestors very likely originated on the Ark, and prior to that they had been created by God with mechanisms suitable for thriving in the pre-Flood world.
4) Related question: Antarctic penguins have a counter-current exchange system in their extremities to prevent heat loss. Do Galápagos penguins possess this system? If yes, why would they need it if they were originally adapted to warm climates? If no, would this imply the evolution of "new information" in antarctic penguins?
Like I said, you seem to know so much more about modern-day penguins than I do.
5) Are penguins a created "kind"? Are they birds?
I am not sure whether we can insist that the 30 or so modern species of penguin are all of one distinct kind, or whether they may be descendants of multiple pairs of kinds. On the other hand, it is possible that all the present varieties are descended from a single biblical kind from which other types of fowl may also have originated.
The taxonomy of the Bible is not the same as modern classification systems. For instance the creation account specifies "birds of the air," which seems to speak of creatures capable of flight. So I am guessing that since they are obviously birds in the current descriptive methodology, I am guessing that you are asking where they would fit in the biblical scheme of things.
6) Do penguins have the "breath of life" in them given that they are not primarily terrestrial?
Penguins have the breath of life, but as you note they are not primarily terrestrial. Frogs and other amphibians are perplexing enigmas in that while they do have lungs in their adult stage, they have a gill stage also, as young. Also they are able to survive long periods of time as adults, buried in mud, taking in oxygen by absorption. As to penguins, I am not sure whether or not they had to be taken on the Ark, but if I had to chose, I would guess that their parents were on board.
7) If "[m]ost creationist models of the pre-Flood world suggest that the planet’s climate was generally temperate and tropical throughout", as you suggest in your article, then what is the problem with having penguins living in Antarctica prior to the Flood and adapting to the cooling climate in situ?
If Antarctica existed prior to the Flood, even as a tropical or subtropical region of the land mass, then all of the animals thereon perished in the universal Flood as the Scripture plainly declares. Unless the penguins' ancestors survived outside the Ark as aquatic animals that did not need to be on board the Ark, then it is possible that they adapted to the increasingly harsh conditions in the new world after the Flood.
8) As someone who has gone through AIG's peer-review process, what was it like? Was your article reviewed by any penguin researchers? What sort of feedback did you receive?
AiG? Peer-review process? Penguin researchers? I was writing about what conditions might have been like in the world of the Flood. My article was reviewed by people who believe in the world wide Flood and the biblical account of Creation. The article is not in AiG, but in CMI.
just a few questions that came to mind as I read your article. I am not in the least bit interested in debating these points, but I thought I would throw them out there to get your input.
