The Problem(s) With Penguins
| December 25, 2009 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Penguins have always been a problem for evolution. Their flippers, for instance, are supposed to be the vestiges of wings. “Say again …?” you say? That’s right, according to evolution penguins are supposed to have evolved from an earlier bird with wings. The bird morphed into a penguin and the wings morphed into the penguin’s flippers. Anyone who has seen a penguin swim knows its flippers are not just a happenstance design. The penguin is an incredible swimmer and the last thing that comes to mind is that its flippers somehow evolved from a wing. Of course for evolutionists this transition is a fact, even though they don’t know how it happened.
Now penguins have been discovered to defy the much touted molecular clock. The molecular clock is simply a measure of the time that two species diverged from their common ancestor, as determined by their genetic differences. In other words, like the ticking of a clock, the steady stream of mutations, which help drive evolutionary change, accumulate and can be measured. Sometimes evolutionists have an idea of the supposed time since divergence from the fossil record. They use such cases to compute the rate at which the mutations accumulate, and once they know the rate they can use it in cases in which only the genetic data are available. Read more
35 Responses to The Problem(s) With Penguins
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“Joseph” (#15) asks: “Is there any scientific data which demonstrates that a flying bird can “evolve” into a swimming bird?”
PaulBurrnett:
IOW there isn’t any such evidence. That is all you had to say.
“IOW is there any data which demonstrates the transformations required are even possible? Is there a way to test the concept?”
Unfortunately there isn’t anything in that article which demonstrates that a flying bird can “evolve” into a penguin.
Heinrich:
Yes it makes sense to ask such questions.
However the ONLY possible way to answer, in the absence of direct observation or designer input, that is by studying the design in question.
the design hypothesis
To repeat what I asked – once you’ve posited design, doesn’t it make sense to ask about the mechanism of design, or the implementation of the design? If it doesn’t make sense, why not?
Sure it makes sense. Why wouldn’t it? But whether or not one does so has nothing to do with whether the design inference was correct in the first place.
If my thermometer says the temperature is 78F, then it’s most likely an accurate measurement. I don’t need to know why it’s 78F. That’s a good question, but it has nothing to do with the thermometer.
To reaffirm my answer: Yes, if the narrow inference provided by ID indicates that a thing was designed, it’s reasonable to use other methods at our disposal to investigate the mechanisms and so forth. But the second part of that investigation is not ID. It would be some other analysis.
The constant references to evolution have nothing specifically to do with ID. It’s just fun to talk about.
What is peculiar to science is things such as…insistence on results that are based on observation that can be repeated and therefore shared with others
…
Your religious faith may be important to you – I don’t want to belittle it – but it is of a different quality (not necessarily inferior) from scientific beliefs.
It’s not scientific belief that I have a problem with. It’s the belief that random mutation and natural selection can evolve a species of birds into penguins. It is an article of faith, a conclusion drawn apart from observation. It is believed as a matter of preference, because its adherents wish it to be so. In that respect it has everything to do with religion and nothing to do with science. Seriously, you can’t think that scientists are immune to religion.