Unintelligent design (recurrent laryngeal nerve)

Sure. In four words, natura non facit saltum. But you have got this exactly the wrong way round.Because the RLN is pointlessly twined around the heart, heart problems can cause problems to the larynx. The health of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is compromised precisely because of the detour.Now let's hear your explanation for the actual facts.

That is a very peculiar citation, because in fact the evolution side in the Scopes trial were not permitted to call a single expert witness to testify that evolution was true, this being deemed by the judge to be irrelevant to the purely legal issue of whether Scopes had broken the law by teaching evolution. No zoologist testified in the Scopes trial. Not one. But he's plainly wrong, because Darwin didn't define vestigial features as functionless. In fact, he didn't use the term "vestigial" at all, he said "rudimentary" instead. Here's the full text of The Origin Of Species. Find the word "vestigial" in it.No?And he made it clear from his examples and discussion of what he called rudimentary features that he thought that they could, and that many of them did, have functions. Ever since which time creationists have been desperately trying to move the goalposts.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I noticed you may not have gotten a detailed answer as you may have wanted about the evolutionary origins of the recurrent laryngeal nerve. I think that's because your answer is already in this thread in message 37 and it feels like to most that you haven't bothered to read the thread when you responded to it.
I noticed that there are a number of people that tend to ignore past responses and repeating their questions as if they have nevernever been answered in the first place making threads go round and round which would explain the lack of patience of some members toward those who seem to adopt such an attitude.Edited by Son, : No reason given.

Well, the idea that we'd know how God would design things is essential for the purposes of using the "Argument From Design" as evidence for creationism. Otherwise you could point at any universe, no matter how dumb it seemed, and maintain that God must have arranged it that way.Which is in fact what you're doing.Now if you're prepared to admit that the Argument From Design is merely an article of faith, rather than something that can be decided by examination of the evidence, then I for my part will admit that in that case no facts can counter it, any more than any fact-based argument can counter any faith-based argument --- and shall simply rest on the purely scientific Argument From Everything Looking Exactly Like It Would If It Was A Product Of Evolution.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

They should be very rare.Producing and maintaining an organ has a cost. If that organ has no benefit, then natural selection should have eliminated it. What we should need to explain is the presence of organs that are totally useless.But the question of "use" is a subtle one. Consider, for example, cave crabs. These have lost their eyes, in accordance with the principle explained in the previous paragraph. They do, however, retain their eye-stalks. Now, on the one hand, I might ask: "what use is an eye-stalk without an eye?" To which one of those creationists who claims that anything which has any use whatsoever doesn't count as "vestigial" might reply that if they lost their eye-stalks, they'd just have a couple of holes in their heads, through which infection and parasites would enter.Which is actually the evolutionary answer --- if they'd just been created eyeless, they could have been created with no eyes, nor eye-stalks, nor holes. But it's hard for mutational processes to simultaneously remove the stalks and seal up the holes, which is the solution that would be favored by natural selection ... if this variation ever arose. Got a quote?No?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

What is so astonishing? I have made an accusation by saying the Darwinists/atheiets/naturalists or whatever category any one of you fall into is arguing from a position simply because you and everyone else sees no reason why the nerve makes a detour to the heart. I am familiar with the "not designed" concept. That is why I placed you in the category above. It may pose a ris but really, how
many people have a damaged RLN??? How many people risk damaging their RLN? I mean really? Get real. It is probably anther case of "design optimization".You see you are approaching this from the assuption that there was no design and there has to be some bad designs somewhere. Just because you don't see or understand the hows and whys doesn't mean it wasn't designed.

In which case, you are completely wrong. We can see why it does. We have explained why it does.But you and the rest of the creationists can't put up a creationist argument why it does.If I drop a brick and it falls, then I have an explanation --- it's because of gravity. If someone wants to deny that, but they have no alternative explanation, that doesn't mean that I am resting my case solely on the basis that they have no alternative explanation. But it does mean that they are resting their case solely on the faith that there might be an alternative explanation that they haven't thought of yet.

Why? More conjecture? Perhaps it is possible that animals are more attuned to listening for subtle sounds or frequencies generated by the larynx. Why? It involves communication. Humans may be more desensitized to these subtle sounds because of we have developed robust language.I had someone analyze my voice before with a computer program and I was surprised what it was able to say about me. Apparently the government has this technology (even more sophisticated) and I was told that I "wouldn't believe" what they can find out about you with it.Not only that, have you ever heard about heart transplants where the donor receives the personality traits and some memories of the original person?I guess I'm getting into more pseudoscience."Science advances funeral by funeral." Max PlankIn other words, science does not triumph by convincing people that the new theory is right. It advances when the older hard head scientists die off and new generations are familiar with what has already been proposed and rejected.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

A good post. It was like a breath of fresh air.

And you doctor are resting your case solely on the faith that is absolutely no explanation other than a mishap of Darwinian evolution. Period!!!I'm going back to some fresh air.I also noticed my member rating slip thoughout this debate. Maybe I should join the other side and watch it rise to new heights. Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

So, in your eyes, it's a mistake if caused by evolution, but ok if "designed" by god?

Dammit, don't you get it? It isn't a mistake if it is optimized for one or more functions. Just look at my post on the appendix.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

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Why? More conjecture?

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No conjecture, merely the obvious fact that a whole class of possible functions (i.e. those which require a nerve connection) are ruled out. Which doesn't exactly leave a lot of possibilities.

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Perhaps it is possible that animals are more attuned to listening for subtle sounds or frequencies generated by the larynx. Why? It involves communication. Humans may be more desensitized to these subtle sounds because of we have developed robust language.

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That on the other hand is pure conjecture. And not even a sensible one. There is no rational connection between it and the actual problem (and even if there were, the failure to cover humans is itself a serious problem since the nerve follows the same path in humans as it does in other mammals).

No other explanation has been provided, any more than you have provided any other explanation besides gravity why the brick falls when I drop it. So in each case, I have on the one hand an explanation that works perfectly and explains all the facts, and on the other hand not a shred of a scrap of a scintilla of an alternative.Your use of the word "faith" is peculiar. No-one has provided me with a good explanation of why it looks like I have two legs except that I have, in fact, got two legs. So, in a rather strange sense of the word "faith", I rest my belief that I have two legs "solely on the faith" that there is no better explanation. And yet that is not what we usually mean by "faith".Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

You've yet to provide any evidence of another function for the RLN. So before you start yelling at me, take a deep breath and concoct a more thought out post. This time with some substinance. All I have seen from you are quirky, off the wall snippets.Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.Edited by hooah212002, : grammatical atrocities