Unintelligent design (recurrent laryngeal nerve)

Don't worry, all my postings to date were genuine discussions about the subject.I was more elaborating about why, if through these discussion I had found the ToE to be true, I would not be a theistic evolutionnist.

So much for the topic. Let's carry on until we get Moosed. Not necessarily. It could be that there was a historical original sin and that Genesis is an allegorical, or metaphorical, account of it. Genesis having errors doesn't necessitate that the factual event didn't occur. Is it all good if losing genesis doesn't mean losing original sin?Regardless, Jesus sacrificed himself for an evolved mankind. Yeah. The entire planet has never been floaded since mankind has been here. Do you think it had vocal cords or something? Or do you think it was just magic noise?I think its a little goofy. It sure does seem like allegory. Has no effect at all? Remeber Galileo!The ToE is the same as heliocentrism was. When they're fresh, they're such a huge implication to the very core, in hindsight they're no effect at all. What's the problem then? Common ancestry?I had a post a ways back about an article talking about "culture" having kind of a rapid bloom, rather than a drawn out process, or something like that, but it kinda seemed like mankind "waking up". It seemed like something The Fall could have been allegorical to.

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Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence.
Letting the reigns go to the unfolding is faith, faith, faith, faith.
Science has failed our world.
Science has failed our Mother Earth.
-System of a Down, "Science"He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.
-Avenged Sevenfold, "Bat Country"

Two questions come from this point of view:When does the allegory stop ? After the fall ? Before the flood ? After the flood ? Before Babel ? After Joseph ? After Moses ?The problem is that, in the hebrew text, all of it is written in historical narrative form. All of it is presented as a continuous sequence of historical events. But if I decide to consider the creation account as a metaphor, where do I decide it stops being such, and starts being real history ? Or dos it continue as a metaphor all the way up to the New Testament ?The second question is about where do you historically put the original sin. In the christian worldview, death entered this world through sin. This is why Jesus had to defeat death itself. Does this still hold true ? According to the geological record, death has been around for quite some time, long before humans burst into scene. This means original sin also predates humanity, which comes back to the problem that we are paying for something we are not responsible for. (Besides, this runs contrary to other scriptures)And even in the bizarre alternative that the 'death' involved is only human death. It still puts the problem of when did our ancestors stopped being animals and started being human, and where along this lineage did original sin occur. Another dead end in my opinion. Genesis having errors would mean it wasn't inspired by God, which once again destroys one of the fundamental doctrine of christianity. As my resume of the multiple avenues thatseem available if genesis becomes metaphor, Original sin has a hard time keeping it's 'historical event' status. You end up with confrontations on every level with other passages of scriptures.And where do yo udraw the line who is part of this evolved mankind ? Did he die for Lucy ? Will Ida be in heaven ? Are Neandertals admitted ? Don't know how this all happened. The serpent was physically cursed after the fall.It's as goofy as a donkey speaking in Numbers 22. Or a sea being seperated in two. Or three guys being thrown in a furnace, but rather then burning, their speaking to a fourth dude. Or a corpse that has rotted for three days coming back to life to speak to two women near his tomb.All goofy if you ask me. Yet I think God is not limited to what is ''physically possibe'', he is the one who sustains his creation, and even though he never changes, (the two biblical truths at the basis of the rise of modern science ) he can and does intervene in his creation from time to time. If I could suggest, if you have the time, review the galileo affair. Or maybe should we start a topic on this. The church never gave much opposition to Galileo precisely because it had no theological consequences.The pope that did put him under arrest was Pope Urban VIII, which was initially a good friend of Galileo but they developped a bad relationship when Galileo made a satire version of the Urban in his book, which in term cost him some jail time in the end. (he was accused of disobeying a papal decree, not for religious reasons. Note that this pope was the first to erect a monument of himself in his lifetime. Should be a bit reveiling of the type of personnality)Besides, in Galileo's time, it wasn't even a fight between ptolemy and copernicus views, but between Brahe's view and Copernicus's. (Both to some degree heliocentric views)In other words, accusations against Galileo came from the scientists of his time (which, of course, some came from the church which held many scientists in their rank) rather then the theologians of his time. Proof that his evidence had much more impact on the scientific side than on the theological side (if any ...) I didn't get that last part.

...you are approaching problems like this: When you accept that conclusions should follow evidence, you will find life much clearer.Capt.1st attempt at including photo, so apologies if chaos ensues.Edited by Capt Stormfield, : No reason given.

I don't really get what ou are trying to communicate, as it seems pretty clear that what we are discussing is not my position on this issue.I'm just bringing up all the difficulties that are present if we try to reconcile the christian worldview with the ToE.

I find that atheists comprehend this incompatibility between christianity and the ToE far better than many christians. Here is one that I found very clear and direct about the implications of evolution for the very core of christian doctrine:Frank Zindler, in a debate with William Craig, Atheism vs Christianity video, Zondervan, 1996, said: ‘The most devastating thing though that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a saviour. And I submit that puts Jesus, historical or otherwise, into the ranks of the unemployed. I think that evolution is absolutely the death knell of Christianity.’

Yes, exactly. Thus illustrating conservative Christianity's folly of fixating on a worldview that arose before the world had been viewed. If a world view cannot accommodate the reality of the world, then conclusions must have been arrived at a bit backwards, n'est-ce pas?KP

Your french is perfect I think you are equivocating the ToE with the facts. (or the 'reality')The theory of evolution isn't the facts, it is an interpretation of the facts. A piece of fossil doesn't scream ''evolution!''. It has to be interpreted in that framwork.Just as I can interpret the evidence in a biblical framework. Judging this framework on where it came from (age, history, etc.) would be commiting the genetic fallacy.And believe it or not, I actually think that the evidence fits more in the biblical framework.PS Note that in both cases, the framework came before the evidence. Considering the extent to which Darwin developped his theory, the observations he made were quite minimal, and were themselves observed in a previous uniformitarian framework, which he kinda transposed from geology to biology.

The lamentable inability of creationists to understand the difference between the predictive and interpretative functions of a scientific theory is one of the reasons why understanding science is such an uphill struggle for you guys.However, even given this confusion, you must recognize that there are differences between the two styles of interpretation, which is that there are things that can't be interpreted in an evolutionary light.* For example, imagine if human embryos produced and then lost feathers rather than fur. There is no evolutionary interpretation for feathers. But creationists would, either way, be able to say "Well, I'm sure God had a good reason, we just don't know what it is."* If fish were as hydrodynamic as bricks, there'd be no evolutionary explanation for why half-a-billion years hadn't left them better adapted to their way of life. A creationist could write this off as just God's mysterious will again, just as you are now attempting to write off the inefficiency of the recurrent laryngeal nerve.* Suppose we found an intermediate form between mammals and birds. There would be no conceivable evolutionary interpretation. Creationists, on the other hand, could attribute it to the same sort of freak of creative whimsy that gave us Archaeopteryx.* The existence of a chimera amongst the higher organisms (a griffin, for example) would have no evolutionary interpretation. A creationist could just attribute their existence to God's desire to make 'em --- just as currently you attribute their non-existence to God's lack of desire to make 'em.* If humans had vestigial genes for producing feathers, there would be no evolutionary interpretation. Yet creationists would explain it by means of whatever ruse you'd use to explain why we do have vestigial genes for producing eggs.* A flagrant breach of evolutionary biogeography, such as New Zealand being populated with African land mammals, would have no evolutionary interpretation. Not so for creationists --- whatever vague story they've concocted for how things got where they are after Noah's flood would work just as well (i.e. appallingly badly) for any present distribution of organisms.And so forth --- one could go on multiplying such examples indefinitely.You see my point? Creationists, by adding a miracle here and the mysterious nature of God's purposes there, can "interpret" anything they choose as being consistent with their dogma. But evolution is a scientific theory, and so only provides an adequate interpretation for certain things. And all the things that actually exist fall within this class.Which leaves creationists with something to explain. OK, your God moves in mysterious ways. But the most mysterious of his ways appears to have been that he decided to create the whole world in a manner such that everything that exists is susceptible to an evolutionary interpretation.Why? So it's rather impressive, is it not, that everything we've found out about biology ever since confirms the theory?Darwin had never seen an intermediate form when he wrote The Origin of Species. He knew it predicted their existence, and could only say that either he was completely wrong --- or that they would turn up eventually. Now we have too many to catalog. Darwin knew nothing of molecular phylogeny when he wrote the Origin, and now we see how perfectly it fits the predictions of the theory. What did Darwin know of vestigial genes? But there they are ...Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Not in case of Hindu and Buddhist faiths. There is no pro ID movement or creation/evolution debate even. In India text books do not contain an iota of creationism.

Bump!The RLN was mentioned recently, so here is the open thread.Whilst I'm here, let's actually take a look at the RLN in all its gory glory. The following video contains scenes that may turn some peoples' stomachs, including scenes of Richard Dawkins that some viewers may find offensive for some reason. They also chop up a dead giraffe. Strong stomachs only!Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

After investigating the left recurrent laryngeal nerve in more depth, I now wonder why we have singled out the left nerve. The right laryngeal nerve is also recurrent and also loops around an artery. There is nothing exceptional or odd about the left nerve. Infact the same arguments can be applied to both nerves although the recurrent nature is more pronounced in the left nerve than the right as the left is longer. These nerves are essential as vocal chords and for the act of swallowing.If we went along with some of the evolutionary commentators above and rearranged these nerves so that they connected directly I doubt very much whether we would be able to speak or make the rich variety of vocal sounds that we can. We might even have difficulty in swallowing the huge variety of objects and foods that we can. These nerves have to be long and they have to be stretched. Looping around the arteries enables this stretching to occur during the growth phase in a natural way. The differing lengths of the right and left nerves adds to the vocal range that these nerves can accommodate.The great designer has shown once again that his intellect is far superior to ours.

Evidence please? {ABE}: I mean for the fact that if they would be going there directly, that we wouldn't be able to swallow or talk like we do now. Seeing as you have just asserted stuff here and not shown any evidence for these assertions, this conlcusion is invalid.Edited by Huntard, : clarity

Evidence please? {ABE}: I mean for the fact that if they would be going there directly, that we wouldn't be able to swallow or talk like we do now.Can you provide evidence that this is not the case?

It was your assertion. It is incumbent upon you to provide the evidence. Put up or shut up.I think we can all gather from your response that you have no evidence. Are you willing to admit this?

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts