Unintelligent design (recurrent laryngeal nerve)

There's a sucker born every minute??(Usually attributed to P.T. Barnum but it actually originated with David Hannum.) Source

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

So not a single ID/creationist discovery then.Do you think evolutionary theory is equally devoid of discovery?Or do you just think that discovery isn't a particularly important measure of the worth of a scientific theory?

I'm not aware of any scientist ever claiming it was useless. So, that prediction doesn't count. Like?

So ... are you saying that little research has been done on this issue ?

Are you saying that YEC proponents have produced evidence for a young earth? If so, examples please.
If you want to double down, by all means, go for it. First you claimed there was mountains of ID evidence, now you seem to be claiming there is evidence for YEC, so lets see that evidence.

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

Based upon evidence he had for evolution, Darwin made specific predictions about future fossil finds. But first, unlike Darwin, you have no evidence.And second, Darwin made a specific prediction, that transitional fossils would be found. You didn't make any prediction about what evidence would be found. You just expressed a hope that someday evidence supporting your idea would be found. That's not a prediciton.Here's a prediction for you. I predict evidence supporting evolution will be found, and that it will be greater than the amount found for ID by a factor approaching infinity.Because you have no evidence of ID you have no idea how it works and so you can make no predictions about what evidence might be found. Like I was telling you before, evidence of something real would allow you to make specific predictions about what we'll find in the future and to construct evidence based reconstructions of natural history. The fact that you can't make specific predictions and that you have no idea how ID ever happened is fairly screaming at you that you're just kidding yourself that you have evidence. If you can't support what you're saying then you should perhaps consider dropping this for now because it is driving the thread off-topic and into issues of scientific evidence and method.--Percy

Slevesque, give me one good reason why it should be done.Note that "It would be convenient to my religious apologetics." doesn't count.Mutate and Survive

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

Are you seriously asking how much research serious scientists have conducted investigating your religious beliefs?Don't you think maybe those who are proponents of the idea and who are bonky enough to consider as science religious ideas not even based on their religious book but at least three times removed should be coming up with the funding money and conducting or paying someone to conduct the research? Maybe they could divert some of the money from their "Teach the Controversy" campaign into research. Hey, now there's a novel thought - do the research first, then teach about it.--Percy

Since when did searching if a biological feature has a function become a religious belief ? What definition of ''religious belief'' are you even using.And stop with the Red Herrings (GM too), just answer the question.

slevesque: ​ Tell me how much research has been done on the route of the RLN.

Granny Magda: ​ The idea that the RLN has an unknown secondary function - an idea which is intrinsically very far fetched, since the nerve doesn't connect to anything in the chest cavity - is the illegitimate brainchild of the creationism/ID crowd. Are they funding research? If not, why not? It's their baby.

slevesque: ​ So ... are you saying that little research has been done on this issue ?

Percy: ​ Are you seriously asking how much research serious scientists have conducted investigating your religious beliefs?

slevesque: ​ Since when did searching if a biological feature has a function become a religious belief ? What definition of ''religious belief'' are you even using. ​ And stop with the Red Herrings (GM too), just answer the question.

What religious belief, you unconscionably ask?The religious belief that ID did the RLN routing, which would result in really piss-poor, incompetent design on the part of the designer unless the saving grace of some hidden secondary function could be found.And how much research you ask? Well ...Google Scholar Listing of 84,400 Papers, Studies and Other Works On, About or Discussing the RLN Not all of these discuss the "routing" of the RLN specifically but I would hazard a guess that within 84,400 presentations one could reasonably say that we already know one hell of a lot about the RLN, its routing, its function, its sensitivity, its structure, etc. and that if some secondary function existed we would know about it by now.Granny and Percy are right. The insistence that the RLN routing must have some hitherto unseen secondary function that would convert its ugly-poor-bad design into an example of biological perfection by a perfect designer is a religious quest. And one, it would appear, that will not be, nor will ever be, successful. Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : Mom was an English teacher. She would scold me severely if I let these mechanics stand.

Again, you are treating this as if we do not know why the RLN is routed that way. WE KNOW EXACTLY WHY IT IS ROUTED THAT WAY. And creationists and IDists have no idea why it is routed that way.We do not need to look for some deep hidden function that explains this routing, because WE ALREADY KNOW WHY IT IS ROUTED THAT WAY and it is not function related.This is very simple, although I admit it is obviously troubling...

Remove the "religious" modifier if you like, it is of no consequence to the point I made and that you ignored. The issue is why serious scientists should investigate someone else's ideas, especially those of a group that has never produced any of their own original research, whose hypotheses are not based upon any known evidence except that "it is all around us," and whose more candid members freely concede that the ideas they claim are science are actually based upon revelation from the Bible rather than evidence from the natural world.Richard Feynman once said that the easiest person to fool is yourself, and you've managed to fool yourself that your ideas are based upon evidence. Real evidence would point research in certain directions that would make possible predictions about what should be discovered in the future and reconstructions of what happened in the past. That you can make neither predictions nor reconstructions says volumes. Just listen to yourself: "Future evidence will prove me right."That you have no evidence couldn't be more obvious. Go ahead, try to make a specific prediction, just fill in the blank: "The principles of ID when applied to the RLN indicate that future research should find ________."Or try to make a historical reconstruction: "The principles of ID when applied to the evidence about _________ (describe a specific set of evidence) tell us that the designer was _______ (describe some physical characteristic of the designer)."But you can't do either one, and that's because you have no real evidence. I'm sure you feel to the core that there's evidence supporting your beliefs, but real world evidence can't be ignored. Real world evidence has the ability to force consensus because real world implications are compelling. That there's no consensus about anything in either the YEC or ID communities (beyond "evolution bad, God good") is due to the lack of evidence.So when are ID scientists going to start investigating their hypotheses about the RLN, and will they be publishing their results in peer reviewed scientific journals, the ones where people who actually discover things publish?But I think my most important point relevant to this thread is that if you have no evidence to present for your position then it might be best to consider dropping this for now, because it's taking us way off topic. If you could support your position about the RLN then we'd be talking about that evidence, but since you can't do that it leaves you posting about meta-topics.--Percy

Hi Slevesque,I wasn't originally going to reply to this, but it provides such a good example of how people fool themselves that I changed my mind. This is a great example of a false premise:

1. Only an intelligence can created coded information.
2. DNA is coded information.
3. DNA was created by an intelligence.

Of course, your premise that only an intelligence can create coded information is plainly false. A person taking notes in a lab book while making observations is not creating information. The information was created in the natural world. The person taking notes is only translating the information from one coding system to another.Here's an example to make clear the point. You look out the window and see that it is raining. Where did the information come from? It didn't come from you, right? If you'd been in your basement instead of your study you'd have no idea that it was raining, so the information must have come not from you but from mother nature just going about her business.This is important: Everything that happens creates information.Here's another example. Let's say someone gives you an E. coli bacteria and asks you to analyze its DNA. You do so and in your report conclude that the particular sequence of nucleotides in the DNA must have been specified by a designer.Someone now points out that that particular E. coli was the result of a lengthy lab experiment of thousands of generations, and that we know that some of the examples of design in your report were actually the result of natural mutation and selection that had been observed and documented. Since obviously the original E. coli that began the experiment had ancestors that experienced mutations s (even though undocumented, you must concede this must be true), then just as obviously the strong conviction immediately arises that your other examples of design arose by the same mechanism of mutation and selection.Where is your evidence for design now?What you have to realize is that your words aren't really meant for us but for yourself. Those words are what you write in order to create within yourself a state of mind where you believe you've actually demonstrated evidence for design. What your words are unable to do is lead anyone else to the same state of mind, and there's a reason for that: your words don't lead to the conclusions you think they do. We judge how right we are by how many people see the same implications from real world evidence that we ourselves see. If you had real world evidence that pointed to design then it couldn't be ignored, because those who have the most accurate real world views will make all the advances and discoveries.So guess who's making all the advances and discoveries? It isn't YEC's, and it isn't IDists. In fact, the supposed "evidence" of both sides is so uncompelling that even with the shared religious convictions YEC's can't convince IDists over to their side, and IDists can't convince YEC's over to theirs. Yet members of both groups come to sites like this one believing they have compelling evidence for science. Very weird.--Percy

Hi Slevesque. Since the hypothesis that the RLN has a secondary function was brought up by creationists as part of their apologetics. Let's be clear, there is no evidence for a secondary function. As AZPaul has noted, there has been plenty of research of the RLN and no hint of a secondary function has been found.The only reason that you want to see research on the RLN is because the overwhelming evidence for its evolutionary origin challenges your religious dogma. That is not a good enough reason to engage in serious medical research. That strikes me as a distinctly hypocritical attitude from someone who has spent so long not telling us what the creationist explanation for the RLN might be. You want to talk about anything else it seems.As far as I know, there has never been research into the possibility of a secondary function for the RLN. Happy now? Here are some other fascinating lines of research that have been ignored;

• Does the coccyx have a hidden function?
• Does having long toenails protect us from cancer?
• Can dancing the funky chicken protect us from malaria?

These and an infinite number of other pointless questions demand answers! Why aren't they getting answered? For the same reason that no-one is researching the mythical secondary RLN function; it's extremely far-fetched and there is no evidence and no clinical need.Research is expensive. Very expensive. Top line medical researchers are a very scarce resource. Laboratories are a scarce resource. Funding for medical research is limited. Time for such projects is limited. There is the opportunity cost - when a study group accepts one piece of research they lose the opportunity to pursue other projects. Then there are the ethical considerations. To study this issue, patients are required. How can we ethically justify involving patients when there is no clinical benefit even postulated? Would you volunteer?If you think that scientists should spend their time hunting the secondary function snark, you need. at the very least, to give them a reason to do so. Moreover, you need to tell us why this research is important enough to push aside other research into neurology - research that could save lives, end peoples' suffering and banish terrible neurological disorders to the history books.The very least you need to do is show evidence that there might be a secondary function (you have none). Then you need to demonstrate clinical need (right now, the knowledge of a secondary function has no obvious clinical application). Then you need to work out exactly how to go about looking for the secondary function (be honest - you have no idea how to even start). Then you need to find a neurological research team that is willing to take on your creationist fantasy instead of the legitimate research they were planning (good luck with that). Then you need to fund the project (you might like to ask Kent Hovind, I hear he's good with money). Then you need to sneak this whole clinically valueless venture past an ethics committee (fat chance).Of course, creationists like to brag about the number of "scientists" within their ranks, so I guess you guys must have the experts on hand. And you certainly have the money. A group like AiG could fund something like this, or a creationist church. Perhaps it would be a better option than building another mega-church.Hey there's an idea! Why don't creationists do their own damn research instead of sulking like little bitches because no-one else will do it for them? Or am I wrong? Can you give me a compelling reason to instigate research into a secondary function for the RLN?Mutate and Survive

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

I can only assume that the evolutionists are being so stubborn about not wanting to pursue research into this field because if they are found to be wrong then the other function/purpose becomes strong evidence for intelligent design.eg. if the secondary purpose of the indirect route was found to be as a sound/vibration dampener using the aorta then this would be strong evidence for intelligent design. Vibration dampening techniques are not a matter of life and death and survival of the fittest couldn't explain how such a sophisticated idea could get a foothold within the human body.