Unintelligent design (recurrent laryngeal nerve)

That this trait is in the population is true, but at the moment I don't think there is any evidence of this necessarily being a genetic trait and therefore 'readily available'. Development is a complicated process and some phenotypic variations arise simply through environmental or purely stochastic causes.The existence of those with non-recurrent laryngeal nerves is contrary to Big_Al's claims, but without a clear genetic basis it doesn't provide support for your claim that if it was more efficient it should have risen to predominance in the human population. Even with a clear genetic basis your argument would still be tenuous, it would be hard to quantify the fitness benefits of such a change in a human population.TTFN,WK

Clearly it would. If one recurrent laryngeal nerve is damaged it has significant effects, both don't need to be damaged. Also the different nerves innervate different muscles so if the route affects the operation of those muscles it should be apparent for either nerve individually.You seem, once again, to be shifting the goalposts. No, they wouldn't. Can you show us any evolutionist in this discussion who has said that the direct route would affect vocal performance? The only person who ever claimed that the route made a difference to vocal performance is you, and you still haven't provided a shred of evidence in support of those claims.So please start providing evidence for your whimsical assertions or simply stop making them.TTFN,WK

????????????How the hell would the route of the nerve produce any sort of sound/vibration dampening? Once again you make up ludicrous ad hoc hypotheses without a shred of evidence. This is the same sort of bogus claim you have been making consistently while refusing to provide any substantiation. Now you seem to be admitting that no, there isn't actually any evidence for any of your claims, but that is only because those lazy evolutionists won't do the work for you and substantiate your claims.Plus! Using the Aorta for this sort of purpose? There isn't some other tissue that is a bit less important that could have been co-opted? I mean suppose someone shouts really loud and the vibrations along the nerve are so huge they rupture the aorta!!!??!! Oh noes!! Shouldn't the real question be why intelligent design proponents aren't wanting to pursue research into this field? They have funding, as the Biologic Institute shows, and we are constantly being told about all the scientists who advocate intelligent design.The real reason such research is not ongoing by the way is because there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the indirect route has any effect on vocal performance. As I have pointed out repeatedly there is an indentified population of people with non-recurrent laryngeal nerves. If there are any effects on vocal performance then they are clearly so small that no one has been able to identify them in this population, it would be useful if they could since it might produce a handy diagnostic for identifying non-recurrent laryngeal nerves prior to surgery. How do such nonsensical ideas get a foothold in the minds of creationists.TTFN,WK

Well either you are being disingenuous or you just don't know what the hell you are talking about. The left RLN goes round the Ligamentum arteriosum which connects the pulmonary artery and the aortic arch, the aortic arch comes straight from the ascending aorta. How can you possibly claim that this route doesn't go right by the heart?To claim that the Ligamentum arteriosum is simply 'a ligament of the lung' seems a bit misleading. If its attachment to the pulmonary artery makes it a ligament of the lung why doesn't its attachment to the aortic arch make it equally a ligament of the heart?TTFN,WK

Well done! You broke Taq's analogy by ignoring the premise, or are most of the rooms in your house only 3 feet across? Sadly this still doesn't provide any support for your position.TTFN,WK

You seem to be inexorably moving further and further away from anything that has the faintest thing to do with the recurrent laryngeal nerve. Unless that is you can provide any reason why any of the things you are talking about have some relevance.The fact is, you don't have any rationale along the lines of the ones about electrical cabling. No one is walking across the path of the RLN.TTFN,WK