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Author Topic:   Was the Woodpecker designed?
CrytoGod
Junior Member (Idle past 4350 days)
Posts: 16
Joined: 02-19-2012


Message 1 of 2 (653380)
02-20-2012 2:15 PM


The Woodpecker's Shock-Absorbing Head
A g-force measuring between 80 and 100 is strong enough to give you a concussion. Yet, the woodpecker sustains a g-force of about 1,200 as it drums its bill against tree bark. How does this bird perform his task, evidently without even getting a headache, much less a concussion?
Consider: Researchers have discovered four structures of the woodpecker's head that make it shock-absorbent:
1. A strong yet flexible bill
2. A hyoid-a structure of bone and elastic tissue that wraps around the skull
3. An area of spongy bone in the skull
4. Little space for cerebral-spinal fluid between the skull and the brain
Each of these elements absorbs mechanical shock, allowing the woodpecker to strike a tree at a rate of up to 22 times per second with no injury to the brain.
Inspired by the woodpecker's head, researchers have developed a casing that can withstand a g-force of up to 60,000. Their success may lead to, among other things, better protection for aircraft recorders, which currently can withstand a g-force of only about 1,000. Kim Blackburn, an engineer at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, says that what has been discovered about the woodpecker's head provides "a fascinating example of how nature develops highly advanced structures in combination to solve what at first seems to be an impossible challenge."
"The Problem - Evolutionists would like us to believe that the woodpecker's uniquely designed toes, stiff tail, strong flight, head, beak, neck muscles, shock-absorbers and tongue are the result of its evolving slowly over many millions of years. Instead, the design of the woodpecker presents a great problem to those who believe in evolution.
First, how could the woodpecker have evolved its special shock-absorbers? If it had started without them, then all the woodpeckers that were alive would have beaten out their brains long ago. Therefore, there should be no woodpeckers left. And if there had ever been a time when woodpeckers did not drill holes in trees they would not have needed the shock-absorbers anyway.
Second, how could the unique arrangement for the woodpecker’s tongue have evolved, if, in the beginning, its tongue was anchored in the back of the beak, as it is in ordinary birds? How did the tongue manage to move into the right nostril? If the anchor suddenly hopped from the back of the beak up into the right nostril, the tongue would be too short. And during all the intermediate stages, would the tongue have been long enough to reach the insects and worms inside a tree so the woodpecker could eat and survive?
To look at it from another angle, suppose a bird developed a long tongue anchored in the right nostril, but he did not develop a strong beak, or powerful neck muscles, the shock-absorbers, and so on. What possible use could such a bird make of the long tongue without the other apparatus employed by the woodpecker? On the other hand, suppose a bird developed all that special apparatus needed to drill a hole in a tree, but not the long tongue. He would drill a hole in a tree in anticipation of a meal of insects, but would not be able to reach the insects. Nothing works here until everything works.
Design is evident in the woodpecker, but the fossil record is another problem for those who believe woodpeckers have evolved. Fossil woodpeckers are virtually unknown, so the alleged gradual development of lower bird life into the more complex woodpecker over many millions of years cannot be traced in the fossil record. Many fossils claimed long ago as early woodpeckers have now been rejected or called into question."
Did the woodpecker's shock-absorbing head come about by chance? Or was it designed?
It looks like it was designed to me. No scratch that. It looks INTELLIGENTLY designed.
References: http://www.thematrix.co.uk/texttopic.asp?ID=24
http://www.arn.org/...odpecker_drumming_inspires_shock_absor

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by Admin, posted 02-20-2012 2:39 PM CrytoGod has not replied

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Message 2 of 2 (653382)
02-20-2012 2:39 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by CrytoGod
02-20-2012 2:15 PM


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This message is a reply to:
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