Unintelligent design (recurrent laryngeal nerve)

Can you tell us why that is, what difference do you think a direct path to the innervated tissue would actually make biologically? Again this is somewhere where something actually linking you claim to real biology would be beneficial. Why do they have to be long and stretched to function as they do? What is your evidence for this?There are a small proportion of people who have non-recurrent laryngeal nerves on one side, roughly 5 in 1000 for the right side and a smaller proportion for the left . I can't find anything suggesting these anomalies cause problems with either speech or swallowing, the only consequence I can find in the literature is that since it is a rare anomaly it can lead to more problems during a thyroidectomy since it is in an unexpected position (Li et al., 2010).*ABE* On further study I also find references to non-recurrent laryngeal nerves being more readily associated with vocal chord paralysis as a consequence of a benign thyroid mass (Friedman, et al, 1986).*/ABE* Again some sort of evidence to support your claim might be helpful.TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : Added some more detail and references

Non-recurrent laryngeal nerves are a rare but consistent anatomical anomaly, there is no evidence that being non-recurrent causes any functional changes in talking, swallowing or vocal range. This is supported by the fact that the non-recurrent nature of the nerve is rarely appreciated prior to being exposed during surgery.Do you have even a single scintilla of evidence to support any of your claims for how the long path of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is in fact necesary for it to function?TTFN,WK

Sure, but those cases where the nerve is non-recurrent, rare thought they may be, don't show any of the things you are claiming would be the result of the nerve losing its long looped pathway. So these exceptions clearly contradict your claims for the results of a direct innervation of the laryngeal muscle, trouble swallowing, problems with vocalisation and limits in tonal range. What does this mean? Are you talking about the BioInfoBank library? That hardly narrows things down since BioInfoBank has links to millions of medical articles through pubmed. So unless you stop beating around the bush and actually give some specific reference that actually supports your claims I don't think there is anything here to discuss. Would that I could!TTFN,WK

Are you sure you didn't just get that from my post on the matter, Message 168?Sadly, this still totally fails to support your claims. Unless that is, you think everyone has a benign thyroid tumour?It certainly doesn't support the claim that the length and stretched nature of the nerve pathway provides any functional difference to swallowing or vocalisation.*ABE* On further reflection one could of course argue that being able to detect thyroid growths at an earlier stage may actually be an advantage. */ABE*TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : It is good not to have tumours

Fixed that for you.TTFN,WK

The paper is probably either ... ... or the strangely similar ... The 2002 paper covers 4 cases while the 1986 paper covers 3.*ABE* If anyone should worry about charges of plagiarism it is Friedman for his self-plagiarism. Apart from changing the word three to four twice the abstracts for the two papers are identical.*/ABE*TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : Added linksEdited by Wounded King, : Removed unnneccesary line breaks

You seem to be confusing the function of the muscles that the RLNs innervate with the function of the RLNs themselves. The RLNS do arguably provide that tension, but not directly due to their structure, i.e. their length and looping pathway, but rather through their biological function of conducting impulses to the laryngeal muscles which provide the necessary tension.You still have to produce any specific reference that actually supports a single one of your claims about the recurrent laryngeal nerves. Certainly the paper we discussed previously, on the effects of thyroid growths, doesn't support any of the initial claims you were asked about in terms of functional differences between a recurrent and non-recurrent path for the laryngeal nerves.TTFN,WK

That article (Newman et al., 2002) doesn't mention the laryngeal nerves once.Your citation, oblique as it is, simply doesn't support your claim.TTFN,WK

This is a totally different nerve, it goes down to innervate the cricothyroid muscle, the only laryngeal muscle not innervated by the recurrent laryngeal nerves. If anything this totally contradicts your claims as it shows that it is the normal nerve impulse conducting function of the nerves that is important and a direct path is sufficient for such innervation, tension in nerves is not mentioned.The fact that injuries to both recurrent and external nerves impair vocal cord contral also suggests that the path is totally irrelevant and it is normal nervous function that is important.You seem to have taken that quote straight from Wikipedia without appreciating the context ... Its all about what muscles are innervated by the nerves not their position or state of tension. Only because you refuse to put forward any references that actually support your claims that it is the route of the recurrent laryngeal nerve and tension on the nerve that allow it to function normally. All the evidence out there suggests that its functions is the same as any other nerve; conducting impulses to innervate other tissue, in this case the laryngeal muscles.TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : No reason given.Edited by Wounded King, : Added link to wikipedia page.Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

I'm with Al on this one, at least in terms of it not being plagiarism. He's been pretty clear all along that he is referring to other peoples work, just frustratingly shoddy in actually making it easy to find what particular papers he is referring to, and unbelievably bad at actually interpreting the papers to find any that support any of his actual claims.As to any sort of legal challenge, I'm not sure why that is a relevant issue. When schools and universities dicipline or expel students for plagiarism it is not due to legal issues but due to an ethical breach. It is certainly not the case that these institutes need the author of the original material to be involved in any way.TTFN,WK

He would be right to suggest this, almost all nerve/muscle systems work like this, it is called 'muscle tone'.The signals might only be to a subset of the fibres within the whole muscle but such signals are a fact of the neuromuscular system. Why overwork? The signals don't have to be at their full capacity, muscle tone is due to unconscious low level stimulation to keep the muscles in a state of readiness for contraction. So I guess you are offering this to us as a further example of unintelligent design since God made the neuromuscular system grossly inefficient, right?TTFN,WK

Really? Because you are the one who brought up the vocal cords being open as their normal state, and that is generally considered to be their relaxed position. Of course it is really more complex than this since both opening and closing of the cords are controlled by opposing sets of muscles both of which are innervated by the recurrent laryngeal nerves.As I mentioned before even a 'relaxed' muscle is undergoing continuous low level stimulation to maintain tone.If Huntard were to say that the vocal cords normal open position were the relaxed state then that would be a perfectly acceptable statement supported by the biology.You really are giving the impression here that you don't really understand the first thing about how muscles work generally or the laryngeal muscles specifially.TTFN,WK

I take it this new direction in your argument is essentially a tacit admission that none of your previous claims actually have any evidence to support them whatsoever? Or are you still just protecting your sources from the evil evolutionist conspiracy?TTFN,WK

Since you seem to have forgotten I'll remind you of your initial claims, before you run the goalposts off the pitch completely. Are you now retracting those claims?TTFN,WK

Aesthetic reasons?TTFN,WK