quote:
To be fair to the design of our neck my understanding is that having one pipe allows us to swivel our heads.
I know this is an ancient thread, but I just noticed this.
The reason we have two pipes is becasue this is the way we evolved to make complex speech possible.
It does involve a tradeoff since it also makes us much more vulnerable to choking, but the benefits to the species in being able to communicate complex ideas, particularly to the next generation, far outweighs the higher number of choking deaths in the population.
With complex speech, too, we can pass on the information needed to avoid choking in the first place.