For the context of what I was talking about, here's the NDT clip I mentioned:
http://youtu.be/oEl9kVl6KPc?t=3m59s
The counter arguments are that a system completely separating speech/breathing from eating would be ideal to such a degree as to warrant the excess hardware and all the complications that might come along with this.
Nobody said its ideal. We're talking about an Intelligent Designer, it just has to make more sense from an intelligent perspective, as opposed to the old blind RM+NS way.
Here's my last post in that other thread that awaits reply:
quote:
We eat through the same hole we speak out of. Without changing that, there isn't any way to get the lungs to supply the speaking apparatuses with air unless we cross tubes somewhere.
Dolphins!. They talk out of their noses. And fairly well. Throw some kind of tongue-thingy in there and viola.
Here's a fairly interesting article that says:
quote:
its pitch is not defined by the size of its nasal air cavities, and hence that it is not whistling," Madsen said. "Rather, it makes sound by making connective tissue in the nose vibrate at the frequency it wishes to produce by adjusting the muscular tension and air flow over the tissue."
"That is the same way that we humans make sound with our vocal cords to speak," he added.
It was just a general point that it is rather common for creatures to have separate breathing and eating tubes.
Are you talking about mammals? Because its totally irrelevant that frogs breath through their skin, or bugs through their legs, or whatever the hell it is you're talking about.
The only mammals that I can think of right now that have that is the cetaceans. And they all can talk pretty good from an animal perspective. The dolphins are just the poster child for cetaceans and that's why they were used. If your response is that other creatures, that aren't even mammals, can breath through a non-eating tube, then you've horribly missed the point, which is what I suspect is the case given you're avoidance of clarifying.
The point is that having separate eating and breathing tubes is not that difficult, especially for an Intelligent Designer. Dolphins are a great example of the idea working. They're mammals, so they're already not that different from us, and they are also pretty smart.
You bring up audible communication as an issue, but dolphins have a good ability at that, as well.