Unintelligent design (recurrent laryngeal nerve)

Nice try ignoring everything up until now, and moving completely off-topic.Please go back to being wrong about the RLN.

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

Remind me never to ask you to do any electrical wiring or circuitry at my place.

Hi Al,I think what people are trying to get you to see is that your analogy to wiring across a doorway doesn't match the RLN very well. In your analogy, what is it about the path from the larynx to the brain that is analogous to a doorway such that a route down the neck around the aorta and back is required?--Percy

Bigal35 writes: ​ I don't believe you have successfully convinced me that the routing of the RLN is poor design to a level that I would regard as "beyond reasonable doubt".

Well, let's see.The prosecution claims that the routing of the RLN is a poor design.Evidence:
1. It takes a route from its connection at the spine in the neck area, goes down into the chest, around the aortic arch and back up to the larynx muscles in the neck.
2. It connects only to the larynx muscles and the spine with no connections to anything else in between.
3. Nerves have been researched over an extensive period of time and shown to be control and sensory signal conduits only. No other function has been discovered for them.
4. Increasing the length of a signal path is wasteful.
a. Uses more material than necessary.
b. Increases latency in signal processing.
c. Uses more support resources than necessary (more cells means more oxygen and food to keep them alive)5. The increased length of the RLN vice a directly-routed nerve, increases the surface area that can potentially be damaged by outside forces. This is mitigated by the protection afforded by the chest cavity.The defense (slevesque, Bigal35 et al) claims that the RLN is a good design.Evidence?1. The routing of the RLN increases tension on the larynx muscles. (contradicted by 3. above). No confirming evidence for this claim provided.2. The routing of the RLN reduces vibration transmission to the larynx. Prosecution countered by pointing out the routing is past the heart, a big source of vibration and the neck is not a source of excessive vibration except in bobble-heads. 3. The RLN routing is done to avoid a source of potential damage to it. The source of potential damage is neither named nor supported by any evidence.4. The RLN routing has a purpose that will be discovered in the future. No confirming evidence and no research being done by organizations in support of ID to discover this purpose.I'm not sure what you believe to be "reasonable", but it seems that the defense has not made a case at all, much less a good one.The least you could do is try to counter the evidence put forth by the prosecution.For instance: Why is the routing of the RLN not a waste of resources?Edited by LinearAq, : No reason given.

Yes, but it wasn't me who brought up the wiring analogy. I just played along with the evolutionists analogy. My concern anyway is not that the path matches a doorway but that some contributors couldn't envisage the need for longer cabling in a domestic situation nevermind the more complex human anatomy structure.Perhaps a better example would be a window that cannot be opened. Nobody would be walking across it would they. A single wire would hardly even interfere with your field of view. I appreciate that some evolutionists might disagree with this though as they have already indicated that they find the blind spot an almost crippling disability. Most people would not consider routing a wire across a window as good practice although for every other purpose it might make perfect sense.Why would someone design the recurrent laryngeal nerve the way it has been designed. There need be no further rationale than because one can.

I think you've misread what people are saying. People understand there could be circumstances requiring less than direct nerve pathways. What people are saying to you is that they can see no such circumstances with regard to the RLN pathway, and when they ask you what such circumstances might be they get answers like this: Divine whim is your answer? Does this answer sound like science to you?What is actually being asked is what do the principles of ID tell you that ID scientists should be looking for regarding the RLN? Is your answer really that there's nothing they should be looking for, because the designer could do it any which way he wanted?So if you try to be a bit more scientific about it, what reconstructions of the design and implementation process do the principles and evidence allow you to make?What does the evidence tell you about the designer himself, and how does it help you find evidence of the designer?--Percy

But what we're saying is that there is no door or window to circumvent. It could've gone straight there, there is no need for it to take the route it does from an engineering stanpoint.Sure, one could design it like that, but doing so without reason is not a hallmark of intelligent design.And you said it was intelligently designed. If you now concede that it wasn't, well then the argument is done really.

And if there is absolutely no evidence for any need for longer cabling, then what? Wouldn't it be bad design? So no matter what the design looks like you will claim that it was intelligently designed? Do you think that Rube Goldberg mechanisms should be put in engineering textbooks and not in the comics?

As you state, people can understand there could be circumstances requiring less than direct pathways. And yet not a single person has given an example of such a case. Even if we consider the household cabling scenario, there are countless circumstances requiring less than direct pathways. And yet not a single example was given barr the ones that I gave. I don't wish to spell out each and every example trust me but I have by no means exhausted all the possibilities.My point is that people here (for reasons best known to themselves) don't want to give examples or possibilities. Maybe they are scared, maybe it's peer pressure I don't know. But don't tell me that that is good science.

Independent of what constitutes good science, the fact is we just see no evidence for your ideas, and we also think the person advocating a position should be providing the "examples and possibilities." If you're interested in a discussion about what constitutes good science then we should do that over in one of the Is It Science? threads, but not here.But here in this thread it would be marvelously on topic if you just provided us examples of good science by telling us what the principles of ID tell you that ID scientists should be looking for regarding the RLN? What reconstructions of the design and implementation process do the principles and evidence allow you to make? What does the evidence tell you about the designer himself, and how does it help you find evidence of the designer?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Reference correct forum for discussions about the nature of science.

Would such a discussion not better suit the Is It Science? forum? Not to question the purpose of your own forum to you, but well, it seems that the nature of science has a bit more to do with that topic than witn human origins.

Of course. The problem is we don't see such circumstances with the RLN. That's why we say that if this was designed, it's done poorly, since there is no reason for it to take that pathway from a designers stance. Because we say there aren't any in the case of the RLN. You're the one that says there are, yet you haven't mentioned a single one. Because they don't fit the analogy. This would be running a cable up and down the chamber, without there being anything in the way that the cable would need to go around. You haven't mentioned even one example of why the RLN would need to take the route it does. Or rather, you have (that tension bit you started with in this thread), but have utterly failed to support that assertion. We don't see any examples or possibilities of why, from a designers stance, the RLN should take the route it does. Of course it's good science not giving examples of things you think aren't there.

Yes they have. And it is an incredibly good reason and it fits with everything we know concerning evolutionary development. The reason is that the fourth vagus branch has *always* innervated the sixth gill arch and has *always* looped around the sixth aortic branch. Back in the precursors to fish there was a deep symmetry between the vagus nerve branches and their respective gill arches they innervated.Over the past several hundred million years, evolution has differentiated the gill arches such that the sixth is now the larynx. It is *still* innervated by the fourth vagus branch, the RLN, and the RLN *still* loops around the 6th aortic branch, now known as the ductus arteriosus (a shunt vitally important to the early survival of my youngest son as he was born with TGA.)The circuitous route of the RLN is explained perfectly by evolutionary development. We do not need other reasons or possibilities for we have THE reason. Similarly, we do not go looking for reasons that the Moon orbits the Earth. The question is, why are *YOU* so scared of the explanation given? Why are *YOU* so pressured into ignoring the world-wide collective knowledge of developmental biology? Why are *YOU* so unable to accept the findings of good science.The answer is, of course, your adherence to 4000 year-old shepherds' tales.

I find it amusing how you guys point to some design feature in the eye or like this laryngeal nerve as proof that there is no intelligent designer. What about the overwhelming majority of the rest of the human body that is so vastly genius. As a creationist I say the burden of proof isn't for us to explain why God chose the designs that he used. I say the burden is on the evolutionist to show how an unthinking source was able to come up with all the genius systems within the human body. For once I would like to see one of you explain the entire process of how all these systems evolved step by step through each system. The Neurological System. The Vision System. The Hearing System. The Balance System. The Smell System. The Taste System. The Touch System. The Skin System. The Endocrine System. The Respiratory System. The Gastrointestinal System. The Circulatory System. The Excretory System. The Musculoskeletal System.
Lets start here Mr. Evolutionist. You explain how all these deeply intelligent systems evolved step by step. And I'm at the edge of my seat to find out how all this evolved each slow, step by step, over a long period of time when they all have to be present and working together for the body to survive for even one instant. How do you get by this all or nothing scientific fact?ICDESIGNEdited by ICDESIGN, : No reason given.