"Intelligent" design? Not really.
Let us follow the pathway of the recurrent (inferior) laryngeal nerve,
an important nerve that is a branch of the Vagus nerve (tenth cranial
nerve), to see how evolution works and its limitations, and also see how
"intelligent design" doesn't fit anywhere into our biological
observations.
I'll use the analogy of 'Climbing Mount Improbable' by Richard Dawkins-
suppose Evolution is to be compared to a Mountain with different peaks,
and the higher we go on the mountain the greater is the complexity.
Suppose you're already halfway up there, and suddenly realise while
standing on the vantage point that there's a a better route! But you
can't climb all the way down and start afresh, because that's just not
evolution, as it has no foresight, and you'll have to make do with
whatever you've got.
Similar is the case with the
aforementioned recurrent (inferior) laryngeal nerve. This nerve connects
the brain with the larynx (voice box). Damage to the recurrent
laryngeal nerve means there's damage to our voice/speech box. Hence, the
obvious path for the nerve to travel is straight from the brain into
the neck and into the larynx, right? If you were designing the animal
from scratch and "intending" that mammals would arise someday, that
makes all the sense in the world. In mammals, however, the nerve goes
from the brain down past the heart and then to the larynx. This is
because that's the way it was in earlier fish-like ancestors, in whom
making a trip around the heart was indeed the closest route from the
brain to the larynx. But as the neck evolved and lengthened in a
mammalian-like morphology, the current structure could not be made to
start from scratch and the nerve developed its current highly
unnecessary circuitous route. And nowhere is it more prominent than in
Giraffes, where the never had to travel just 2 inches but instead makes a
long tour all the way down the neck, and back up. It's shown here in
this video explained by Dawkins himself, do watch it:
https://www.youtube.com/
As Dawkins would say, evolution didn't start out millions and millions
of years ago with the plan that mammals would someday rock the world.
No. Fish got the basic, simple design and the rest of us millions of
years later have to suck it up and deal with it. (Source 3)
Sources:
(suggested by one of our fans- Brian Wilson)
1) http://scienceblogs.com/
2) http://qilong.wordpress.com/
3) (Image source too) http://
"Intelligent" design? Not really.
Let us follow the pathway of the recurrent (inferior) laryngeal nerve, an important nerve that is a branch of the Vagus nerve (tenth cranial nerve), to see how evolution works and its limitations, and also see how "intelligent design" doesn't fit anywhere into our biological observations.
I'll use the analogy of 'Climbing Mount Improbable' by Richard Dawkins-
Let us follow the pathway of the recurrent (inferior) laryngeal nerve, an important nerve that is a branch of the Vagus nerve (tenth cranial nerve), to see how evolution works and its limitations, and also see how "intelligent design" doesn't fit anywhere into our biological observations.
I'll use the analogy of 'Climbing Mount Improbable' by Richard Dawkins-
suppose Evolution is to be compared to a Mountain with different peaks,
and the higher we go on the mountain the greater is the complexity.
Suppose you're already halfway up there, and suddenly realise while
standing on the vantage point that there's a a better route! But you
can't climb all the way down and start afresh, because that's just not
evolution, as it has no foresight, and you'll have to make do with
whatever you've got.
Similar is the case with the aforementioned recurrent (inferior) laryngeal nerve. This nerve connects the brain with the larynx (voice box). Damage to the recurrent laryngeal nerve means there's damage to our voice/speech box. Hence, the obvious path for the nerve to travel is straight from the brain into the neck and into the larynx, right? If you were designing the animal from scratch and "intending" that mammals would arise someday, that makes all the sense in the world. In mammals, however, the nerve goes from the brain down past the heart and then to the larynx. This is because that's the way it was in earlier fish-like ancestors, in whom making a trip around the heart was indeed the closest route from the brain to the larynx. But as the neck evolved and lengthened in a mammalian-like morphology, the current structure could not be made to start from scratch and the nerve developed its current highly unnecessary circuitous route. And nowhere is it more prominent than in Giraffes, where the never had to travel just 2 inches but instead makes a long tour all the way down the neck, and back up. It's shown here in this video explained by Dawkins himself, do watch it:
https://www.youtube.com/
As Dawkins would say, evolution didn't start out millions and millions of years ago with the plan that mammals would someday rock the world. No. Fish got the basic, simple design and the rest of us millions of years later have to suck it up and deal with it. (Source 3)
Sources:
(suggested by one of our fans- Brian Wilson)
1) http://scienceblogs.com/
2) http://qilong.wordpress.com/
3) (Image source too) http://
Similar is the case with the aforementioned recurrent (inferior) laryngeal nerve. This nerve connects the brain with the larynx (voice box). Damage to the recurrent laryngeal nerve means there's damage to our voice/speech box. Hence, the obvious path for the nerve to travel is straight from the brain into the neck and into the larynx, right? If you were designing the animal from scratch and "intending" that mammals would arise someday, that makes all the sense in the world. In mammals, however, the nerve goes from the brain down past the heart and then to the larynx. This is because that's the way it was in earlier fish-like ancestors, in whom making a trip around the heart was indeed the closest route from the brain to the larynx. But as the neck evolved and lengthened in a mammalian-like morphology, the current structure could not be made to start from scratch and the nerve developed its current highly unnecessary circuitous route. And nowhere is it more prominent than in Giraffes, where the never had to travel just 2 inches but instead makes a long tour all the way down the neck, and back up. It's shown here in this video explained by Dawkins himself, do watch it:
https://www.youtube.com/
As Dawkins would say, evolution didn't start out millions and millions of years ago with the plan that mammals would someday rock the world. No. Fish got the basic, simple design and the rest of us millions of years later have to suck it up and deal with it. (Source 3)
Sources:
(suggested by one of our fans- Brian Wilson)
1) http://scienceblogs.com/
2) http://qilong.wordpress.com/
3) (Image source too) http://
No comments:
Post a Comment