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I LOVE SCIENCE!
hhmm another broken flash presentation…
i’ve been noticing more problems with flash not working right these days..
Seems like they update flash every other day. Fortunately or unfortunately flash is dead. Any web component with no mobile version has no future. (I happen to like flash, wfiw.)
Unintelligent Design?
Sounds like a description of how the Obama administration operates. He surrounds himself with little kids with propellers on their heads. Not one has a lick of sense!
Even Chris Matthews has left the tribe!
http://goo.gl/NWvyw
Where’s the vision? Where’s the plan? Obama doesn’t call anyone or even engage in a conversation with his cabinet.
Uh, we’re talking science here, so take your fundy-wingnut comments elsewhere.
God, what an idiot. You degrade both science and the political process with your inappropriate comments.
Of Course, Rick Perry would believe in an “Unintelligent God” had he watched this.
Which kinda proves, everything.
The inefficient routing of the recurring laryngeal nerve does not rule out the divine hand in the design of living things. In fact, it can be taken as good evidence for polytheism, that is, design by committee.
Brilliant response!
I beg to differ.
An engineer can go back and throw away the old design, but often they do not, because it’s much simpler to piggy back on the old design.
The Space Shuttle SRB (Solid Rocket Booster) size was determined by the width of a horse’s ass.
http://astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html
So what’s the difference between evolution and engineers?
Using this idea, we have to ask at what point was design introduced? The SRB was an example of multiple engineers introducing design choices at multiple stages in the development. We have no evidence to support even a single design choice much less much less multiple where old design choices were left in place.
I’m always amazed at the words dancing that some people do to defend their point.
So we have to question the meaning of each single word?
‘Cause when you get out and it’s raining you start wondering: Is this really water, right?
The RNC or Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve is evidence of good design IMHO.
Basically the main reason the nerve takes the “detour” as Dawkins calls it is due to the fact that the never also supports other organs throughout the body.
More: http://icr.org/article/recurrent-laryngeal-nerve-not-evidence/
This is stupid. The recurrent laryngeal nerve takes this course because of a necessity of development not because of a lack of design. In the embryological state, the precursor to the heart exists up in the neck region of the embryo. By virtue of the body needing to elongate, extend and develop, the heart moves downward. The recurrent laryngeal precursor at first being straight must now loop around the great arteries of the heart as the heart migrates down into the chest.
If you want an analogy, look at printed circuit board design. It would be great if all traces could take a direct path from one component to another, but it is simply not possible in a design of any complexity at all. If the designer cannot put in a “vias” (holes in the circuit board to route the signal from one side or layer to the other), the circuitous routes that result are amazing. And don’t think that some “intellegence” doesn’t go into designing a circuit board. Design constraints aren’t evidence that there is no designer.
The fact is that biological systems have design constraints. The recurrent laryngeal “problem” is a red herring. To claim that intelligent design didn’t happen on the basis of a design “flaw” is ridiculous. In fact, a great designer would take a basic design and use it in as many applications as possible. The same basic embryo is common not only among mammalians, but also birds, fish and reptiles. The recurrent laryngeal nerve problem in mammals may not be a problem for other species with different morphologies, and in fact the path of the nerve in mammals doesn’t seem to be a serious disadvantage.
I don’t believe in intelligent design myself. I just find Dawkins’s “evidence” to be insulting to my own intelligence.
Well said George! Better than I. I’ll go have another cup of coffee, way waaaay too early in the morning for this kind of conversation for me. lol.
I don’t think you have established that elongation is a *necessity* of development as opposed to a by-product of evolution. The only necessity is that the larynx can communicate with the brain. The loop isn’t *required* for that. As a design choice, it a poor one in large animals. Works great for fish though.
Well, had I seen this on Saturday, a week ago, I could have introduced doubt in the minds of the Creationists who knocked on my Alabama door at 9:00 am.
Your arguments that the nerve would HAVE to take this route are not credible to me. It is a nerve from the brain to the upper throat, what does this have to do with the location of the heart, and its decent into the chest?
I accept that embryos are fish-like, and therefore, this fish vestigial anatomical feature we have inherited from our common fishy ancestors have made this nerve’s route the way it is.
Update: I use NoScript and had to allow dmcdn.net, as well as dailymotion.com.
Don’t believe in intelligent design either. But what if fish/animals were ‘designed to evolve’?
There are two problems with that tack. First, how does one determine evidence of design? Claims of something that isn’t designed could end with the circular logic of “it was designed not to show evidence of design” and around we go. Second, if we have no evidence of a designer because it evolved, then why introduce the notion of a designer at all?
Can only agree. It just shows how moot the whole thing is. There is no way to be sure, just another distraction from solving real problems.
The nerve loops deep into the chest so young boys in love can feel their hearts beating in their throats.
Blaspheme!
Intelligent design believers would be more amenable to Dawkins’ ideas if he would stop saying “evilution”.
There goes my appetite for steak
To me, the most powerful anti-intelligent-design argument is human dentition. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006-07, there are 150,000 licensed dentists in the United States. I couldn’t begin to total up the number of hours I’ve spent in agony from toothaches and the number of hours I’ve spent in a dentist’s chair.
If we were designed by a Designer, all arguments for a “Loving God” go right out the window.
Equating the existence of God to people’s poor dental hygiene seems a bit silly. In 48 years, I’ve never had a cavity or toothache. Based upon your analogy, God loves me more than you.
Evolution neither proves nor disproves the existence or non-existence of God. Evolution only proves the existence of change, nothing more.
Reserved for publication on Sunday. Figures.
If someone is capable of believing that once upon a time, only one small group of people in all the land were special enough to deserve an oracle who communicated directly with the Creator of the Universe, I don’t see much hope that a rather technical argument of logic like this one can dissuade them from any tenets of their doctrine. My Ouija board sees little such hope as well.
intelligent-design assumes an intelligent deity (fatal logic flaw)
SCIEEEENCE!!!! SCIENCE… science….
Did these clowns kill a giraffe to make this questionable point?
Giraffes aren’t immortal… some die of natural causes. We’ve been dissecting animals for a while… I wouldn’t be too disgusted as it helps us understand their anatomy and provide better medical care for the ones still alive.
We dissect humans too. *rolls eyes*
It’s not a questionable point, as you stated. It’s evidence that supports evolution as does ALL evidence.
I detected no search for scientific information in the video. I did detect a smug presentation of known facts.
As mice, man and giraffes all have the same number of vertebra in their necks and this nerve travels the same route in all of them one could just as easily say this is a design.
I have no problem with evolution. It seems a rather intelligent solution to problems.
If these people wasted a perfectly good giraffe to make this video, they are clowns. They also proved nothing. As mentioned by others the route is a solution to a developmental problem that just happens to work in the finished animal.
Kangaroos hop because their front legs are short. Their front legs are short because they develop very early to allow the fetal kangaroo to crawl from the birth canal to its mother’s pouch. A trip it has to make by itself. A development solution that can be seen in the adult animal.
A long nerve run is trivial in comparison.
(Giraffes may have an additional vertebra but it depends on where you start counting.)
Wow, if you actually think they went out and slaughtered a giraffe for this video I can’t believe you don’t swallow your own tongue. It looks like a very interesting biology or anatomy course whose students lucked out on an amazing specimen to me…
It’s amazing…you basically agreed with the point they are trying to get accross (ie. evolution or “development solution” whatever you want to call it) but you still feel the need to post douchy comments about very trivial portions of the logistics of the video…”Thet better not have killed that poor giraffe”…really?…really?
It’s amazing how many people post comments on blogs just to argree the point…
Don’t know whether it was intentional or a typo but I really like the word argree (never seen it before).
It seems to perfectly cover the point you made about arguing about a point of agreement, let’s get it added to a dictionary.
WmDE,
Your so-called argument and conclusions underlie a fundamental misunderstanding on your part of the principle of logic as well as the principle of evolution which the video tries to demonstrate. You can describe the facts cited in the video, but then you go onto a leap to argue a conclusion for which the facts try to demonstrate in the opposite. Your argument using the kangaroos demonstrates the same fallacy. You are obviously aware of the fact about the development of the forelegs, but then you somehow see fit to use this fact to argue for the opposite what the fact supports. This is not an issue of misinterpretation but an issue of faulty reasoning.
why would an intelligent designer create stupid humans who would praise Him?
Really?
Why not create smart humans who would be worthy of understanding Him, and who would appreciate all of His creation?
The evidence against intelligent design is everywhere, and it is us.
I believe in evolution, but as a designer of software I can say this does not disprove intelligent design.
All it says is that legacy design decisions, perhaps even bad ones, live on long after they ever made sense.
Maybe God got a little lazy.
Perhaps the giraffe simply needs a design review.
Isn’t there an oxymoron somwhere in ‘Maybe God got a little lazy’?
The current crop of repug prez candidates is proof of unintelligent design.
BigBoyBC:
“Based upon your analogy, God loves me more than you.”
Made me laugh out loud — thanks for the chuckle. Reminds me of the analagous “God must love the Chinese — he made so many of them.”
This still doesn’t address the age old criticism of evolution; specifically how organs such as the larynx came from, or even nerves.
IMHO Dawkins should spend his time gathering more evidence for evolution instead of gathering evidence against creationism.