Bible Dunamai

An interesting argument made against life being designed is the path of the Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve (RLN.) If life was designed why would God take such an un-optimal path for the nerve — especially as seen in the giraffe?

The claim is that if you look at the RLN in fish you’ll see a more direct path, and as species evolved this nerve just got wrapped up and ended up taking a very indirect route below the heart. It makes sense, it looks like we can simply say “evolution did-it tm” and shrug it off. However, before we do that let’s think how un-useful that is towards our knowledge of biology. If we look at this “junk DNA” and say evolution did-it, we hinder our progression in science. It’s more interesting and useful to first assume there is a plan behind it and figure out why it is the way it is. That’s what we did with “junk DNA” and it ended up not being junk!

Even if I believed macro evolution was true (which I don’t,) I wouldn’t say that the indirect path of the LN was caused from it. How can evolution pay attention to such details like our eye lashes and eye brows yet take such a strange path for the LN? Just like most other things with evolution (like vestigial organs, junk DNA, eyes being wired backwards (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=1742), etc.) it will probably end up going against the Darwin theory.

So what are some possibilities behind this RLN? I have heard some good ideas, check out http://www.icr.org/article/recurrent-laryngeal-nerve-not-evidence/

As a computer programmer I try to relate code to biology. I may look at code that someone else wrote and wonder why the heck they did that. I may even go as far as rewriting what they wrote trying to improve it only to find out that once my new elegant code is executed I discover major bugs. Then further digging reveals that what the original author did had an elegant purpose. I have the same view with life. Until we’re at the point where we can design life ourselves we should be very skeptical about un-optimal design. I am willing to bet that if we designed a giraffe from the embryonic stage to adult life with a short RLN we would find some very serious bugs.

I disagree and propose the exact opposite — religion has had a profound positive impact on science both indirectly and directly. If you look through time I’m sure you’ll see an important role religion has played with the advancement of science.

First you have the Scottish Enlightenment period which changed the word. The cause? Local churches started schools (Education Act 1633.)

Then you have to account for any huge scientific advancements that were motivated from a design/creation aspect. For example Georges Lemaitre, a Catholic Priest who first proposed the big bang theory. He said that an “initial creation-like event must have occurred.”

Sure, religion gave science a few black eyes. However, so has the materialistic/secular view of the world. I’ll say not only has this view slowed the progression of science (things like junk DNA) but has been downright harmful (doctors removing vestigial organs because they are useless artifacts of evolution.)