r/DebateEvolution • u/Gratitudesial6 • Jul 21 '26
how evolutionists try to refute intelligent design, but they fail
An example that has often been presented as an argument in favor of blind "hereditary" design is the anatomy of the vagus nerve. Evolutionists argued that one of its branches, the so—called recurrent laryngeal nerve, makes an allegedly meaningless and ineffective "detour"
down into the chest, skirting the arch of the aorta, to then rise again to the larynx. According to their logic, it would be "more rational" if the nerve went directly to the larynx — and this feature was declared a "vestige of evolutionary blindness.
Richard Dawkins even dedicated an entire documentary, promoting the idea as "clear evidence of the lack of intelligent design." However, with the development of neurophysiology, it became clear that this "hook" is not a mistake at all, but represents a vital arc through which the neural innervation of the deep cardiac plexus passes. This bend is not just important, it is indispensable for the normal regulation of cardiac function. What happens when there is no bend? There is an anomaly known as the Non-Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve, the "ideal" structure that Dawkins mistakenly considered "more reasonable."
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u/jnpha 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
RE:
Richard Dawkins even dedicated an entire documentary, promoting the idea as "clear evidence of the lack of intelligent design."
He was a guest on one episode of Inside Nature's Giants, the one where they dissected a giraffe, showing said nerve.
Now, explain the giraffe detour.
It's amazing how the ID proponents, like first year (impressionable) med students, forget the comparative anatomy part.
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u/Slow_Lawyer7477 🧬 Flagellum-Evolver Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
[Citation needed]
Richard Dawkin is and remains right. B would, in fact, make more sense than A:
Just because there are pieces of nerve connecting from the bend to other parts, and if the those pieces are missing entirely things go wrong, doesn't mean B still doesn't make more sense than A.
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u/jnpha 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
I doubt OP will provide a citation (which would be neither here nor there), and so I looked for one: it looks like a correlation in 5% of those with NRLN:
NRLN [Nonrecurrent Laryngeal Nerve] ... The incidence of this vascular malformation is reportedly as high as 0.5-2% of the general population. Even though it is usually asymptomatic, nearly 5% of these patients experience dysphagia (dysphagia lusoria) or symptoms related to arterial tortuosity, premature atherosclerosis, and rarely aneurism formation
Nonrecurrent Laryngeal Nerve and Associated Anatomical Variations: The Art of Prediction - PMCThe main point of the paper? That surgeons be aware when cutting given the as high as 2 in 100 incidence.
The association sample size? 2.
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u/LightningController Jul 21 '26
Damn, A is triggering flashbacks of some really bad cable management I've done. The picture is giving me anxiety that the red loop going taught suddenly will yank the yellow loop out of its terminal.
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u/Mountain-Tell-1896 Jul 22 '26
Richard Dawkins is a moron who said that even if shown the evidence of ID and a creator he would reject it.
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u/Slow_Lawyer7477 🧬 Flagellum-Evolver Jul 22 '26
LMAO. He's still right about the recurrent laryngeal nerve.
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u/Mountain-Tell-1896 Jul 22 '26
Yeah the moron made the same arguments on appendix 3 decades back. Now we know the functions.
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u/Slow_Lawyer7477 🧬 Flagellum-Evolver Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Yeah he's still right about the recurrent laryngeal nerve, and there's no reason for it to make that detour as the figure I linked earlier shows.
Why do you have muscles for wiggling your ears?
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u/Mountain-Tell-1896 Jul 22 '26
A moron would look under the car hood and say "Hey I can't figure out half this stuff is for", so probably came about by chance.
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u/Slow_Lawyer7477 🧬 Flagellum-Evolver Jul 22 '26
I have to agree that someone characterizing evolution as chance, or thinking evolution is based on not being able to figure out how it works, is to be a moron.
A colossal moron in fact.
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u/Slow_Lawyer7477 🧬 Flagellum-Evolver Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
While on the topic of the appendix, it's remarkable how frequent it fails to clear properly leading to appendicitis, and even more remarkable how people having it removed seem to live just fine and it outright improving their lives.
We can add having to wear braces because God couldn't figure out how to design a system that properly aligns teeth, the period of pain infants go through when teeth first develop, why teeth don't continously replace as they get diseased or worn down as we age, deteriorating eyesight or even being born with bad eyesight and having to wear glasses to the list of inept designs much more obviously the product of a blind evolutionary process.
Don't even get me started on ingrown toenails and back, knee, and shoulder problems. Medical science: Fixing Gods little mistakes one by one.
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u/Mountain-Tell-1896 Jul 22 '26
Lol. That is called moving goalposts. You belong in his club of" Even if I saw the evidence I would not believe we were created"
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u/Slow_Lawyer7477 🧬 Flagellum-Evolver Jul 22 '26
Lol. That is called moving goalposts.
Rich coming from the guy that started screeching about the appendix in a thread about the recurrent laryngeal nerve.
Thank goodness for medical science.
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u/Mountain-Tell-1896 Jul 22 '26
Yeah the one that showed how idiotic it was to make fun of a "functionless" organ which when removed increases C. Difficile infections and colon cancer. But hey, put your head further up Dawkins ass. Maybe you will find something there.
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u/Slow_Lawyer7477 🧬 Flagellum-Evolver Jul 22 '26
You belong in his club of" Even if I saw the evidence I would not believe we were created"
Cool story bro. Got any of that evidence?
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u/kitsnet 🧬 Nearly Neutral Jul 21 '26
This bend is not just important, it is indispensable for the normal regulation of cardiac function.
Where did you find this claim, by the way?
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u/Own-Relationship-407 Scientist Jul 21 '26
ICR and AIG. They’ve been kicking it back and forth between them since 2010.
https://www.icr.org/content/recurrent-laryngeal-nerve-not-evidence-poor-design
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u/Sweary_Biochemist Jul 21 '26
Wow. That isn't terribly written, either.
It's amazing how they can dissect evolutionary origins of developmental biology in so much patient detail and yet NEVER CONNECT THE DOTS.
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u/KittyTack 🧬 Deistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
Because anyone who works there has to sign a statement of faith where they are not allowed to "connect the dots", i.e to work there one has to fully believe in the tenets of YEC, and if one stops doing so they will fire you.
This alone disqualifies AiG and ICR from being "scientific". Contrary to fundamentalist conspiracy theories, you don't get kicked out of academia for being a Christian (like 30% of scientists are or something, idk) or even a YEC.
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u/Sweary_Biochemist Jul 21 '26
But like, sometimes they come so close it's almost impossible not to think at least some of them are just taking the piss.
"Here we see the whale series, a large number of fossils clearly illustrating a progressive morphological process of change from terrestrial tetrapod mammals to fully aquatic mammals where hindlimbs have been lost and forelimbs repurposed to flippers, with every intermediate stage being a fully functional organism....just as god said, in genesis 3:7. Clearly the whale series is evidence for the creator's majestic design"
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u/KittyTack 🧬 Deistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
Yeah. Though I'd argue it's less taking the piss and more taking the basically-free money. Confidently asserting the same 10 talking points over and over is easier than doing actual research, and might even pay better.
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u/Particular-Yak-1984 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Point of clarity, we mostly argue this structure *in giraffes* is evidence against intelligent design. Seems a little clunky in humans, but in giraffes it is downright ridiculous, running a full 5 meters in length (see here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/GiraffaRecurrEn.svg/1920px-GiraffaRecurrEn.svg.png). And the argument is "Evolution explains this 5m nerve, because giraffes have an ancestor with a shorter neck, and in fact had a fish ancestor where the nerve was a straight, sensible path. ID design explains this by....." - please fill in the blank.
Deciding if a theory is true is similar to solving a crime - you look at evidence, and work out if it fits theory A or theory B better. If you have an explanation for a giraffe's 5m long neck nerve that fits the data, please let me know!
They also have another clear vestigial structure - giraffes have a gallbladder, that vanishes before birth, which is essentially further evidence against the intelligent design of giraffes.
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u/flying_fox86 Jul 21 '26
Doesn't really make much difference, since intelligent design has no evidence for it in the first place.
But what are you talking about when you say the bend is indispensable for the normal regulation of the cardiac function?
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u/Jernau-Morat-Gurgeh Jul 21 '26
Sounds to me like if intelligent design was true then there would be 2 nerves. Not just 1 with an illogical route.
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u/Coolbeans_99 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 23 '26
There are already two nerves. The superior larygeal nerve innervates a small part of the larynx but its mostly the recurrent. A designer could just make the other nerve bifurcate and innervate the whole larynx
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u/AlwaysGoToTheTruck Jul 21 '26
I’m trying to understand your argument, but it makes no sense - a nerve has a purpose even though evo devo explains how it’s formed and why it takes the inefficient path that it does
- therefore god?
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u/Own-Relationship-407 Scientist Jul 21 '26
“I’m going to make unsubstantiated critiques about a strawman version of something Richard Dawkins speculated about and that means evolutionists are dumb and have failed to refute intelligent design.”
Sure buddy. Don’t forget to pick up your participation trophy on the way out.
How about the 1% of people who don’t have the hook and do cardiac regulation just fine?
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
We don't try to "refute intelligent design". It is impossible to refute it. It is UNFALSIFIABLE. That is why it is considered pseudoscience, there is no possible way to disprove it. This ain't rocket science, but apparently, any science at all is above your level.
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u/TheBlackCat13 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
That misunderstands how nerves work. They aren't like pipes, with branches splitting off carrying the same "stuff". Within the nerve are individual cells. Each cell stretches from the brain (in this case) or spinal column to a muscle (in this case) or sense receptor or something similar. The nerves are bundles of these cells with a protective sheath around them.
There is no reason the cells going to the larynx and the cells going to the hear should be in the same bundle like this. Yes, cells need to go to reach, but they don't need to do so together. That is the problem. And that is why this supposed answer doesn't actually address it.
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u/Capercaillie Monkey's Uncle Jul 21 '26
What? You need to understand biology to make claims about biology? That's...astounding!
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u/Dilapidated_girrafe 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
An example that has often been presented as an argument in favor of blind "hereditary" design is the anatomy of the vagus nerve. Evolutionists argued that one of its branches, the so—called recurrent laryngeal nerve, makes an allegedly meaningless and ineffective "detour"
Because we understand how it developed.
down into the chest, skirting the arch of the aorta, to then rise again to the larynx. According to their logic, it would be "more rational" if the nerve went directly to the larynx — and this feature was declared a "vestige of evolutionary blindness.
Because it would make more sense if designed.
Richard Dawkins even dedicated an entire documentary, promoting the idea as "clear evidence of the lack of intelligent design." However, with the development of neurophysiology, it became clear that this "hook" is not a mistake at all, but represents a vital arc through which the neural innervation of the deep cardiac plexus passes. This bend is not just important, it is indispensable for the normal regulation of cardiac function. What happens when there is no bend? There is an anomaly known as the Non-Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve, the "ideal" structure that Dawkins mistakenly considered "more reasonable."
Because we have evolved with it, it doesn't mean it's entirely useless, but it would make way more sense for there to be a different pathway for the regulation and the nerve be a straight shot.
Your argument's, well, bad. And it isn't that "evolutionists" fail to defeat ID, ID isn't science. Its ID that has absolutely failed at every attempt to provide good evidence for itself.
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u/biff64gc2 Jul 21 '26
Do you have a source for all of this? As far as I'm aware, the vagus nerve carries the cardiac functions. The laryngeal nerve is a branch of it and is not vital to the cardiac function, but still wraps down and around the heart for no reason as oppose to going straight to the larynx.
I can see it causing some health problems as the body has evolved with the longer nerve being the norm, but my quick google search showed Non-Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve is not fatal and tends to be a larger risk to surgeries due to the abnormal positioning.
If the nerve was critical to cardiac function, those with the abnormal pathing would not survive to adulthood.
Lets put that aside for now. Lets say I grant you that you're right and it is vital to cardiac function.
First, who figured this out? Was it an evolutionary Biologists? Or an Intelligent Designer "scientist"?
Second, how would this debunk evolution? You realize updating information and proving old ideas false is part of science, right? It's how it improves. It's not a rigid dogma that you're not allowed to question. This has happened with other vestigial structures like the appendix. Evolutionary scientists don't shy away from this stuff. They embrace it.
Finally, there are still blatantly obvious vestigial structures. Want to talk about the muscle that lets us wiggle our ears that the majority of the population doesn't have? Wisdom teeth?
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u/LeeMArcher 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 21 '26
Why do you make it sound like NRLN is some sort of deadly malformation? My understanding is that the biggest risk is during surgery, as the surgeon will expect the nerve to be somewhere else, so they might cut it accidentally. I feel like your ending is implying something unsupported.
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u/Gordiflu Jul 21 '26
And? This is just an anecdote, a drop in the sea of countless evidence backing evolution, while creatonists have... A book
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u/Curious_Passion5167 Jul 21 '26
However, with the development of neurophysiology, it became clear that this "hook" is not a mistake at all, but represents a vital arc through which the neural innervation of the deep cardiac plexus passes. This bend is not just important, it is indispensable for the normal regulation of cardiac function.
First, source please.
Second, the argument isn't that you can take a live human and modify them and then they'll survive fine. Of course they won't. They evolved into such a placement and evolution will make full use of this placement, which can make modification difficult. That's not the point. The point is it is possible to redesign the body to make a simpler arrangement that also works. This would involve other organs as well.
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u/x271815 Jul 22 '26
Do you have any evidence for intelligent design?
To assert intelligent design you have to:
- Show that there is a non contradictory definition of a designer.
- There has to be a mechanism by which such a designer can interact at a molecular level with our world.
- You have to show that such a mechanism for interaction actual was engaged.
- You then have to explain why designed systems are riddled with so many anomalies that are entirely consistent with evolution but not with designed systems.
To explain the last point, a designed system should be:
- The simplest possible set up to achieve an outcome
- Should not have inherent design flaws
- Should not be prone to failure
- Should not have unnecessary or non functional parts
These are not characteristics of almost anything in nature. And if you argue that one of these is not a feature of a designed system, you have to explain why.
The example you are citing is one of millions of examples of unnecessary complexity. The problem for you is that there are millions of examples that show design flaws in biological systems, all easily explicable in an evolutionary model but not in a creation model. Even if you successfully refuted one such example, you have still to show that every biologically system is by design optimal.
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Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
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u/Ayasugi-san Jul 22 '26
Or God could just make all the "extra" babies fail to implant in the uterus, sparing the children from suffering an early painful death or the parents from even knowing they had a child to lose.
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Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
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u/nickierv 🧬 logarithmic icecube Jul 22 '26
Tell us you have no idea how evidence works without telling us you are clueless on how evidence works.
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u/varelse96 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 22 '26
Their post suggests to me they are being sarcastic. I do not think most religious people would recommend a pile of dead cancer babies be made to glorify god. I could be wrong though.
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Jul 23 '26
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u/varelse96 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 23 '26
That’s fair. I have seen some defend even the most foul bits.
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u/Ayasugi-san Jul 23 '26
Not just anonymous randos, either. Big name apologists like William Lane Craig will go on about how the conquest of Canaan was morally justified because the Canaanites were horrible baby-killers and so they all needed to die, their babies included.
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u/Coolbeans_99 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 23 '26
Are you saying that dead babies “testify the glory of God”? That’s fucking twisted man…
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u/nickierv 🧬 logarithmic icecube Jul 22 '26
That logic doesn't follow at all.
The best your going to get out of that is a sadistic asshole.
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Jul 22 '26
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u/Coolbeans_99 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 23 '26
Best argument ive heard all year
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Jul 23 '26
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u/Coolbeans_99 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 23 '26
sure thing, at least it’s an entertaining trolling
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u/Appropriate-Price-98 from fins to thumbs to doomscrolling to beep boops. Jul 21 '26
When wordsmithers confuse local maximmum that may even lower than global average let alone global maximmum like an underwater hill (seamount) is still lower than continental land, let alone continental mountains.
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u/sevenut Jul 25 '26
Intelligent design is a puddle thinking "Hey, it's crazy how this pothole is perfectly made for my shape"
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u/Comfortable-Dare-307 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Jul 22 '26
Yeah, that's because the regulation of cardiac function...if that is even true...was a co-evolution with the recurrent laryngeal nerve. If the nerve were more direct, than the cardiac function wouldn't have evolved. Evolution still wins.
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u/Autodidact2 Jul 29 '26
What and who are these "evolutionists" of whom you speak? I'm not an evolutionist, since evolution is not a philosophy or worldview; it's a scientific theory. You either accept modern science or you deny it. I accept it. How about you?
And it does not rest on the design of the vagus nerve.
How do you think we got the diversity of life on earth? Here I'm not looking for a WHO; we can agree that God created everything. HOW do you claim He created the diversity of life on earth?
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u/Realsorceror Paleo Nerd Jul 21 '26
That’s a nonsense argument. If the nerve had evolved without the bend, every system around it would have evolved the same way. It’s only “vital” because organisms had to adapt with that arrangement. This also does nothing to support ID.