One Nerve Cell Disproves Intelligent Design

so there's a there's a YouTube video in which Richard Dawkins is in a laboratory setting and there's a giraffe dissection on the table so what there is in the in the giraffe is the nerve that goes from the brain to the larynx is unnecessarily long that is it goes beyond the larynx and then back up so this is a video sent to me by a patron where we see a biologist and Christian apologist Rick Gerhart addressed one of the Richard Dawkins videos a few years ago Dawkins dissected a drafts neck and found that a branch of the vagus nerve the laryngeal nerve took an insane detour down and up the neck of a graph in order to reach the larynx which is very close to the starting point the argument goes like this an example of how animals and humans could not have been designed by any sort of intelligence is the length of this nerve instead of simply traveling a short distance to the target organ it goes down the neck to loop around an artery of the heart before ascending back up this is highly unnecessary and disadvantageous in many situations for example this causes some limits to the giraffes vocal cords such as the inability to produce high-pitched sounds however the phenomenon can easily be explained by evolution since evolution doesn't strive to make things perfect it just makes them work evolution can adjust many traits of living organisms to make them more optimal such as the size of the neck or the size of the heart what it cannot do however is reroute the literal nerve entirely so that it stops looping around the aorta which is why this finding is quite significant since it is exactly how we expect it to be in fact this looping around the artery evolved when fish transitioned into land animals they developed an ex and due to this already present position of this nerve it had a loop around the aorta this is consistent since fish and other sea animals do not have this unnecessary looping and like I mentioned already evolution cannot redirect the nerve through a huge blood vessel now this nerve isn't the only example we have in fact there are plenty of them but let's hear what Rick has to say first okay so my first response would be there's a problematic mixing of tenses here okay would expect is a mixing of tenses when we expect or predict something it usually has a future realization either it will happen in the future or we will this cover it in the future I expect when I get home that my kids won't have done the dishes okay but there's a future connotation to it no there isn't always a future connotation to it we are saying if evolution were true we would expect to find imperfections in humans and animal bodies if the universe was created by an intelligent designer we would expect to find something designed to the best possible degree this just means that in order to prove the first premise in this case evolution premise 2 must be true for example I could say something like I left some cake in the fridge where I left the house if my brother ate the cake I would expect to find the cake missing from the fridge when I get home in this case in order to prove that my brother ate the cake I would have to find the cake not be present it's not a mix-up of tenses not at all of course that doesn't exactly mean that the cake disappearing definitely proves that my brother ate it it would just say that it is a possibility and we cannot rule it out for an intelligent designer we would expect everything to be perfectly designed as if an engineer did so the fact that we find something like the vagus nerve making such a long detour shows that intelligent designer did not design the bodies of humans and animals but since we expect that for evolution we can't use this to say evolution as false like we can for an intelligent designer the fact is that evolution did not predict that we would find such an arrangement in the giraffe's neck rather it's it's something evolutionists have discovered and in an ad hoc after-the-fact manner chosen to glob onto as evidence in support of their theory the fact is that evolution won't produce perfect organisms something could go wrong but instead of correcting an evolution only needs to make it work that's how natural selection can select traits to be passed on therefore it is unreasonable to say that everything in nature would be perfect somewhere there would be an imperfect structure that may hinder function but ultimately works even if this was discovered after proposing the theory of evolution the important part is that it is still compatible with evolutionary theory and not intelligent design it doesn't matter which came first skeptics of evolution would point out that it is unfalsifiable in that no matter how contrary the evidence proves to be evolutionary theory has a way of morphing to not only explain away that contrary evidence but actually to to claim it as part of the evidence okay I can actually see what you're saying here it seems that whatever we discover in nature we try to explain it away with evolutionary theory and there may be some trial and error but we ultimately use evolution to explain the phenomenon sure this does happen but that doesn't mean it's not falsifiable because it is for example if we showed that fossils were not laid down in the rock layers that perfectly mapped out our tree of evolution or perhaps that bacteria don't develop antibiotic resistance or how about debunking every single speciation event we have directly observed the fact is there are plenty of ways to falsify evolution but so far it has stood up to all this rigorous testing and prevailed that's why it's our leading idea in natural history my second response is that you will notice that this is not a scientific argument it's a philosophical or or even a theological argument gonna have to completely disagree but let's keep going the Dawkins is a theoretical scientist but he's not making even a scientific claim he's making a claim about God God wouldn't do that that this way it's it's a theological argument well no actually we're not saying God wouldn't do it this way in fact this is just a reactionary response to when creationists say oh look everything in nature is perfect we're just demonstrating that it's not if you want to call it a philosophical argument go ahead but don't act as if we started this line of thinking you theists started by calling God in an intelligent designer who makes everything perfect we're just using that to demonstrate that you're wrong but ultimately it doesn't matter how this argument began what matters is what your counter-argument is but but for now my point is just that it's not a scientific argument it's a theological argument a philosophical argument and Dawkins his expertise is in neither of those arenas first of all why doesn't matter if you label this as a philosophical argument or a scientific argument second of all even if it is a philosophical argument Dawkins can still make arguments based on it just because he's not a philosopher it doesn't mean he can't talk about philosophy let's hear some real rebuttals now the third thing I would point out is that this claim kind of assumes a god-like understanding of the situation okay Dawkins says I see no purpose for this extra length through there Angell nerve but really he's saying therefore I've I've completely exhausted the possibilities and come to the conclusion that there is no such purpose so it's a it's really nothing more than a subjective claim an opinion if you will oh okay well you're a biologist you should know this line of thinking when we say that we see no purpose that really means that we've studied this intensively and we can safely conclude that there is no real purpose or benefits it's like when we say there's no causation between vaccinations and autism what just because we can't find the link doesn't mean it's not there no in this case we can safely conclude that vaccinations don't cause autism in science we work to disprove the null hypothesis if we fail to disprove the null then the null is accepted to be true it's just an aspect of the scientific method that you should be familiar with in this case the null is that there is no purpose in the length of this nerve since we haven't found any evidence that shows that there is a purpose the null is automatically accepted come on dude you're a biologist think like a biologist the fourth point I would say is that it can never be any more than that that is we can discover design in the laryngeal nerve we could we could discover why there's compromise and added length for some some purpose of compromise or we could discover that there's actually an optimization there that we don't currently realize we could refute Dawkins is claim but we can never validate or prove it it will never be more than a subjective claim so this is essentially the same as your previous point look if you can provide some being evidence or argumentation on why this nerve needs to be this long please provide it to us but until then we're going to assume there isn't one the fifth point I would make is that this type of claim which in a hundred letter $100 words is a the claim of diss teleology bad design has a very poor track record that is every time evolutionists or atheists have offered up an example of bad design and living things further research has shown L quint design or compromise or optimization which makes it very clearly why it was designed such as it is I haven't kept up much with these specific examples so feel free to let me know some of them in the comment section below the only ones I'm currently aware of are the laryngeal nerve in the retina of the eye and those are pretty powerful ones of course I could probably think of a few of my head just in the human body alone but I'll do that for another video currently creationists have already tried to address the laryngeal nerve problem but haven't yet been able to effectively provide a convincing argument I've heard some creationists try to argue how the laryngeal nerve had to route around the heart due to development structures before birth and yeah that's pretty much exactly what happens but that doesn't explain why the creator had to position the nerve to start development on the other side of the aortic arc the point is there are better more thought-out arguments that creationists have made even though they're wrong and yet the only thing this biologist could come up with is math it could have been a beneficial function we just don't know it yet you see how weak this argument is address the problem directly don't tiptoe around it and say well we don't know so God did it we could talk about the inverted retina in the vertebrate I used to be a classic filler for this claim okay so let's talk a bit about the eye just briefly the retina of the human eye has such poor structure firstly the photoreceptor cells are reversed which leaves the cell bodies to act as an obstruction of oncoming light second the position of the optic nerve connecting to the eye is in a position that would create a blind spot other animals that evolved eyes in a separate pathway do not have this problem supporting our tree of evolution third the retina is easily detachable due to the blood vessels not being in the correct side of the retina this easily causes blindness amongst people in the world and the best part is these problems don't exist for animals that have superior vision such as the octopus or gastropods they evolved eyes independently from mammals now you claim that these have been debunked but so far I haven't seen anything convincing so you're going to continue by telling us exactly why our thought process is incorrect right right or the pandas thumb which actually was the title of a book by evolutionists Stephen Jay Gould well subsequent research shows that the the wrist arrangement of the Panda is perfectly designed for stripping bamboo which is all it eats all day long well the story isn't exactly how you're portraying it the Panda supposed thumb isn't a real thumb but rather is a protrusion from the wrist to make it better for stripping leaves off bamboo the argument states that if an intelligent designer had designed the Panda he or she would have just given the Panda real thumbs which are much more effective at not only stripping leaves but also for various other tasks as well evolution however would give us properties that are a hundred percent optimal but nonetheless serves its purpose and that's what we see here with the pandas thumb so there's a very poor track record of this sort of argument from distally ology yeah the sixth point I would make and I'll reserve the right to make another point or two you know if we think about a little longer but if we did try to help Dawkins out here and turn this subjective claim into an actual argument what we would discover is that it commits a clear fallacy and that is it it is a non sequitur the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise if we grant that the laryngeal nerve of the giraffe is in fact nothing but a bad design that doesn't lead to the it cannot lead to the conclusion that there's no design involved at all sure that doesn't mean there definitely is a nikasha signer but it would suggest that this designer isn't intelligent so in this case that means it's not your Christian God but probably some other God we aren't aware of unless you are willing to admit that your God isn't all that smart in which case why worship Him if evolution of the sort that Richard Dawkins defends and promotes is true and if I were charged with you know coming up with glitzy YouTube's that would would show everybody why they should believe in evolution I would like to think that I could come up with an argument that is a scientific not theological be falsifiable rather than merely subjective opinion I'd like to think I could come up with an argument that is cogent or valid rather than fallacious well even if you think those things at least he made a clear and direct point you haven't really addressed the argument at all about the little NGO nerve I'm sure everyone would rather you go directly and then tell us what purpose the length of the nerve would serve for humans and for giraffes that would spark an interesting biological discussion anyway that's the end of the video I hope you enjoyed it even though it's a bit lengthy err and littered more with scientific explanations I have a few awesome things planned at the next few weeks so be sure to stay tuned for that bye [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Professor Stick

Views: 127,898

Rating: 4.848464 out of 5

Keywords: professor, stick, professor stick, richard dawkins, rick gerhardt, creationism, creationist, evolution, laryngeal nerve, vagus nerve, aorta, natural selection, eye, inerted retina, proof of evolution, panda's thumb, giraffe, giraffe's neck, nerve cell, neuron, larynx, christianity, science, education

Id: yX4RZyHP5iI

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 09 2017