An Orangutan, Rocket Man and a great rebounder

Ahhh, what an exciting world we live in. Nuclear war is a possibility and the two men mankind has leading the opposing sides are Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. What fun. Both ego-maniacal dimwits. The lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions are at stake. North Korea is a horrible place to live. It might be tempting to want to liberate its people by military force but the consequences would be too grave. Even Steve Bannon is firmly against a military conflict. If the US were to launch a strike, the DPRK would immediately attack Seoul, South Korea, a US ally. There are 10 million people in Seoul.

If only there was someone who knew both men, someone who could talk some sense into the leaders of both sides. There is a very short list of people who have met both Trump and Kim. One of those people is a US citizen who visited Kim just this past June and in fact might be the last person to speak to both leaders in person. So, what person has mankind come up with to take on such an important task? A diplomat? An intellectual? A couples counsellor? A negotiator? Dr. Phil? None of the above. This unique position has ended up in the hands of former basketball great, Dennis Rodman. Yea, you remember him, the guy with all the tattoos, nose rings, dyed blond hair. So, what does Rodman think of Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un? Naturally, he loves ‘em both!

I loved watching Dennis Rodman play basketball back in the day. He was such a unique character and player. He played hard, diving horizontally into the stands for loose balls. The man was very entertaining. But beyond that, I’m sorry but he is just dumb. Real dumb. He has totally bought into the DPRK propaganda and emotionally defends his buddy Kim Jong Un. Now to Rodman’s credit, he does not succumb to the Dunning-Kruger effect. He knows he is not a diplomat, or a politician or someone with brains. Many people have no clue that they are idiots, but Rodman does…I admire that. However, this situation needs someone much more serious and cerebral than a clown like Rodman. It’s too bad Kim was not a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers and Kareem Abdul Jabbar or the San Antonio Spurs and David Robinson. As for Trump, he invited Rodman to join the reality TV show “The Celebrity Apprentice”. Rodman appreciated that very much and became friends with Trump.

Both sides of this dispute have been insulting each other like junior high bullies. What does this accomplish? During his presidential campaign Trump promised to end regime changes. Is it possible he has lied? If the US attacks North Korea, it will be an offensive war. The Kim regime are a scary bunch but they know they are no match for the United States military. Surely they realize that a war with the US would mean their complete destruction. North Korea recently sent out an open letter to many western nations asking them to stop Trump and the US’s aggression. They are scared.

According to Noam Chomsky, the US turned down a deal to make peace with North Korea. Both the Trump administration and the retired Drone King, Sir Barack Obama-Lot turned down peace deals. North Korea and China offered a deal where the DPRK would put a freeze on its nuclear and ballistic systems if the US would stop making threatening military maneuvers. The United States under Trump is flying B-52 bombers with nuclear capabilities close to the North Korean border. Do the Americans want peace? It doesn’t appear so. North Koreans remember the destruction the US caused to its country during the Korean war. It carpet bombed them to the point where there were no more targets left to hit. It makes total sense for the Kim regime to develop nuclear weapons to defend itself.

In Michael Malice’s book, Dear Reader, he tells the story of North Korea from the perspective of Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un’s father. The current regime runs according to the philosophy of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, Un’s grandfather. He came up with the Juche idea, the greatest idea known to man. It is a combination of Marxism, Korean nationalism and whatever the Kim family likes. For example, Juche Opera, which is Opera with the word Juche in front of it. Kim Jong Il was a great admirer of such wonderful people as Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and General Mao, tens of millions of people killed among the three of them. Surely something to admire, if one is a murderous dictator. Kim Jong Il had three sons. He chose Kim Jong Un, the youngest, to succeed him. Why? Well, he describes his second oldest son, Kim Jong Chul as a sissy. Too effeminate to take over as leader. The oldest son Kim Jong Nam showed concerns about the environment and wanted to reform the country. This would not do. As a precaution, after he gained power, Un killed this brother so that he would have no competition. Sweet family. The book tells story after story of the super human Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. There is always a moral to every story, illustrating how insightful, intelligent and benevolent the two leaders are and how moronic everyone else is.

Dipping back into reality for a moment, in the 1990’s there was wide spread famine in North Korea. The UN offered food aid for the dying North Koreans. Kim Jong Il turned them down. The reason? The people would be no longer dependant on the government if outside aid provided food. Millions died as a result.

Malice says change is imminent. Black markets have opened up in the DPRK to sell food. The regime cannot feed all its people. North Koreans can look at neighbours China and South Korea and see the lights on at night. The North is mostly dark at night. The citizens know the country is a disaster. Also, the incumbent Psycho-Twerp is not a strong leader. Let’s hope his days are numbered.

There are 20 million people living in North Korea. All prisoners. Every week, the citizens are put in different groups – by living location or work place, etc. Each person must admit to the group something they have done wrong in the last week. They must also point out something wrong others have done. This is mandatory, everyone has to answer.

You see, in North Korea you do not want to run afoul of the regime. There are 200,000 to 300,000 citizens in the Enlightenment Centres. If you say anything against the government, you and three generations of your family will go to these concentration camps. The UN has asked the DPRK about the concentration camps. They replied that they have no concentration camps, they have enlightenment centres, therefore, no problem exists. In reality, prisoners do hard labour every day. They are given a handful of corn to eat. Many die of malnutrition.

Not much to be inspired by here if one is a human and I assume that any reader of this blog is human. I wonder if we have missed a step in our evolution. Perhaps we are meant to metamorphosize like a maggot into a fly. Could we be larva that has yet to take the next step? You know, why speculate….frig it, I’m going to try it. I’m going to wrap myself in silk, lay down under my desk and attempt to pupate.

Human Head Transplant

Yes. Exactly as it sounds. Most experts don’t think it can be done, but not Italian neurosurgeon Dr. Sergio Canavero. For 10 million euros, he will chop off your head and attach it to a new body. He is planning to attempt it this year in 2017 in China along with orthopedic surgeon Dr. Ren Xiaoping. They even have a willing candidate, a Chinese citizen. The transplanted body will come from a recently diseased individual. Dr. Canavero claims he has successfully done the procedure on rats and a monkey though none of the test subjects lasted more than 36 hours.

The spinal cord would have to be attached using the Gemini spinal cord fusion protocol. The blood vessels and muscles would have to be stitched together. The patient would then be put into a coma for a month. Modern medicine has not yet figured out a way to fix serious spinal cord injuries. Canavero says that this operation would be different than a spinal cord injury because in the surgery the spinal cord would be cut cleanly and evenly with much less blunt force than an injury. Canavero explains that the spinal cord has a bundle of a million fibers that look like spaghetti. He says only 10 to 20% of the fibers need to attach to the spinal cord of the donor body for full mobility.

Dr. Canavero is very confident about this whole thing…perhaps too confident…a bit cocky, a bit of a salesman. It’s hard to think that ego is not playing a role in the decision making process here. Though I guess if a surgeon is going to cut your head off and attach it to another person’s body, you want him to be confident. I assume anyone willing to undergo this procedure would have very serious health issues with their current body but just imagine all the things that could go wrong. There are worse consequences than death.

Dr. Canavero says that he will remove the head of the patient, drain the blood and then cool the head to 10C. He predicts that when he re-attaches the head, the patient’s consciousness will still be intact. He says he belongs to a group of scientists that believe that the brain is a filter that doesn’t generate consciousness. There is evidence that this may not be the case. Look at brain damaged individuals. They suffer many different malfunctions of the brain including not being able to remember names of animals but they can remember names of tools. The brain is fragmented. Damage to any one part can affect a specific function. Consider split-brain experiments. There is a surgery to ameliorate the symptoms of epilepsy. The corpus callosum is the main broad band of nerve fibers that connects the hemispheres of the brain. In corpus callosotomy surgery, this connection between the two sides of the brain is severed. Experiments on patients afterwards have shown that in certain scenarios one side of the brain does not have access to information that the other side has. Do we really think that cutting off someone’s head, draining the blood and then attaching it to another body will result in the individual having an intact consciousness with the ability to speak and drive and logon to Facebook and remember their password?

There are endless questions with no answers. What if this really did work? Let’s say a guy named Harry has his head transplanted onto the body of Bob. Let’s call the new person Harry Bob. What if Harry Bob likes to go to bars to get into fights? Let’s say Harry Bob punches Jimmy. Jimmy then takes Harry Bob to court. Jimmy says: “Harry punched me!”. Harry could say: “No, I didn’t! Bob did!”. What now? Is Harry the Head to blame? Or Bob the Body? Or Harry Bob? If Harry Bob did throw a punch, it wasn’t Harry’s fist that punched Jimmy, it was Bob’s. Can Jimmy sue Bob? Well, Bob’s dead. His original brain is in a jar somewhere. That meets the legal definition of dead. Taking that into consideration, how did Bob’s fist end up knocking out Jimmy’s teeth?

Figuring out who is who is a little hazy here. Check out this thought experiment: A surgeon removes one cell from me and one cell from you and then replaces your cell with my cell and my cell with your cell. He keeps doing this one at a time. At what point do I officially become you and you become me?

Now what about the soul? First of all, does it exist? Let’s just assume it does for this discussion. Does Harry the Head’s soul now belong to Harry Bob? What about Bob the Body’s soul? Did it go to heaven/hell/die when Bob’s brain stop functioning? Or maybe the soul is associated with the body, not the head. The Head usually weights around 12 lbs or 6% of the average person’s body weight. Wouldn’t the soul be associated with the majority of the body? Or perhaps Harry Bob now has a soul blended from two souls into one.

Scientists are finding more and more that the mind and body are one, not two separate entities. The heart sends far more messages to the brain than vice versa. The heart has been seen for centuries by many people as the center for love and emotion in humans. Some scientists today believe that might be literally true. Could the soul be attached to the heart? There are people out there now walking around with transplanted hearts. I doubt they think they have a new soul.

Others believe that emotions are located in the synapses between neurons. You hear people talking about old emotions or stress being stored in different parts of the body. Is the soul related to your emotions? What is it that makes us who we are? Is it our brain/mind? Our emotions? Our body? Our everything together? Being in the moment is talked about a lot these days. Proponents say your thoughts and even your behaviors are not the true you. There is something deeper than that in regards to who we really are.

Dr. Canavero and Dr. Xiaoping have performed this operation on a monkey, however they have been less than completely transparent with evidence, though they have provided some video. Having only performed this procedure with mice and one monkey does not seem enough to try this potential horror show on a human. However, can we really justify performing more of these procedures on non-consenting monkeys? Scientists are finding more evidence of how our primate cousins are very similar to us. Some chimpanzees live in caves. Recently, some were spotted using spears to kill prey. Chimps have been studied that appear to be using plants as medicine! Examining chimp feces, scientists (who says studying hard for biology class will pay off!?) discovered that certain plants with medicinal properties are occasionally found swallowed whole. This is unusual because doing this would have no nutritional benefit. Are our closest animal relatives that different from us? Do we really want to perform more Frankenstein experiments on them?

The majority of people are in favor of kidney transplants. There is something different about transplanting the body of one human to another. It hits you in the gut. There seems to be something wrong about it. I guess adding a spare part to replace a failing one sounds like a great idea. The difference with this procedure, is that it seems to blend one person with another. A hybrid being. Is there something inherently wrong with this? I’m not sure if this is a rational complaint or not.

In the wildly unlikely event that this becomes a new viable surgical option, what if some old rich guy wants a new and improved body? What if an old Saudi billionaire wants a body like a professional NFL football player? Assuming no NFL players would be interested in such an opportunity, there are potentially other options out there. Somewhere in the world, there would be someone willing to find a recently deceased, young, athletic male corpse to affix to some old rich dude’s noggin. Or perhaps, targeting an ideal candidate and, ummm, appropriating his body below the neck.

Keeping in mind that I am not an expert, in, well, anything, I can’t imagine this working. However, if this ambitious project actually goes ahead, it might answer some questions about surgery, spinal cords, consciousness and human craziness. Stay tuned.

Stop Embarrassing the Left!

I can’t hold it in any longer. What the heck is going on with the Radical Left these days? The left has been more violent than the right in the US recently. Have you seen the violence at UC Berkeley over former Breitbart Editor and self-proclaimed provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos’ planned speech? They were punching people, pepper spraying Trump supporters in the face, hitting people with flag poles, smashing windows, lighting objects on fire. Where is the liberal pacifism, acceptance, compassion and tolerance? There seems to be 3 sub-groups of the radical left that are totally out of control: Social Justice Warriors, Antifa (Anti-fascists) and Anarchists. They are anti-free speech, violent and unreasonable.

There is a video on-line of a female Trump supporter speaking to an interviewer on camera. She was being good-natured and giving props to the protesters who were protesting non-violently. Two seconds later someone lunged at her and sprayed mace or pepper spray right in her face. That’s just not nice. Later you could see her sitting down with her face all red and swollen in obvious pain. The following night in New York, libertarian journalist Gavin McInnes was scheduled to give a speech and violence broke out and he was pepper sprayed in the face by protesters while entering the building.

Apparently hypocrisy is not a concern with these activists. The Antifa are opposed to the authoritarianism and violence of the far-right. Their methods for combating this are authoritarianism and violence. They pride themselves on punching alleged Nazi’s. The SJW’s (social justice warriors) are fiercely against bigotry. Naturally, they combat this by employing bigotry. They show up to events with conservative speakers. They wait for attendees to show up and then yell at them calling them every name in the book. They shout over the speakers so no one can hear them. Please stop embarrassing the left. I cringe when these groups are called progressives.

The ineffectiveness of these groups is astounding. Surely, the backlash against political correctness helped get Trump elected. Liberals are getting turned off. I am no fan of Donald Trump, I am left wing on the majority of issues but if I was at one of those rallies with both liberals and conservatives and the radical left showed up I’d put on a red “Make America Great Again” ball cap and start yelling: “Jesus hates hippies!”.

What do they think they are going to accomplish with this behaviour? Do they really want to combat conservatives with violence? Conservatives in the US don’t punch back, they pull out their guns. There are conservatives out there just itching to shoot an enemy – be it a criminal breaking into their house, a terrorist, a communist stray cat or a fist-swingin’ “anti-fascist”.

“Fox News is fair and balanced!”

At a rally in Vancouver, Lauren Southern, a libertarian Canadian reporter had urine dumped over her head by an activist for saying there are only two genders. In a stunning display of solidarity, the aforementioned Gavin McInnes decided he would pour urine over his own head to support his colleague. This brings up the obvious question, which is more toxic: “Angry Feminist Urine” or “Libertarian Reporter Solidarity Urine”? I did some research and found no studies on the matter.

“Poor people don’t deserve doctors!”

Part of the problem with these snowflakes is how they have been raised and influenced by family and schooling. They have been taught that everyone is a winner and to be hypersensitive to any views that conflict with their own. We are starting to see the consequences of these teachings. According to Pew Research polling, 40% of Millennials believe the government should prevent individuals from saying offensive things about minorities whereas only 12% of the silent generation feel the same. This generates a problem – what is offensive speech? Legitimate criticism is important. This is how we discuss ideas and improve society.

“Trump is tremendous!”

Back to the riot at UC Berkeley. Milo Yiannopoulos could not have scripted the behaviour of the activists any better himself. They are playing right into his hands. He is a provocateur, his fame and message thrives on controversy. Conservatives at the rally were being told not to be violent and to behave civilly. They came off as the victims in this scenario. Milo appeared all over the news after this event making him more famous and spreading his message to a wider audience. Conservatives are completely out-thinking these activists. They are making fools of them. (Since the riot at UC Berkeley, some regrettable comments have surfaced that Milo made on some podcasts a year or so ago…his stock has dropped as a result)

“God wants a free market!”

Milo had been touring US college campuses on his “Dangerous Faggot” tour. The attacks on Milo were way off the mark. They call him a Nazi. He is against foreign intervention. The guy is a gay Jew who dates black men. How Nazi-ish is that? What he does do is criticize feminists, Islam, political correctness, etc. He is condemned for hate speech. He criticizes Islam saying that 11 Islamic countries have the death penalty for homosexuality. Where is the hate in that equation? Now I disagree with Milo on many subjects but it is ridiculous to censor him. Universities should be a place for an exchange of ideas, for thinking and debating not safe spaces and censorship.

Ok, enough of that…it’s time for some meditation…I’ll sit on the floor cross legged, close my eyes, focus on my breathing, inhale deeply to take in prana, exhale deeply to expel apana…neurons will fire sending electrochemical messages to and fro, my parasympathetic nervous system will be activated, endorphins and dopamine will be released into my body, sending me into a state of irrational bliss…

Heavy Metal Explained

Most people hate it. I don’t blame them. I get it. It’s loud obnoxious stuff…it’s not for everyone. I’ve seen people walking into a metal show for the first time with their hands up in front of their face in a defensive manner, eyes blinking, trying to make sense of the horror in front of them. Folks like that don’t usually last there for too long. However, some less sensible ones actually stick around and like it.

For many, Heavy metal music is a wall of awful noise to be avoided like a tsunami. Some people feel intimidated by it at first, though they get used to it pretty quickly if no escape route is possible.

The music can be fast or slow and grinding. The riffs from the highly amplified, distorted sound of the guitar and bass strings can be difficult to separate out. The drums are sometimes very fast and complex. The drums can sound like a dump truck full of hammers was unloaded down an elevator shaft. Over top of all this you have aggressive vocals that are growled, screamed and grunted. Very puzzling for most. I get that, I do.

Heavy metal is passionate, energizing, adrenaline inducing music. It’s not about beautiful melodies and heart warming moments but about intensity, groove and aggression. Those who enjoy it find it cathartic (those who do not, the opposite). Those who dislike it find it makes them annoyed to the point of anger. The music is aggressive and metalheads may be rowdy, but they are not violent (for those who don’t know, a metalhead is someone with horrible taste in music who worships the devil). Some people think that metal fans are moronic barbarians who smell bad and don’t brush their teeth. That might be true occasionally, but you get all sorts of people who are into it. Some are quite intelligent and rather passive when not listening to their favorite bands. There are vegetarians, vegans, and straight edge kids who don’t drink or do drugs, smoke or engage in promiscuous sex. Straight-edge is more of a hardcore punk movement, the music would be indistinguishable from metal to non-fans, but it’s a little different.

Do headbangers really worship the devil? Well, they like to joke about it but the mass majority don’t believe in the devil, nor god. They worship the music, not the devil, though during a concert you will often see the devil horns (holding your arm in the air, with the index and pinkie finger extended and the middle finger and ring finger down with the thumb).

The environment at a metal show is unique. It’s counterculture, with most people dressed in black. Lots of males with long hair, beards, tattoos, piercings, dreads, gauged ears, the whole deal. Much of the music might be angry but the crowd is not. It’s a happy atmosphere, people laughing, joking, having fun. There are mosh pits for those who are rowdy and want to mix it up with other like minded types.

Believe or not, females do attend metal concerts. About 10% to 20% of the crowd is female I would say. I’m sure some are there just to hang out with their boyfriends, but others are really into it. There are some beauties too. Some of them wear black leather, fishnet leggings, biker bitch boots and outerwear bustiers – wohoo!

The mosh pits can be really wild, lots of physicality in there, but you rarely see fights. I think a metal show environment favorably compares to other events involving alcohol fueled young males. I’ve seen more fights at regular bars and pubs than metal concerts.

Unlike most music genres, metal music has nothing to do with sex. It’s not about beauty either. Metalheads with a bald spot and really long hair, a belly, plumber butt and a smile with missing teeth are fully accepted. There are exceptions though to the normally asexual metal themes. There is a sub-genre called Pornogrind. The lyrics are pornographic and the concerts involve lots of jokers dressed in ridiculous costumes, often with large, inflatable phallic appendages, jumping on and off stage. Total foolishness.

I think metal gets a bad rap sometimes. The elements that make up this genre are seen everywhere. Heavy metal lyrics are an exploration of the dark side. Many of the themes explored are the same as what you see on the nightly news. The music is aggressive. Have you ever noticed that hockey, football and mixed martial arts are very aggressive? Humans enjoy exploring the dark side. TV, movies, the aggressive dark side of humanity is explored daily. Heavy Metal is music’s version of this. There is no actual violence in metal music. It is just music. No one is killed. What is worse – listening to aggressive music or watching people get murdered on TV?

Some of the musicians are very talented and practice for long hours daily. There are technical bands who produce difficult music to play – unusual time signatures, fast intricate drum patterns, bass that sometimes doubles complex guitar riffs and vocals that don’t even sound human sometimes. I think some of the appeal of this type of music is to be able to process everything that is going on. It feels like an accomplishment to sort out and absorb all the sounds being blasted at you. Recently, I have really been getting into blast beats. This is when the drummer strikes the bass drum, snare and a symbol at the same time at high beats per minute, sometimes as high as 300 bpm! It sounds a bit like a jackhammer. I have found the technique to be an acquired taste. It is strangely mesmerizing in a frenzied, intense kind of way. There are unique names for the different types of blast beats, my favorite being the “Inverse Skank Blast”.

The music is not all about being serious and intense all the time. In between songs the singers often joke around with the crowd. There are sub-genres of metal that include Black Metal, Death Metal and Viking metal. Musicians and fans don’t take the themes seriously, it is tongue in cheek. Viking metal guitarists don’t really think they are vikings.

Well, I better get going, it is almost time for my evening prayers to Satan. He gets all red in the face if I’m late.

Evolution, Intelligent Design and …

There is a bitter intellectual war going on involving Intelligent Design and Darwinian evolutionists. Both sides dislike each other much like Trump supporters versus Hillary supporters. Each side delights in ridiculing the other. I’ve explored what both sides have to say. I don’t believe either of ‘em. Well, not all of it. The theory of evolution states that genetic mutations and natural selection account for the development of species. I think they only have part of the story.

Intelligent Design is pooh-poohed by most scientists. Many of its proponents are Christian Fundamentalists who are trying to use science in a desperate attempt to backup their religious beliefs. The Discovery institute that funds much of the research on Intelligent Design is a little questionable from a scientific viewpoint. A review of the 1997 tax year found that among the donors for the Discovery Institute were 22 foundations. More than two-thirds of the foundations explicitly state religion missions. Those who don’t believe in ID are very suspicious of the motivation behind the funding of this research, for good reason. Many of the backers of ID don’t have a scientific agenda but a religious one. However, this does not mean that ID scientists do not have something to offer, they do.

I read Michael Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution“. He came up with the term Intelligent Design. His book is scientific and doesn’t contain creationist dogma. This guy is a true scientist. He is not a young-earth-creationist. Behe admits that gene mutations and natural selection play a part in the development of species and believes in common descent. He says evolution explains the appearance of new organisms including antibiotic-resistant bacteria and that it can account for new species including humans. That being said, his book points out serious flaws in the theory of evolution.

Michael Behe writes about the biological cell and its mind boggling complexities. He coined the term “irreducible complexity”. It states that for an organism to develop, certain systems have to be formed as one functioning system without going through intermediate steps. If one part is taken away, the system will not function. This conflicts with the theory of evolution which says for components to develop, each part has to evolve one step at a time.

I think both sides of this debate make legitimate arguments in some areas. I just don’t buy the whole package either side is selling. I believe natural selection and gene mutations account for part of what is going on but it doesn’t explain everything. For example, how does evolution explain insect metamorphosis? A butterfly goes through 4 stages – egg, larva, pupa and adult. How did this remarkably complex process come about by random selection? A caterpillar is incredibly complex. A butterfly is incredibly complex. A caterpillar does not have sex organs and cannot reproduce. How did the caterpillar pass on its genes? How did the caterpillar change step by step into a butterfly? It would be thousands or maybe millions of changes. It couldn’t pass on its genes until it developed into a functioning organism that could survive long enough to reproduce. Now, I’m not a scientist but the Darwinian explanation for this makes as much sense to me as a talking snake. Darwinists do not have sufficient evidence or even a plausible explanation for this process. Google it. The answer is not there.

In many ways it does look like there was some sort of design involved in creating creatures such as ourselves. But if there was a designer, why would there be such obvious design flaws? In Richard Dawkins’ book: “The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution”, Dawkins gives the example of the recurrent laryngeal nerve which travels from the brain to the larynx. As it heads south from the brain, the laryngeal nerve comes within a couple of inches of the larynx but instead of taking the obvious route it descends to the bottom of the neck, takes a u-turn around a major artery in the chest and heads back up to attach to the larynx. In a giraffe, this could mean as much as a 15 foot detour! In other mammals the neck is not as long, but the path of the laryngeal nerve is the same. This suggests horribly poor design if there was any and makes more sense from an evolutionary perspective. The ancestors of mammals were fish. The vagus nerve of fish attaches to the gills. Mammals lost the gills and grew necks (fish do not have necks). This caused the nerves and blood vessels to migrate and grow in length with no regard to plotting the most direct path. It doesn’t make sense that a designer would plan for the laryngeal nerve to take such a circuitous route, at least, not an “intelligent” designer.

Non-scientific questions arise regarding a designer. If there was a designer why would he/she/they/it create the influenza virus? Why create something and then create something else to kill it? Turkeys might be asking the same question. Why didn’t the designer give the poor caterpillar mentioned earlier any sex organs? I shake my head at the purported planned cruelty.

Intelligent design proponents use a false dichotomy, saying if evolution doesn’t account for the development of species, then an intelligent designer must have done it. I think that something else is going on here. I just don’t know what. Let’s pretend for a moment that what I am saying is correct, that there is something else that is involved in the development of species. Now that is freaky! Perhaps there is something we don’t understand or maybe something that we don’t even know exists. Quite fascinating, me thinks.

Psssst….If you know the answer and you’ve been holding out on us, please send it to me.