IF GOD HAD MEAN MAN TO SPEAK,it wouldn't have placed the larynx where it is

by badboy 10 Replies latest jw friends

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  badboy

  The Larynx etc is placed in such a way that people can choke to death if food goes down wrong way, death from choking can follow.

  How will this problem be solved in PARADISE EARTH?
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  crazyblondeb

  Actually, when god created man, she was only joking!!!
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  TemperateWarrior

  People will be smarter or more patient. That way they won't try to breath while swallowing food. -TW
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  mtbatoon

  There will be plenty of angles on hand to perform the Heimlich maneuver
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  tetrapod.sapien

  LOL TW!! welcome to the board!

  bad design is everywhere in nature. when i get to the paradise, i want an explanation and a fix from joe hoba as to why my urethra passes right through my prostate gland which is prone to swelling.
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  Abaddon

  Actually, the importance of language in humans is such that we evolved an airway that allowed speech as the benefits of speech outweighed the risk of choking. The adaption of the human wind-pipe makes choking to death possible - in other mammals, it isn't.
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  Uzzah

  
  Actually any animal that has the ability of vocalization, whether it be simple growling or whatever run the risk of choking. Dogs (and canines in general) as well as felines can choke.

  A modified heimlich is effective on these animals as well, just being careful to adjust pressure based on the size of the animal. (eg. a 180 lbs Malamute requires the same force used on most adults compared to a toy poodle which would only require the pressure of a flick of the wrist versus the full thrust/punch.)

  Uzzah Oh and for humans remember you only use the Heimlich or abdominal thrusts when the person cannot cough, speak or breathe. If they can tell you they are choking, or coughing don't hit them on the back or do anything else to them. Just tell them to keep coughing. This public service announcement brought to you by Uzzah's First Aid Services Inc.
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  TemperateWarrior

  Just for curiosity... How do the benefits of speech increase surviaval odds more than not having the ability to choke? And whereabouts on the evolutionary tree did this happen? -TW (And more importantly, how do I get my paragraphs to paragraph???)
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  Pole

  badboy,
  That's one of the creationist mysteries that has bothered me for a long time too. Actually, speaking breathing and eating are perfect examples of un-intelligent design. LOL.
  Warrior,

  How do the benefits of speech increase surviaval odds more than not having the ability to choke?

  
  

  I'm not an expert on evolution, but I'd say this question is rather easy to answer. There are hundreds of dangerous every-day situations which you can avoid if somebody warns you. Basically language allows you to communicate about abstract situations. Plus, knowledge and culture gained by one generation are passed down to the next one largely thanks to language. The benefits of speech are really worth paying the price of an occasional choking, which is rarely mortal anyway.
  

  And whereabouts on the evolutionary tree did this happen?

  Nobody knows exactly.
  

  (And more importantly, how do I get my paragraphs to paragraph???)

  Just check the "Automatic Cr/Lf" box below the screen in which you edit your posts. Welcome! Pole
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  Abaddon

  Hey, I didn't say other animals could not vocalise, but there is a clear difference both between human language and animal communication and between the structures in the throat of humans and other mammals that is wholey due to human lingusitic abilities.

  I should have made it clear I was talking about accidental injestion of food or drink into the airway. This is easy with humans due to the structural changes our developing linguistic abilities required, but is near impossible in other mammals. Although food may still become stuck in the throat, it is not obstructing the airway.

  

  http://www.eridu.co.uk/Author/human_origins/article3.html

  Moreover, speech capability was not such an easy or obvious target for natural selection. The human ability to talk resides in both the shape and structure of the mouth and throat, as well as in the brain. In adult humans the larynx (voicebox) is situated much lower than in other mammals and the epiglottis (the flap of cartilage at the root of the tongue) is incapable of reaching the top of the roof of the mouth. Thus we cannot breathe and swallow at the same time and are uniquely at risk from choking. This unique combination of features can have only one purpose - to make human speech possible.

  As to why human language is more important than an increased risk of choking... when was the last time you saw a dog flying an airplane? And I don't eman Mutley! Or disseminate a new technique of hunting by describing it? Or persuade the other dogs in the pack that despite being smaller than Fang the Terrible, they'd make a far better leader, purely through their eloquence?

  If you look at H. ergaster, which was a smart bipedal prehuman that used primative stone tools and maybe fire for hundreds of thousands of years, and then the rapid technological advances made by H. heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens, something drove the change in the speed of development.

  Intelligence and language (for cultural transmission) is a definate explanation, but human intelligence and language stick out like sore thumbs in evolutionary biology as they're obviously NOT survival mechanisms. If they were we'd have more intelligent language-using species on the language, just as there are lots of species that use poison, sight, armour, speed etc as survival measures.

  But a peacock's tail has nothing to do with survival in the sense of avoiding predation, it's an obvious hinderance... except the peahens are so determined to screw the peacock with the finest tail, a peacock with a small drab tail might be less likely to be predated, but it gets shagged less too.

  The peacocks we see are the decendants of peacocks who had sex most often.

  This sexual selection by the female of the species changing the male (and there's more than peacocks as an example) have lead people to speculate our intelligence and linguistic abilities are not to help us survive, but to help us get laid. Our big heads give us difficult births, our voice boxes make us uniquely vulnerable to choking; we don't need to talk to survive, or be that smart.

  But if human females had a preference for the males who could communicate better, and the development of language is as linked to the development of intelligence as is now thought (you can't think as easily without the tags that language gives you to differentiate and)explain, then the development of human language and intelligence is not as inexplicable as it is if we view them as survival adaptations.

  As the human male penis seems to be the way it is as a result of sexual selection by human females (human penises are far larger than they need to be and have no bone in them, unlike the apes) it's not unreasonable to conclude intelligence and language grew coupled as a result of sexual selection by human females (whose intelligence and language also benefited from the smart talking genes they liked guys having), and that largely by accident humans ended up with a very adaptable set of tools that would allow it to totally fuck over the rest of the planet.

  They weren't initially for extra survival ability (as lack of parrallel development in other species shows), but it turned out that if you had developed them for other reasons, then they had a huge benefit.