It could be better:
From laryngeal nerve palsy (recurrent) (in GP Notebook)
Recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy mainly presents with voice changes.
The causes of recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy varies according to the side that is affected. The variation with respect to cause is because of the very different anatomy of the two nerves.
The left recurrent laryngeal nerve has a long course which extends down into the chest and loops under the arch of the aorta to return to the larynx.
The right recurrent laryngeal nerve is shorter and loops around the subclavian artery.
Thus, the left nerve is more susceptible to disease than the right.
...So it would make sense in intelligent design.
Not really. It's rather like you have an electric drill. You could plug it in near where you're going to use it (Superior nerve, right side). but instead, you plug it into an extension cord, loop the cord around a nearby table leg (early embryo), and then move the table halfway across the room (embryo development).
You can still use the drill, but the odds of someone tripping over the cord and unplugging it are much greater than if you had simply plugged the drill into a nearby socket.
From the source:
This diagram shows the "long path" of the left recurrent laryngeal nerve (left RLN). After it branches off the vagus nerve, the left RLN loops around the aortic arch in the chest cavity and then courses back into the neck.
This long course makes it at higher risk for injury compared with the shorter course of the right RLN which does not run through the chest cavity.
See the difference between the left and right sides.
Have scientists come up with a better design that would work more ecfficiently?
Yes. A straight run from the brainstem. Less material, less chance of injury. Think of the path the superior nerve takes. Why can't both do it like this?
In a giraffe, no one's ever been able to think of any reason for a 15 foot nerve when a 1 foot one would do.
Again, there is the presumption that scientists have decided that they know all the reasons and ramifications of why something is the way it is and there is not some purpose to why it exists the way it does that they haven't figured out yet.
It has been figured out. The nerves in a fish are perfectly logical. But the changes in a mammalian embryo force it to take the circuitous path.
After all, wasn't it just recently that they finally figured out how bees could fly?
When scientists can establish that they have all the answers of why things are the way they are, and can disprove the idea the it was intelligently designed, then I'll believe it.
No one claims to have all the answers. But the answer to this one feature of anatomy does seem clear.