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If it's totally explicable from an ecolutionary standpoint, then why sould it not make sense as intelligent design? Does it work?

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?

Urban legend.

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.

Excellent post, thanks for writing it. I had not previously been aware of the laryngeal nerve issue. Fascinating.

No one claims to have all the answers. But the answer to this one feature of anatomy does seem clear.

It doesn't seem to faze THIS fellow.....

NIV Psalms 139:11-17
11. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12. even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16. your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Good grief, I'd heard that *scientists don't know why bees can't fly* story my whole life, as have most other people I know.

I'd guess that perhaps the extra long nerve could perhaps provide some *give* to it, the same way a coiled cord (like the kind the dentists have for their drills-shudder) would. But I'm no expert in giraffe neck pyhsiology. My point was mainly that while it makes sense that ID would perhaps have done it differently for efficiency, if someone goes on the assumption that everything was intelligently designed and it doesn't make sense, then there is probably some reason for it that hasn't been discovered yet. I guess that's where the *faith* part comes in; I believe that God did it and trust that He had a good reason for making it as it was even though it makes no sense yet.

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).

While you're at it, look up Horner's Syndrome...

Cheers!