How many have been taught in school about our body's supposed "vestigial organs"?

Question

The standard definition is a body part that was once useful in a species' ancestral past but has now become virtually useless. Those being, the appendix, the tonsils and the tailbone as far as the body structure is concerned. Evolutionists have used the vestigian-organ argument for decades to show the supposed evolution of animal and human bodies. I hink Darwin had written some work on this subject. What is your opinion on this subject? There were 100 useless organs in the early 20th century & now "0" in 2006. What other organs could there be that was considered useless to us?

Answer 1

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines vestigial organs as organs or structures remaining or surviving in a degenerate, atrophied, or imperfect condition or form. This is the accepted biological definition used in the theory of evolution.

The wings of many, but not all flightless birds qualify. Just because something has lost its primary function, does not make it useless. Non-flight wings may have fuctions such as swimming and cooling in penguins. In fact, wing may have first formed as cooling webs on the upper limbs, then become gliding wings, and finally, flight wings. On the other hand, some wings are so rudimentary as to have little function at all.

In humans, the tail, even when present, is vestigial. Some muscle attachments remain important. There are some muscles so rudimentary that they don't always appear. When Darwin wrote, many organs, including the liver, kidney and pancreas, seemed oversized for their known functions. Biological science was just at the point of figuring out the details of the body. It was in this environment that Darwin wrote. He didn't get every detail exactly right, but his larger view has only been modified slightly. His basic principle that conservation or regression of a structure was related to importance. The fact that two species had the same structure, one rubust, one rudimentary was and remains evidence of common descent.

There are some useless vestigial structures. One of the classics is leg bones in legless creatures. Whales and legless lizards (often confused for snakes which don't have leg bones) have leg bones contained under the skin. If a developing whale has hind leg development that is overexuberant, it may have small limbs that may produce drag, but not add much to swimming.

Knowledge of biology has expanded. Although we can find functions for many residual structures, the conservation and variation of basic structures remains evidence of common descent.

Answer 2

In biology, a lot of times if we don't understand our data, we dismiss it or ignore it, until someone else comes along and does something useful with it. That being said, vestigial organs are not an argument against evolution. Just because they aren't what we initially thought, doesn't blow the whole theory of evolution. Anti-evolutionists tend to take any little thing and turn it into something major. Unfortunately, all of their arguments are searching for supposed holes in evolution. The fact of the matter is, evolution is real, and is visible all around us, as long as you're willing to look.
BUT, this does teach an important lesson about science and life in general. You can't just accept everything you're told- sometimes you have to keep looking for the right answers.

Answer 3

There are a ton of other body parts which fall under this category. There was an article in Discover magazine about it a while ago. Some that I remember off the top of my head include: an extra neck bone, which some people are born with, webbed fingers or toes, tailbone...and I can't remember the others. I agree with the evolutionary explanation, especially since the number of vestigial organs has been decreasing over the years and we are essentially evolving out of them.

Answer 4

Vestigial organs exist in many animals. We still have remnants of our third eye lid, the little pink lump in the corner of your eye near your nose. We have tail bones, wisdom teeth, appendix to name a few. These are absolute facts. We are finding more and more fossils of ancient animals and more importantly ancient man. Evolution is occurring *** we speak. Are you as tall as your parents? If you have ever seen the suits of armor the knights wore, they were little guys. Yet they were the athletes of their day, but shrimps, People today would not fit in them.
Evolution in action. I don't know where you got the "0" from but someone is pulling your leg, the real one not your vestigial one.
Probably some creationist with a junior high education.

Answer 5

My wisdom teeth were not merely useless, they were pernicious! They came in at an angle, and pushed the other teeth out of position.

Oh, and to the poster above, the suits of armor thing isn't relevant. Bear in mind that those jousters rode horses. You wouldn't judge the height of people today by seeing only the clothing of jockeys, now would you?

Answer 6

To answer your initial question: I learned about vestigial organs just yesterday in Biology class. Since I disagree with evolution for religious reasons, I'll leave it at that.