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Evolutionary Leftovers are the Main Course:
Vestigial Organs (And the Appendix)
By Jake Doberenz
Imagine you are minding your own business, when suddenly an unidentified
object rapidly descends from the sky. It crashes a few feet away from you. In this
scenario, you are a tenured engineering professor at an esteemed university. Using
all the technology generous grant money can buy, you take this mysterious object
into your lab to test it. First, you try to stimulate it with every method
imaginable—electricity, water, sound, light, touch—but it does not respond in any
way. You try reverse engineering, but you are still baffled at what this object might
do. In the end, you conclude that all your years of scientific training supports—
since you don’t know what it does, then clearly it does nothing. You begin to
speculate that it is simply “junk.” You do not observe it having a function;
therefore, the object must have no function.
I hope that you realized that the story is simply bad science. That same bad
science is being used today when it comes to “vestigial organs.” I was reminded of
this poor science, when I was challenged on Creationist Company’s Instagram
account. I would guess that few people get into debates on Intragram, but one selfconfident Instagram user commented on a picture of the outside sign of the Mount
Saint Helens Creation Museum where the sign asked, “Does evolution provide
hope?” The user felt the need to defend evolution from the Creationist Company
Instagram account, and they stated: “Tell me, if evolution is not true than why do
humans have useless organs?” I have a limited amount of characters on Instagram,
but I hope the people of the world that wonder about this topic do make their way
to this article.
Vestigial Organs
Vestigial organs refer to “a rudimentary structure in humans corresponding to a
functional structure or organ in ancestral animals.”[1] In other words, they are
useless body parts in one organism, but they were useful in a previous evolutionary
ancestor. Vestigial organs, commonly are called evolutionary leftovers.
Leftovers—useless but they stuck around when one organism evolved from
another.
Dr. Jerry Bergman and Dr. George Howe described these organs as “somewhat
like old computers that have been replaced by newer models with greater speed
and more efficient design.” They go on, in their book, “Vestigial Organs” are
Fully Functional, to say, “But the body cannot easily “drop parts” as a computer
designer can, and in the macroevolutionist’s view these vestigial organs are
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leftover components that were once important, but now merely remnants of their
previous identity.”[2]
There are two points to make:
1) There are no organs that have no function. This is the most important.
2) If there were an organ with no function, we would have to find it with a
function in a “lesser species.”
Vestigial Organs aren’t so “Vestigial”
The most popular leftover of evolution promoted in textbooks and among
scientists, is the appendix (known properly as the vermiform appendix). Actually,
evolutionist Kathleen James of New Scientist tells us, a doctor who thinks the
appendix is useless in humans is “a little out of date.”
Answering a question by a patient whose surgeon told him he “wouldn’t miss”
his appendix, because the organ was now useless, James says:
“Although it used to be believed that the appendix had no function
and was an evolutionary relic, this is no longer thought to be true. Its
greatest importance is the immunological function it provides in the
developing embryo, but it continues to function even in the adult … .
The function of the appendix appears to be to expose circulating
immune cells to antigens from the bacteria and other organisms living
in your gut. That helps your immune system to tell friend from foe
and stops it from launching damaging attacks on bacteria that happily
co-exist with you.”[3]
That was in 2003! Why haven’t my atheist friends and the textbooks realized
the truth?
Bergman and Howe nicely summed up the common theory regarding the
appendix:
“Evolutionists concluded that when the human diet consisted of a
higher proportion of cellulose plant material, the appendix was larger
and provided an expanded chamber for the colonic digestion of
roughage [fiber]. They believed that the appendix then shrank in
response to the modern human diet. Their tacit [unspoken] inference
is that “disuse” is able to cause an organ to decrease in size and
perhaps eventually disappear from the genotype, an assumption for
which there is little or no empirical evidence”[4] (Brackets not in
original).
Beside from the appendix, real science supports the fact that leftovers of
evolution are not present in our bodies. Our two researches on the functions of
vestigial organs tell us:
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“Until very recently, vestigial organs were interpreted to be strong
evidence favoring macroevolution. The vestigial organ argument was
considered one of the strongest supporting data of evolution for well
over a century. But of the approximately 180 vestigial organs
compiled by researchers around the year 1900, it is now almost
unanimously agreed that most of them have at least one function in
the body. After examining the few organs still generally believed to be
vestigial, it can be concluded that each of these also has one or more
functions.
The tonsils, adenoids, coccyx, nictitating membrane, pineal gland, and
thymus gland were examples of putative vestigial organs. Researchers
have found that most of these so-called vestigial organs played several
roles. Some are back-up organs, operative in unusual situations or
during only certain stages of the organism’s life. Such information has
been very slow to find its way into the textbooks of biology and
origins.”[5]
Many more examples of what Charles Darwin called “rudimentary organs”
exist, evolutionists claim. However, even the evolutionists admit that many of
these are being discovered to have a purpose.
Another point to mention is that not knowing something’s function does not
mean it does not have a function, even after initial research. This relates directly to
the story I started with. A simple example is the Egyptian removal of the brain
during the mummification process. They didn’t believe the brain was important on
earth nor in the afterlife, so they would remove it from the body. Egyptians would
keep the heart however, because they believed it was the place of the mind and
soul.
Science that stoops so low as to declare something useless in humans or another
organism simply because they don’t see a function, is not science at all. The fruits
of narrow-minded science blossom deception.
Leftover from What?
If “this or that” organ has no function and is supposed to be a leftover from
some ancient ancestor, the question would remain, “Can we find this vestigial
organ with a clear function in an ancient ancestor?”
Appendixes, one of the most common vestigial organs evolutionists equip the
masses with, in reality aren’t a leftover from any previous form.
Julie Pomerantz, wildlife veterinarian and program officer for the Wildlife
Trust’s North American Conservation Medicine Initiative, writing for the Ask the
Expert section of Scientific America says:
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“As a specific anatomic structure, the appendix has been described in
only a few species. In humans and apes, it is a thin, tubular structure
(hence the name vermiform, or “worm-like,” appendix) located at the
apex of the cecum, a blind pouch near the beginning of the large
intestine. Scientists have also identified appendix-like structures in
other species of primates, but these structures have not been well
characterized. Rabbits and some rodents have appendices, and it is
research on these species that has begun to shed some light on the
mystery of the organ’s function.
Previously it was thought that the sack-like rabbit appendix served
primarily as a reservoir for the bacteria involved in hindgut
fermentation. That explanation, however, did not account for the
absence of an appendix in other animals with similar digestive
systems or for its presence in humans.”[6]
If you viewed Pomerantz’s article with a scrutinizing eye, you will
realize the answer she gave to the question “Does the appendix serve a
purpose in any animal?” was “Yes, in the human, ape, rabbits, and some
rodents.” Hardly the evolutionary tree we have here. However the theory
that the human appendix grew smaller and useless because we eat more
plants doesn’t hold water for three reasons:
1) Apes have an appendix very similar to ours, and they eat
predominantly plants—how did the predominantly carnivorous
Neanderthal end up with a small appendix (it would make sense that if
the apes and the humans had a similar appendix, then the in-between
would as well) when it had a meat-centric diet?
2) Evolutionists don’t say we evolved from rabbits! Why the similarity
in the appendix. Certainly, this is not a leftover from rabbits or from
rodents, right?
3) The expert explains that the appendix actually DOES have a use! She
even asserts, “Thus, although scientists have long discounted the
human appendix as a vestigial organ, there is a growing body of
evidence indicating that the appendix does in fact have a significant
function as a part of the body’s immune system.”[6] If scientists have
long discounted the appendix as a vestigial organ, then why haven’t
they told the textbooks and the students they indoctrinate?
Organisms have long been victim of the evolutionary mix and match
game. For example, if a rabbit has a similar appendix, does that mean we
evolved from rabbits? In the same way, does the existence of a “tail bone” in
humans suggest we came from mice or rabbits or lizards—who all have that
same tail bone but who have tails? The issue becomes when you have to
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guess what organism got what organ from what organism. A basis of
similarity, is not good science. If something looks similar, that doesn’t mean
they are related—trust me, I apparently have one of those faces that look like
a lot of other people (But that doesn’t mean I’m related to them)!
Male nipples, believe it or not, have rocked some people’s faith. To
assume they are leftovers, however, draws a very interesting conclusion.
Does that mean some male ancestor of humans nursed their young and good
produce milk? No evolutionist thinks that! Nipples are an example of a
developmental organ. When all humans were embryos in their mother’s
womb, at the very beginning they had no gender. The cells in charge of
nipples formed in the stage before a gender was determined. Afterwards, if
the baby became a female, the mammary glands began to form, but if it
became a male, the male just got stuck with nipples!
What must ask what the vestigial organ is a leftover from, before we let
an evolutionist tell us it’s proof of evolution. Just being useless doesn’t mean
a single thing!
To Save a Dying Proof
Unfortunately, some in the evolutionary
community are not so readily able to accept
Non-falsifiable
that vestigial organs are not vestigial; A statement that cannot be tested
textbooks and professor still hold these alleged
to be correct or incorrect. A nonproofs as real evidence for evolution.
falsifiable statement usually
Some who have realized the proof is fading
into a thing of the past, have created a new requires an exhaustive search of
theory in hopes to regain their lost ground.
all possibilities to disprove it.
Bergman and Howe catch the evolutionists
Ex: “There is a space monkey
red-handed:
over there.”
“The tactics of evolutionists … in
“Why can’t I see it?”
dealing with and defining vestigial
organs illustrate the non-falsifiable
“It’s invisible.”
character of macroevolutionism. At first
most macroevolutionists predicted that
macroevolution ought to have produced organs that are totally without
function. After physiologists had shown that most, if not all, of these
supposedly useless organs have functions, the evolutionists then
began to say that macroevolution would never have been expected to
produce organs without functions, only organs with changed
functions” (Italics in original).[7]
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To save a dying proof, evolutionists changed their minds on these organs, to a
theory that doesn’t much prove evolutionism than the proof before. Robert Harris
said:
“When the evolutionist’s fist attack fails—‘Hairs or appendixes are
vestigial’—because we show him they have purpose or function, he
reverts to the second argument or assertion, ‘Ah yes, so that’s why
evolution preserved them.’”[8]
Of course, based on the second definition of vestigial organs in the eyes of an
evolutionist, EVERY SINGLE ORGAN is vestigial. To get from “goo-to-you,”
there would have been quite the change of functions for the organs—from
organelles to organs. It wasn’t evolution that preserved them, it was God who
created the organs.
Conclusion
It’s time for science to “catch up with the times.” Never thought you’d hear
that, huh? Evolutionists of the world and those who challenge creationism on
Instagram—let me tell you your body is intelligently designed (Meaning God
created us, not random chance and some time thrown in). We don’t have any
leftovers from some previous ancestors, like evolution would tell us, in fact this is
quite the blow to evolution. If evolution were true, the things we would expect to
see, we just don’t find. Instead, we find evidence for a God that puts the pieces
together and knows that every piece has a role to play.
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Citations
1) “Vestigial organ.” The American Heritage Medical Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin
Company, 2007. The Free Dictionary. Web. 18 Aug. 2013.
2) Bergman, Jerry, and George Howe. “Vestigial Organs” are Fully Functional. St. Joseph,
MO: Creation Research Society Books, 1990. Pg. x
3) James, Kathleen. “The last word.” New Scientist 177.2381 (2003): 65; cited in Wilkinson,
Richard. “Cutting Out a Useless Vestigial Argument.” Answers in Genesis. 1 June 2004.
Web. 18 Aug. 2013.
4) Bergman, Jerry, and George Howe. “Vestigial Organs” are Fully Functional. St. Joseph,
MO: Creation Research Society Books, 1990. Pg. 3
5) Bergman, Jerry, and George Howe. “Vestigial Organs” are Fully Functional. St. Joseph,
MO: Creation Research Society Books, 1990. Pg. x
6) Pomerantz, Julie. "Does the appendix serve a purpose in any animal?" Scientific America
(2002): n. pag. Web. 19 Aug. 2013.
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-the-appendix-serve-a>.
7) Bergman, Jerry, and George Howe. “Vestigial Organs” are Fully Functional. St. Joseph,
MO: Creation Research Society Books, 1990. Pg. 3
8) Harris, Robert. 1982. How can creationists explain human hair? Edited by G. Howe.
Origins Research. 5(2):10; cited in Bergman, Jerry, and George Howe. “Vestigial
Organs” are Fully Functional. St. Joseph, MO: Creation Research Society Books, 1990.
Pg. 3
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