Virtually every outlet that purports to prove evolution--whether a magazine or a biology
textbook or a video--uses an argument from vestigial organs to supposedly validate evolution.
The idea is that there are certain organs in the bodies of animals or humans that are
leftovers from a time when in a precursor organism that organ was useful but it no longer
has a use in the modern organism.
Even if there were hundreds of vestigial organs, that wouldn’t prove evolution.
Evolution needs organs to be getting better and adding functional design.
The idea of vestigial organs really would be better suited to argue for a beginning
creation in which organisms were well-designed at the beginning but after hundreds or thousands
of years, genetic information was lost or corrupted causing less functionality.
If the argument from vestigial organs proves anything--which it doesn’t--it would prove
the idea of an original, useful design by a Creator.
Vestigial organs certainly don’t prove evolution, but let’s look at some specific examples
of supposed vestigial organs and see that there is really no such thing.
In the late 1880s, it was suggested that there were over 185 vestigial organs—organs that
were virtually useless or completely useless in the human body.
What do you think happened as medical scientists and researchers started looking more closely
at the human body?
That list of 185 vestigial organs began to shrink gradually and then rapidly to where
now there are only a few--a handful--of these organs that people will put forth as proof
of evolution.
The diehard evolutionists still attempt to say that some organs in the human body are
vestigial.
They aren’t, but let’s look at the ones that they suggest to us are.
Number one: The appendix.
For many years, people thought the appendix was a useless organ that was leftover--one
biologist said--from a plant-eating ancestor.
Supposedly in our precursors it was much larger and now, we no longer need it.
It has gotten smaller.
And it causes problems sometimes because it can get infected and cause an appendicitis.
And so we’re told that that’s a leftover of evolution.
That it was larger and more useful in our precursor ancestors but we don't need it now
and so it’s atrophying.
The problem with this is that’s simply not scientific.
In an article titled “Scientists: Appendix Protects Good Germs” one writer noted: “Diseases
such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria.
The appendix’s job is to reboot the digestive system in that case.”
Bill Parker--co-author of the latest research said that the appendix “acts like a bacteria
factory, cultivating good germs.”
People thought the appendix was useless because they didn’t understand the appendix.
And now we that there is a very real, very useful aspect to the appendix that shows that
it certainly is not an evolutionary vestige of some former ancestor where it was useful.
It’s useful now.
Second vestigial organ that we would like to put forward.
It’s not really even an organ.
It’s junk DNA.
For many years, as scientists looked at the human genome they thought that there were
parts of the DNA molecule that were useless.
They thought that there were parts that were there simply because they were leftover from
evolution.
They didn’t program for any genetic information that played out in the human body.
And they called that ‘junk DNA.’
But, what we’ve found out, as you probably understand is that the term ‘junk DNA’
is a misnomer.
We called it junk DNA because we didn’t know that the DNA had a very serious, very
important use.
In fact, the “Scientific American” headline stated, “What was one known as junk DNA
turns out to hold hidden treasures,” says computational biologist.
Those hidden treasures prove that that ‘junk DNA’ certainly wasn’t vestigial.
The third vestigial organ that we’d like to consider is the idea of the coccyx--the
human tailbone.
Supposedly this coccyx--the human tailbone--is a leftover from a time when we had primate
ancestors and they actually had a tail and they lost that, but the vestige of that is
left in the human anatomy.
The problem with that line of thinking is it’s certainly not true at all.
Type in the word ‘coccyx’ in Google and from ‘Healthline’ is, “The coccyx serves
as an attachment site for tendons, ligaments, and muscles.
It also functions as an insertion point of some of the muscles of the pelvic floor.
The coccyx also functions to support and stabilize a person while he or she is in a sitting position.”
I mean, sure, you could do with your coccyx, but you could do without your pinky, you could
do without your thumb, you could do without your left eyeball.
But the quality of life that you were living would definitely be reduced.
You see, the vestigial argument is just that: It’s a vestige.
A vestige of a time when scientists were ignorant of the uses and the purposes of the organs
in the body.
If anything needs to be cut out, it should be this useless argument that in no way validates
or proves evolution.