Vestigial organs, anyone? The humble appendix begs to differ
| November 26, 2007 | Posted by O'Leary under The Design of Life |
Despite its name – which means “hanger on” – the human appendix works for a living, according to recent research (helping kill germs).
As British physicist David Tyler notes, despite the claim of evolutionary biologists from Darwin to the present day that the appendix is junk left over from evolution, the appendix actually has a function – and the current crop of evolutionary biologists try hard to avoid acknowledging that they were wrong about that.
He comments,
It might be hoped that Darwinian evolutionary biologists would acknowledge that errors have been made; that Darwin’s claim for the appendix being useless was a claim made from ignorance rather than knowledge; that their theory had coloured their understanding of the data; etc. But no – what we get is this response to the new research: “The idea “seems by far the most likely” explanation for the function of the appendix, said Brandeis University biochemistry professor Douglas Theobald. “It makes evolutionary sense.”In other words, whatever turns out to be the case, their theory got it right, even though their theory got it completely wrong. Or, as Tyler puts it
It should be remembered that functionality was the prediction of biologists with a creation or design mentality, and it was not the prediction of evolutionary biologists. On this occasion, the people with a design perspective were right and the Darwinians were wrong. Let’s remember this next time we hear creation or ID being decried as being unable to make any scientific predictions!
But who said science predictions had to be correct? All they have to be is … made by convinced Darwinists!
They are somewhat like a Gucci label, I guess. They confer or withhold status, NOT useful information about the design of life.
76 Responses to Vestigial organs, anyone? The humble appendix begs to differ
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dacook @ 21
When I was studying medicine (76 – 80) we were told that the appendix was part of the immune system – though it was acknowledged that its precise role in that system had not been determined. There were speculations about the manufacture of IgA antibodies. We were also told that people used to think of the appendix as vestigial but that that idea could no longer be supported.
What’s interesting to me is that people have been thinking of the appendix as vestigial (and functionless) for the last 30 odd years even though it was well known for all that time (at least by doctors) that the thing is full of lymphoid tissue. This idea of it being a reservoir for bacteria surprised me. When I saw the headline about the role of the appendix being discovered I thought maybe someone had elucidated its role as part of the immune system. But, no. Some completely new function is being ascribed to it. So that makes two (2) functional possibilities rather than none.
So why has the general populace been allowed to think, for the last 30 years or more, that it had no function? And why has that changed now? Of course the latter question presumes that this research has been widely publicised, which I doubt. Certainly I’ve seen nothing about it in the news outlets that I read.
tyke,
What would you consider an incongruence in the fossil record?
Tyke,
Universal common descent is only evidenced via genetic and morphological similarities. However both can also be explained via common design and/ or convergence.
I know that Dr Behe accepts UCD. And I also know that neither he, nor anyone else on this planet can account for the physiological and anatomical differences observed between allegedly cloesely related species such as humans and chimps.
IOW no one knows whether or not such a transformation is even possible. There isn’t any way to test the premise- at this point in time.
To Bettawrekonize & Janice- please read comment 45.
And to anyone else- scientific inferences can and do change. That is the nature of science.
IOW if a prediction turns out to need a revision, good theories allow for that. Only dogma doesn’t allow for change.
tyke: “I suppose it could have been done by tweaking previous species, but then, that’s still a form of common descent”
Right. But then it would be common descent rather like different versions of a computer program, particularly like one that generates copies of itself, and can make limited changes to the new copied program. The source of “major” changes are due to intelligent insight from an external source.
I woke up this morning and, still being groggy, when clearing the moderation queue I accidentally hit the delete button. Fortunately my browser had saved the responses from ellazimm, so here they are:
My response: Farewell. Let us know if you ever find any positive evidence for Darwinian mechanisms being capable of what they’re proposed to be capable of.
“Evolutionists’ data may not be complete but they do have data.”
Not in respect to insectivorous plants. There is no evidence for their evolution in the fossil record – absolutely nothing. Also there are no hypothetical reconstructings conceptualizing functional continuums by which these complex capture mechanisms could have possibly evolved – nothing, nada, not a thing. And to make a bad situation worse, there is no logical reason why they did evolve – in terms of their fecundity and robustness they are weaker by far (due to their specialization) than general plants.
In fact, the only reason we have to believe they did evolve is an prior acceptance of orthodox evolution – but that’s just circular reasoning isn’t it
Acquiesce 68,
You may need to update your research on investigations into the history of insectivorous plants:
Here is a link to a 2002 news release from the New York Botanical Garden suggesting that there has in fact been some work done on hypothetical reconstruction of the evolutionary heritage of insectivorous plants.
For example:
I am aware of this. Genetic similarities, albeit interesting doesn’t even come close to answering the points I made above.
1. There is no fossilized evidence for the evolution of their complex capture mechanisms.
2. There is no conceptualized functional contiuum which could potentially produce these capture mechanisms.
Your link might be suggestive, but that’s about all.
As we frequently see, even well-intentioned press releases and press or blog accounts frequently fail to accurately represent the underlying research. I hope if you are interested in this topic you have checked further into this.
congregate,
I don’t undestand your point. Your post only refers to research that solves the issue of whether or not cerain genes from the waterwheel and the flytrap are homologous. It doesn’t address any of the issues raised by Acquiesce.
I do on a regular basis, insectivorous plants are my speciality.
BTW, I’m not against the idea of evolution, it may turn out to be correct, I am just critical of orthodox evolution. In my speciality, few (that I know) actually believe these mechanisms evolved gradually, as the orthodox theory would claim. But that doesn’t mean I automatically assume these were created. I like to keep my options open.
Genetic similarities, like I said before, are one thing and are suggestive of a common source. But this common source could be viewed very differently by people on either side of the debate. Only finding those intergrading forms, or reconstructing them hypothetically can provide the sort of evidence the theory requires.
Rather than have his opponents demonstrate that complex systems cannot evolve step by step (impossibly demonstrating the negative), Darwin and his current followers should prove that complex systems can evolve gradually whilst retaining some function along the way.
Thanks for your post.
72 Jehu-
I misunderstood Acquiesce’s post. The press release to which I linked said:
Based on that I thought that the underlying research might contradict Acquiesce’s statement:
He has looked at the research and doesn’t think it does. On a second review I can see that you are correct, the release does not speak, as Acquiesce did, to the issue of functional continuums.
@ Lazarus (from post 15)
What I meant to say was “science will show a designer” not “the Designer.”
I never said that anyone will be converted by ID and I emphatically agreed that it would only be Word that can do that. Besides, at best we will produce a deist like Prof. Flew who I hope in earnest will find Christ,
I guess I wasn’t too clear before, but I am a scientist and I want the best scientific data available. The best data clearly seem to indicate nature exhibits design. This is all secular, but it does point clearly to a designer.
Now, being a good Van Tillian myself, i know that ppl might not see it clealry, but its just good to point out to others that the Biblical claim of God’s creating the world, is infact clearly seen (whether they want to recognize it or not).
Elazimmm you stated:
Bornagain77 (#67): Any sub-population that was developed from a subset of the parent population will have less diversity, that’s the basic reasoning why in humans there is more diversity amongst Africans than Europeans; Euopeans came from a relatively small subset of the whole African population. Not so much a loss of information but starting with less to begin with.
Now this is very interesting for you to acknowledge a partial truth, you admit there was a loss in information, thus you admit for a starting point that younger races of humans have by all appearances devolved from the parent species,,,yet, in the conjecture part of you statement,(Not so much a loss of information but starting with less to begin with),to defend Darwinism, you “believe as a proven fact” that sometime in the future the magic of evolution will kick in and start generating meaningful information! You see Elazimm, that is the whole point of the debate, you will never ever demonstrate the generation of complex information by natural means! Your belief that it may happen is based on nothing else than your blind faith in Darwinism! For there is absolutely no proof in hard evidence that it can be done by the RV/NS scenario. I challenge you to provide just one example of adaption of a living species that can be proven to be the result of the generation of meaningful information and can not in fact be traced back to the true foundational principle of Genetic Entropy.
I manually skim the spam filter to look for valid posts. If the posts are very short I may sometimes miss them since much of the spam now resembles normal comments. Try posting them again?
I just checked the spam filter this morning and did not see any comments by ellazimm that included external links.