I'm a creationist and I disagree with the creationists who think vestigial organs have a purpose. I think they once had a purpose but lost it. I wish we creationists could all get on the same page but right now it isn't happening.
Some creationists focus exclusively on the Creation or design and ignore the Fall, which leads them to postulate functions for disease processes although the Fall is quite sufficient for an explanation of them. My impression is that these tend to be creationists who find ways to fit evolution into the book of Genesis. In the full Biblical context, the Fall best explains all disease processes, which would include organs that have lost their original function.
Some claim that some function remains, or some other function has been adopted by the organ, and not just some creationists but also some evolutionists are convinced of something along these lines, as Coragyps' post shows.
The same situation applies to junk DNA, or "pseudogenes" or "dead genes" (or was it "dead DNA") as Jerry Coyne calls them in his recent book. Some claim they have some sort of function but not the function of normal genes, while others treat them entirely as the corpses of previously functioning genes.
In the theory of evolution dead DNA is interpreted as representing formerly useful functions no longer needed by the newer adaptations.
Here too some creationists look for function because of their exclusive focus on a perfect creation of viable designs; but to a YEC creationist who takes the Fall into account the most reasonable hypothesis is that they are a record at the genetic level of all the death and disease brought about because of the Fall.
Apparently there's some evidence on both sides -- no function, some function -- of the claims for both vestigial organs and junk DNA.
There's really nothing here for me to debate, I just wanted to make the distinctions between creationist views of this.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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