Vestigial Organs?

For example, ostriches still use their wings for balance in running like we use our arms, even though the wings have lost their main function of flight.Or consider blind cave crabs. They lost their eyes, but retain their eyestalks. Which are not completely useless, because if they lost their eyestalks they'd have a couple of holes in their heads.

What are they supposed to be vestiges of? No. Even if they play a role, it can hardly be an important one. It does imply that it must have a fairly minor role. If you can routinely cut it out and detect no effect on life expectancy, it can't be doing much. I don't think we should ignore any evidence.

What you need is a scientist stating that they're vestigial, and what they're vestiges of. Show me an organism in which they perform a much more important function than they do in humans, and then perhaps we'll know that they're vestigial. Prove, for example, that their homologues in monkeys are absolutely vital to the immune systems of monkeys.What you have is an unsupported statement in a wiki for Moonies. The fact that a bunch of creationist loonies wish to deny that it's vestigial doesn't actually prove that it is. Your link explicitly states that what you are pretending was "the original concept" was not, in fact, the original concept. Did you not bother to read it? But this is absolutely untrue. Ever since Darwin wrote the Origin Of Species evolutionists have been talking about exactly the same thing.It is creationists who have been desperately trying to change the subject under discussion just like they lie about and distort every other concept in evolution.---Has it ever occurred to you that if there was really something wrong with the concept of evolution, then people could discredit it without lying about what it is?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

But it wasn't. (See my previous post.) But it isn't. A vestige of something is a remnant held over from the past, but not necessarily a completely functionless one. For example, the House of Lords would properly be called a vestige of the feudal system, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't do anything at all.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Why do you think that what you just said is true, or that Wiederschiem was competent? Remember that the "New World Encyclopedia" is the Moonie alternative to reality.Let me say again. If you want to prove that tonsils are vestigial, show me evidence that tonsils are vestigial.They may very well be vestigial. But I want to hear it from scientists rather than Moonies. Well, that's obviously not true. Darwin never mentioned tonsils. And still no-one has found an important function for the tonsils.But the mere fact that the tonsils appear to be useless does not prove that they are vestigial.PROVE TO ME THAT THEY ARE VESTIGIAL. Some creationist babbling out unsubstantiated nonsense does not prove that tonsils are vestigial. PROVE that they are vestigial or shut up. No, your gibberish and your quotations from people who think that Sun Myung Moon is God incarnate do not constitute "the foundation for the whole idea of vestigial organs". Of course, this is not true.If you will try to argue for this insane point of view, I shall put up a counter-argument. But if you just wish to spew out this insane drivel, then I can do no more than point out that it is wrong.This is of course nonsense. And also it does not answer my question.My question was, and still is, this: If there was really something wrong with the theory of evolution, couldn't creationists point it out WITHOUT LYING about the theory of evolution? If the evidence from vestigial features is no good, then couldn't creationist say so WITHOUT LYING about what biologists mean by "vestigial"?Couldn't you guys prove your point WITHOUT LYING?

No you have not.Did you even look at your link?You have linked to one page of a review of the book.You have not linked to the book.What you have not done is prove that the tonsils are vestigial. Before I believe that they are, I want proof. And you must now know perfectly well what Darwin meant by rudimentary organs.Now prove that the tonsils are vestigial. Perhaps they play a minor role, though that has not been proved. And you have no evidence whatsoever for what you claim to be "pointing out". Not a scrap of a shred of a scintilla of a shadow of evidence.And we know that the tonsils play no important role in humans. So the only open question is whether they are vestiges of something that was important ancestrally. PROVE TO ME THAT TONSILS ARE VESTIGIAL. Which book?The only link with which you have provided me is one page of a review of the book. Which does not mention tonsils at all.IF YOU WANT TO PROVE THAT TONSILS ARE VESTIGIAL, THEN PROVE THAT TONSILS ARE VESTIGIAL.It's a perfectly straightforward request that any biologist claiming that tonsils are vestigial would be able to answer. Because they wouldn't claim stuff before finding out about it.

But:(1) You have not quoted one single scientist saying that they are vestigial.(2) You have supplied no evidence that they have a function.(3) ABOVE ALL, as I have explained, and as the creationist site that you quoted explained, vestigial does not mean without a function. The immune system is important, but obviously the role of the tonsils in that system is not important. But would you at least try to prove that someone thinks that they are? Show me some scientist explaining why they're vestigial, and I might believe that they're vestigial. Or refuse to show me any scientist explaining why they're vestigial, and I won't believe that they're vestigial.But you seem to want to have your cake and eat it. You want to say that scientists (whom you cannot quote) say that tonsils are vestigial, and that scientists (whom you cannot quote) say that they aren't. And so much for science, because it's been conclusively disproved by science.