Hi Kaichos Man,
In 1895, evolutionist Robert Wiedersheim made up a list of 180 alleged vestigial or rudimentary organs.
So you creationists keep telling us. There is a good deal of creo excitement over online regarding this list. Is there any chance that you might show it to us?
Useful functions have been found for nearly all of them.
a) So what? That does not mean that they are not vestigial (more below).
b) Have functions been found? Really? Prove it. Show us the list, show us the functions. Otherwise, you've got jack shit.
Alarmed at the fact that the vestigial list is itself becoming vestigial some evolutionists, notably Alexy Yablokov, have sought to redefine the term. Without going into fine detail, the end result of Yablokov's musings is that having a current function does not preclude an organ as an evidence of evolution.
Oh look, some lies. And you fell for them. Poor you.
Here is a quotation from a Nineteenth century naturalist called Charles Darwin, perhaps you have heard of him;
quote:
An organ serving for two purposes, may become rudimentary or utterly aborted for one, even the more important purpose, and remain perfectly efficient for the other. Thus in plants, the office of the pistil is to allow the pollen-tubes to reach the ovules protected in the ovarium at its base. The pistil consists of a stigma supported on the style; but in some Compositae, the male florets, which of course cannot be fecundated, have a pistil, which is in a rudimentary state, for it is not crowned with a stigma; but the style remains well developed, and is clothed with hairs as in other compositae, for the purpose of brushing the pollen out of the surrounding anthers. Again, an organ may become rudimentary for its proper purpose, and be used for a distinct object: in certain fish the swim-bladder seems to be rudimentary for its proper function of giving buoyancy, but has become converted into a nascent breathing organ or lung. Other similar instances could be given.
(from The Origin)
Now Darwin is pretty clear here that a vestigial (or to use his term, rudimentary) organ need not be totally lacking in function. It is plain from this that no redefinition has taken place as you claim. The term has kept its meaning since the 1800s.
1) If it shows no apparent function, then it could be redundant architecture from a previous form. Which would represent a loss of information, a movement from complex to simple, an example of "devolution" if you will, which is entirely consistent with the continuing degeneration from The Fall.
Except that this is a falsified concept. Information can be gained and has been shown to do so in both the laboratory and in the wild. How else does one explain the origins of an organism like Nylon-eating bacteria? The idea of "The Fall" AKA "loss of information" is merely a Bronze Age religious myth, dressed up as science. No wonder it has been falsified.
2) If it shows no apparent function, it could mean that we haven't found it yet. This is entirely consistent with Weidershiem's list, and it would be most arrogant to dismiss the possibility. If we do dismiss it, then we end up back at 1), so what's the point.
This is entirely consistent with the desperation of creationists who just wish that that pesky evidence would go away and stop bothering them. It is a sad sight to see creationists fervently praying that a function be discovered for the coccyx or the recurrent laryngeal nerve or whatever. As if it mattered. As shown above,
it doesn't matter. Vestigiality does not mean and has never meant that there ought be no function whatsoever. Darwin knew this. Modern biologists know this. Creationists know this too, but why let a little thing like reality get in the way of a good whine?
3) If it shows a current function, it could be a reassigned or -as you put it- a "reuse" function. Or it could have been designed that way. Remember, that any argument based on similarity of structure is as much an argument for common design as it is for common descent. A good designer doesn't run around reinventing the wheel.
And yet reinventing the wheel is exactly how your beloved
designer God operates it seems. He does not solve problems with new tailor made designs, he reinvents previous ones, cobbled together from pre-existing parts. If you think that a good designer does not reinvent things, then whoever designed us must have been pretty bad at his job.
So there you have it. Vestigiality is either evidence of loss of information, which gets you nowhere in arguing molecule-to-man evolution, or its an equivocal argument both for common descent and common design.
So there we have it. Creationists propagate nonsense and misconceptions, seek to rewrite history, contradict themselves, cite evidence which they never produce and ignore evidence that falsifies their cherished religious dogmas. Business as usual then.
Mutate and Survive
On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
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