by Richard Peachey What are “vestigial organs”? “Vestigial” or “rudimentary” organs are biological structures that have no function. In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin listed such human structures as wisdom teeth, the appendix, and the coccyx (“tailbone”) as “rudimentary organs” (Scadding 173f.). In his earlier book, The Origin of Species, at the very beginning of the section on “rudimentary” organs, Darwin had said (418): “Organs or parts in this strange condition, bearing the plain stamp of inutility, are extremely common, or even general, throughout nature. It would be impossible to name one of the higher animals in which some part or other is not in a rudimentary condition. In the mammals, for instance, the males possess rudimentary mammae. . . .” Darwin and other evolutionists have interpreted such organs as evidence of evolutionary ancestry. In their view, a “useless” organ like the appendix is a tip-off to the fact that it wasn’t created by an all-wise, purposeful Designer; it must be just a left-over inherited from our mammalian ancestors that did have a functioning appendix. As Darwin suggested (423), “Rudimentary organs may be compared with the letters in a word, still retained in the spelling, but become useless in the pronunciation, but which serve as a clue for its derivation.” (Some evolutionists would like to water down the definition of vestigial organs to make them structures of “reduced” function. See Jerry Bergman’s discussion of this issue in Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 14[2]:95-98, 2000 <http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j14_2/j14_2_95-98.pdf>.) Problems with the argument from “vestigial organs” 1. It is not possible, theoretically, for us to prove the uselessness of a given organ. Evolutionary zoologist S. R. Scadding (University of Guelph) has stated (175f.): “The ‘vestigial organ’ argument uses as a premise the assertion that the organ in question has no function. There is no way however, in which this negative assertion can be arrived at scientifically. That is, one can not prove that something does not exist (in this case a certain function), since of course if it does not exist one cannot observe it, and therefore one can say nothing about it scientifically. The best we can do is to state that despite diligent effort, no function was discovered for a given organ. However it may be that some future investigator will discover the function. Consequently, the vestigial organ argument has as a premise, either a statement of ignorance (I couldn’t identify the function), or a scientifically invalid claim (it does not have a function). Such an argument, from ignorance, or from negative results, is not valid scientifically, and has no place in observational or experimental science. “Since it is not possible to unambiguously identify useless structures, and since the structure of the argument used is not scientifically valid, I conclude that ‘vestigial organs’ provide no special evidence for the theory of evolution.” 2. Some organs, although apparently functionless, are clearly not derived from evolutionary ancestors in which the structures had a function. Recall Darwin’s very first example in his Origin of Species (418, quoted above): “In the mammalia, for instance, the males possess rudimentary mammae. . . .” But did male … Continue reading Are “Vestigial Organs” Valid Evidence of Evolution?