Whoever designed this body...

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Not that I subscribe to the obvious idiocies of Intelligent Design but the appendix has recently been discovered to hold a reserve supply of the vital digestive micro-organisms that are frequently destroyed in the body's overcoming dangerous infections and through the use of antibiotics. Thus recovery is aided by resupplying the digestive system after a cure.

The bacteria which dwells upon the armpit is not harmful, but it does serve a purpose as an indicator of the level of an individual's cleanliness, or rather, the lack thereof.

And the appendix only becomes dangerous if a pathological strain of E. coli find it's way to the appendix.

Link?

Sand, I have heard that hypothesis, but I have not seen any evidence to support it (ie, I have never seen evidence that those with appendices have better outcomes post antibiotics than those without appendices). In addition, antibiotics are too new of an invention to be a factor in the evolution of appendices.

'keet, your statement is false. Appendices rupture and burst from many types of bacteria; the common factor is a small piece of stool plugging the opening, not the species of bacterium.

This is one of many sites indicating the use of the appendix. http://www.rebecca4fitness.com/wordpress/?p=188

Re-population of the digestive system after illness is necessary under several circumstances occurring naturally even before antibiotics. You have no data indicating the time lapse necessary for a favorable mutation to take place. Viruses are notorious for mutating from one season to the next.

Forget the appendix. What about the lumbar region of the human spine. Clear proof that the Intelligent Designer is as dumb as sh*t.

ruveyn

"god" want us always at war and the unpleasantness in the smell of other humans is a reminder that we're supposed to be killing each other.

If people smelled so good to each other they would spend all their time smelling each other and we'd all starve to death. It's a survival characteristic.

Teeth are rubbish. Sharks teeth are better. I want those instead.

I hardly ever post in PPR, but I thought I would drop in because I saw headaches mentioned. I have chronic headaches--I've had them nearly every day for a year once (I keep a 'headache' journal). It's a congenital brain malformation.

I see everyone talking about intelligent design...'this is a pretty stupid design for an intelligent designer, yada yada". So assuming the world was brought about by a means other than intelligent design and we were all made to be the way we are now by the result of billions of years of evolution, does that make our unsatisfactory bodies excuseable?

Well.... arguably yes. Our bodies are not made by a designer that is close to ideal, and some of the problems can be blamed on ad hoc and klugey solutions.

Yes, yes it does. Evolution makes do with what it has.

Constantly loosing and reforming them? Now there's something that would be K'vetched about.

Sand, there are sites all over the internet claiming functions for the appendix, just like there are sites all over the internet claiming that autism is caused by vaccines. People want the appendix to have a function, for some reason. Lots of these sites push the fact that the appendix has immune tissue - GALT (gut associated lymphoid tissue) - without bothering to mention that the rest of the gut also has GALT. The whole 'bacterial reservoir' idea is made dubious by the fact that we repopulate our guts with bacteria every single time we eat (no, it's not all killed in the stomach). Babies, for instance, are born with sterile guts - appendix included - and their guts are populated starting with the skin bacteria on their mother's breasts. As far as the hygiene hypothesis goes, I have yet to see any data that people with appendices have better survival than people without appendices in 3rd world countries without adequate plumbing.

As far as the time lapse needed for mutations in human populations, I do in fact have data; I just haven't presented it here yet. Viruses mutate from one season to the next because they can go through hundreds or even thousands of populations within a single host, much less from host to host in a single season; humans have a population time that is in the decades, even in areas where they marry off in their teens.

digestive enzyme evolution in humans:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/science/11evolve.html

gross anatomical digestive evolution in lizards, which have a generation time of a few years or less:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... d.php#more

What you are proposing is that I believe you instead of these other sites which seem to me quite reasonable. Sorry.