Whoever designed this body...

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Laboratory/phlebotomy technician, with access to the entire hospital. Currently applying to a couple of PA programs, but with the recession the number of applicants has increased logarithmically; my odds of getting in are not good.

I started out as a cell/molecular biology major, and switched to general biology for greater freedom in choosing my courses. Evolutionary biology was what really fascinated me - and it's just astounding how far you can get in biology without really digging into the actual evidence that supports it. It needs no faith to believe, but too often it's taught as though it does.

Have you read any of Sean B. Carroll's books? He starts to answer some of the questions that made me squirm in my seat with curiosity back in high school, and with your background you would probably breeze through them faster than I am.

I didn't know Darwin covered his butt that much, but it doesn't surprise me. It's just like Wal-Mart policies.


Say, how many de novo organs are being developed today?

It's called 'being complete.' It's generally approved of in the scientific community.

Organs do not evolve de novo; they evolve from pre-existing organs with other functions (for example, penguins' flippers evolved from wings). If Sand is correct, the appendix may be evolving into a home for symbiotic bacteria, and future versions will harbour only the friendly bugs and never the bad ones, and will never (or almost never) become clogged or rupture.

The appendix is already a home for symbiotic E. coli, serving as a reservoir for when diarrhea occurs to flush out food that presents some degree of toxicity.

I like evolutionary biology, but I think I'm more drawn to mathematically-based areas, such as epidemiology and certain branches of ecology.


No, but thanks for the recommendation, I'll check them out.

'Keet, Sand and I already went over that argument so I'm not going to get into it here.

Thought of another one last night when I was talking to a patient, though: The palmaris longis muscle in some of our forearms. Monkeys use it to lock their hands around branches when they sleep, but humans apparently have no use for it. Some of us have it, some of us don't - and some of us, like myself, have it in one arm but not the other.

I am so glad you made this dubious claim.

Even if the appendix was not vestigial, it is not the only vestigial organ in the human body , and the human body is not the only 'design' to have vestigial organs ever. There would have been no need to change the definition at all. In the creationists' world, just finding a function for the appendix suddenly makes creationism work. Whereas it would still be a non-theory for which there is countless of evidence against.

This was not a case of Darwin "covering his ass". But of course a case of creationists constantly pulling out the straw man that vestigial = no function. They managed to do it so successfully that even you was not aware it was merely a straw man. A low resource to give creationists the illusion that they are debunking the theory of evolution by finding out the appendix is barely able to have an use.

And a muscle in the foot as well. Some people lack it. I dont recall the name however.

There are also the myriad muscles in the human ear, a non functional third eye lid and several other less than functional features.

How can we tell if we lack that muscle in the arm by the way?

It's easiest to tell if you have one in one arm but not the other. Hold your arms so that the underside is up (palms upward). Make a fist, and flex your wrists back towards the elbow. Look at your wrists: is there a single tendon sticking up, maybe 3-4mm wide, almost exactly in the middle, or is the wrist fairly flat with possibly a band of tendons 10 or so mm wide, or one or two tendons offset from the center (it varies depending on how your arm is rotated)? The single tendon exactly in the middle is the one that is attached to the palmaris longis, if you have one. If you're not sure, compare to other people; the distribution seems to be pretty random and it's not difficult to find any of the three phenotypes.

In parrots, many of them do not have a motile crest, such as the type which cockatiels have:




However, I consider the motile crest to be a feature among parrots which was lost in most of the diversification from their initial ancestors. The loss or genetic mutilation of an organ or functional structure seems far more likely than its development.

I like how they are looking at each other. A shared understanding about something. Two good friends having the avian equivalent of coffee talk.

It is indeed true that losses occur far more often in any monophyletic group than gains, so statistically you are probably correct. However, statistical probability is not enough; do you have any data to support your claim?

Petey and Patty did used to be good friends. Petey died though, back in 2008 in January. Patty is still alive and well though.

Data to support my claim? I've read some articles before regarding this, but I don't want to spend the evening searching them up only to have them k'vetched about and disregarded anyhow. As for the far more often having loss, such would indicate that the equilibrium constant is to the reactants side... if it were considering chemistry anyhow. It would at least be similar in regard to functional structures, organs, organelles, etc, since any system requiring multiple parts to function is more likely to break down than it is to build up.

Maybe that has something to do with why >99% of all species ever to exist have died out.

What percentage of genera? What percentage of families? What percentage of orders? What percentage of classes? What percentage of phyla? What percentage of kingdoms?