Replies

[No, he isn't, nor are his observations based on any such requirement. Work on your reading comprehension.]

My reading comprehension is just fine, thank you.

Not that I've noticed. You very frequently misread and misunderstand things.

The point is that if we don't know everything about the human body (and we certainly don't) then perhaps the appendix has a function that we don't fully understand.

...and by the same token, then perhaps all of the places where you ID folks "see design" in some structure is just a misunderstanding. That "we can't know nothin'" nonsense cuts both ways, are you sure that's really what you want to go with? Because I'll be perfectly happy ceding the "presumption of ignorance" position to you folks if you're so fond of it.

[Quick, why do you get goosebumps when you're cold or scared? Hint: It was functional back when our distant ancesters had fur. It's useless now that we have sparse fuzz on most of our skin.]

Well, there we go, right on que.

The word you're struggling for is "cue". In any case, I don't follow anyone's cues, I respond to posts.

All you've done is repeat the addendix mistake which is a repeat of dozens of other mistakes.

Your false accusations of "mistakes" have already been dealt with, and you failed to learn a single thing from it. For example, TWICE now (at the very least -- twice by *me*, and I'm sure others have told you so as well), "vestigial" does not necessarily mean "functionless". If you would actually *read* the material you've been presented with, you'd know that. This is one of the (many) reasons I have come to question your reading comprehension (not to mention your memory and your reasoning ability). Keep up your end of the discussion, or stop wasting our time.

So God made all mammals with hair, the ability to get goose bumps. SO?!

So the point went right over your head, that's "so".

LOL But you, the wisest of all, KNOWS FOR A FACT that this function is completely useless in humans.

Feel free to demonstrate that I'm wrong by describing its function. We'll wait.

Well, you'll have to excuse me if I don't take your word for it.

You're free to be as irrationally stubborn as you choose.

With the evolutionary track record on these sort of things, it would be more logical to assume that you are wrong (again) than correct.

Actually, that line of argument applies FAR more to the creationists, who have been wrong almost every single time they've opened their mouths and said anything about biology. Biologists actually have a really good track record.

So then what is the function of goose bumps in humans? Well, I'm surely not going to make the same mistake of those who claim to know the full extent of all bodily functions; however, I can easily consider at least one possibility. We get goose bumps when we’re cold, frightened, or experiencing other strong emotions. They are not under conscious control. Maybe, must maybe goose bumps are designed as a way of bringing to consciousness various stresses that need attention. In other words, goose bumps may assist in raising our consciousness of a serious situation. Maybe, must maybe, when you get goose bumps, your body is telling you something, and is working as designed.

And maybe you're grasping at straws as usual. Like feeling painfully cold wouldn't be noticed by a human unless his skin got bumply to "remind him"? Like consciously recognizing a danger bad enough to generate an intense emotional fear isn't *enough* "notification" that action needs to be undertaken, unless your skin gets little bumps and that's what *really* gets things moving?

Do you even listen to yourself? Your "explanation" makes as little sense as the average creationist hand-waving, and dissolves into ludicrousness when one spends four seconds pondering its implications -- again, perfectly on par for the average creationist "explanation".

Sorry, no, we prefer things that aren't transparently silly to a five-year-old.

Of course, if humans didn't get goose bumps, evolutionists would trumpet it as sure sign that evolution works and that that feature was "de-selected". You see, the evolutionists claim victory either way. If humans exhibit similarities to animals, they say "SEE!? EVOLUTION!". When humans don't share a certain trait with animals, they say "SEE!? EVOLUTION!".

Congratulations, you're being really dense. Yes, VESTIGIAL FEATURES do indeed provide evidence of evolution "either way", because if they linger from a common ancestor, they indicate the link to that common ancestor, and if they have been "de-selected" as you say, they also provide evidence for evolution because they leave traces of their passing, such as the fact that birds do not have teeth, but still have "broken" genes to produce teeth (which can and have been chemically triggered to produce chicks with reptile-like teeth). Even though birds have lost the teeth of their reptile ancestors, they retain clear evidence that they *did* have teeth in a distant ancestor.

Vestigial features, even (and in some cases especially) ones which are not entirely non-functional, provide strong evidence for evolution precisely *because* they are the kind of "leftover" that a sensible designer wouldn't have put in if he were free to design things from scratch, but are exactly the kind of thing that evolution via common descent produces frequently (because it's slow to "weed out" things which aren't strictly detrimental, and because it "retasks" structures from earlier "models" instead of being free to "redesign" things from scratch.)

So can evolution ever be falsified? Sure -- by organisms having features that are *not* inherited from a common ancestor (by unmodified or modified descent). So far, no such feature has ever been found, despite 100+ years of searching, and despite the fact that *designed* objects have these kinds of non-heirarchical features all the time.

Try learning some biology before you attempt to critique it. Heck, you'd be a long way towards not making bone-headed errors on this topic if you had just *read* (and understood) the links I've *already* given to you for your education. They've already explained the problem with your fallacies, and yet you come right back and make them *again*.

Here, for example, are some of the passages you failed to either read or understand:

Evolutionary vestiges are, technically, any diminished structure that previously had a greater physiological significance in an ancestor than at present. Independently of evolutionary theory, a vestige can also be defined typologically as a reduced and rudimentary structure compared to the same homologous structure in other organisms, as one that lacks the complex functions usually found for that structure in other organisms (see, e.g. Geoffroy 1798).
Classic examples of vestiges are the wings of the ostrich and the eyes of blind cavefish. These vestigial structures may have functions of some sort. Nevertheless, what matters is that rudimentary ostrich wings are useless as normal flying wings, and that rudimentary cavefish eyes are useless as normal sighted eyes. Vestiges can be functional, and speculative arguments against vestiges based upon their possible functions completely miss the point.
For more discussion of the vestigial concept, extensive modern and historical references concerning its definition (especially the allowance for functionality), see the Citing Scadding (1981) and Misunderstanding Vestigiality and 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Anatomical vestiges FAQs.

And:

A vestige is defined, independently of evolutionary theory, as a reduced and rudimentary structure compared to the same complex structure in other organisms. Vestigial characters, if functional, perform relatively simple, minor, or inessential functions using structures that were clearly designed for other complex purposes. Though many vestigial organs have no function, complete non-functionality is not a requirement for vestigiality (Crapo 1985; Culver et al. 1995; Darwin 1872, pp. 601-609; Dodson 1960, p. 44; Griffiths 1992; Hall 2003; McCabe 1912, p. 264; Merrell 1962, p. 101; Moody 1962, p. 40; Muller 2002; Naylor 1982; Strickberger 2000; Weismann 1886, pp. 9-10; Wiedersheim 1893, p. 2, p. 200, p. 205).

For example, wings are very complex anatomical structures specifically adapted for powered flight, yet ostriches have flightless wings. The vestigial wings of ostriches may be used for relatively simple functions, such as balance during running and courtship displays—a situation akin to hammering tacks with a computer keyboard. The specific complexity of the ostrich wing indicates a function which it does not perform, and it performs functions incommensurate with its complexity. Ostrich wings are not vestigial because they are useless structures per se, nor are they vestigial simply because they have different functions compared to wings in other birds. Rather, what defines ostrich wings as vestigial is that they are rudimentary wings which are useless as wings.
Vestigial structures have perplexed naturalists throughout history and were noted long before Darwin first proposed universal common descent. Many eighteenth and nineteenth century naturalists identified and discussed vestigial structures, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Georges-Louis Leclerc, Compte de Buffon (1707-1788), and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Over sixty years before Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species, the eminent French anatomist Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1772-1844) discussed his observations of the vestigial wings of the cassowary and ostrich during his travels with Napoleon to Egypt:

"There is another species that, like the ostrich, never leaves the ground, the Cassowary, in which the shortening [of the wing] is so considerable, that it appears little more than a vestige of a wing. Its arm is not, however, entirely eliminated. All of the parts are found under the skin. ...
Whereas useless in this circumstance, these rudiments of the furcula have not been eliminated, because Nature never works by rapid jumps, and She always leaves vestiges of an organ, even though it is completely superfluous, if that organ plays an important role in the other species of the same family. Thus, under the skin of the Cassowary's flanks are the vestiges of the wings ..." (Geoffroy 1798)

Geoffroy was at a loss for why exactly nature "always leaves vestiges of an organ", yet he could not deny his empirical observations. Ten years later, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) identified several vestigial structures in his Zoological Philosophy (Lamarck 1809, pp. 115-116):

"Eyes in the head are characteristic of a great number of different animals, and essentially constitute a part of the plan of organisation of the vertebrates. Yet the mole, whose habits require a very small use of sight, has only minute and hardly visible eyes ...
Olivier's Spalax, which lives underground like the mole, and is apparently exposed to daylight even less than the mole, has altogether lost the use of sight: so that it shows nothing more than vestiges of this organ. Even these vestiges are entirely hidden under the skin and other parts, which cover them up and do not leave the slightest access to light.
The Proteus, an aquatic reptile allied to the salamanders, and living in deep dark caves under water, has, like the Spalax, only vestiges of the organ of sight, vestiges which are covered up and hidden in the same way." (Lamarck 1809, p. 116)

Even Aristotle discussed the peculiar vestigial eyes of moles in the fourth century B.C. in De animalibus historiae (lib. I cap. IX), in which he identified them as "stunted in development" and "eyes not in the full sense".
As these individuals noted, vestiges can be especially puzzling features of organisms, since these "hypocritical" structures profess something that they do not do—they clearly appear designed for a certain function which they do not perform. However, common descent provides a scientific explanation for these peculiar structures. Existing species have different structures and perform different functions. If all living organisms descended from a common ancestor, then both functions and structures necessarily have been gained and lost in each lineage during macroevolutionary history. Therefore, from common descent and the constraint of gradualism, we predict that many organisms should retain vestigial structures as structural remnants of lost functions.

Yes, we DO notice. ;-)

But not understand.