CHAPTER 21 CONFESSIONS THAT THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A VESTIGIA

CHAPTER 21
CONFESSIONS THAT THERE IS
NO SUCH THING AS A VESTIGIAL ORGAN

The idea of vestigial organs is not a scientific one. According to that claim, the bodies of living things contain organs inherited from their forebears, but that have gradually lost their functions through lack of use.

This is very definitely no scientific claim, because it was based on ignorance. Functionless organs are ones whose function has not yet been identified. The best indication of this has been the continued shrinkage of the list of vestigial organs proposed by evolutionists. It has now been established that those organs originally described as vestigial actually possess wide-ranging functions.

Charles Darwin:

There remains, however, this difficulty. After an organ has ceased being used, and has become in consequence much reduced, how can it be still further reduced in size until the merest vestige is left; and how can it be finally quite obliterated? It is scarcely possible that disuse can go on producing any further effect after the organ has once been rendered functionless. Some additional explanation is here requisite which I cannot give. 349

S. R. Scadding is an evolutionist zoologist at the University of Guelph, Ontario:

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. 350

349 Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, http://www.zoo.uib.no/classics/darwin/origin.chap14.html
350 S. R. Scadding, “Do ‘Vestigial Organs’ Provide Evidence for Evolution?,” Evolutionary Theory, Vol. 5, May 1981, p. 173.