Claim CB361:

Vestigial organs (if any really exist) are not evidence of evolution. They just show decay consistent with the second law of thermodynamics.

Source:

Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 75-76.

Response:

  1. Vestigial organs include more than atrophied organs. The bones of the middle ear, for example, are vestiges of jaw bones of ancestral tetrapods.

  2. Loss of organs is sometimes an advantage. For example, loss of legs is adaptive in whales. Thus, losses of organs often are evolution driven by natural selection. They are evidence of evolution when their vestigial forms show similarities to earlier nonvestigial forms.

  3. The second law of thermodynamics allows for more than decay.
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created 2003-6-9