32. VESTIGIAL ORGANS
The claim is made that the so-called rudimentary organs in the human body such as the appendix, are the remnants of more complete organs inherited from our animal ancestors. It is a strange argument that a once complete and useful organ in our alleged animal ancestors, when it becomes atrophied in man, causes such an improvement and advance, as to cause man to survive, when his ancestors with more perfect organs became extinct. Man with less perfect organs became the dominant species. If the perfect organ were better than the rudimentary organ, how can man be the “survival of the fittest”? If rudimentary organs are a proof of descent from animals with more extensive, if not more perfect, organs, then both man and monkeys must be descended from the rat, which has the longest proportionate appendix of all. If unused muscles speak of our ancestry, the horse has the strongest claim to be our ancestor.
But many organs, such as “the thyroid gland, the thymus gland, and the pineal gland,” formerly classified as rudimentary organs, are found to be very useful and necessary.
Physicians have found the appendix very useful in preventing constipation, which its removal usually increases. If we only knew enough, we would, no doubt, discover a beneficial use for all the so-called vestigial organs. Our ignorance is no argument against the wisdom of their creation. The claim that human hair is vestigial is spoiled by the fact that there is none on the back where most abundant on simians.