Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
a . “The existence of functionless ‘vestigial organs’ was presented by Darwin, and is often cited by current biology textbooks, as part of the evidence for evolution. ... An analysis of the difficulties in unambiguously identifying functionless structures and an analysis of the nature of the argument, leads to the conclusion that ‘vestigial organs’ provide no evidence for evolutionary theory.” S. R. Scadding, “Do ‘Vestigial Organs’ Provide Evidence for Evolution?” Evolutionary Theory, Vol. 5, May 1981, p. 173.
b . Jerry Bergman and George Howe, “Vestigial Organs” Are Fully Functional (Terre Haute, Indiana: Creation Research Society Books, 1990).
c . “The appendix is not generally credited with substantial function. However, current evidence tends to involve it in the immunologic mechanism.” Gordon McHardy, “The Appendix,” Gastroenterology, Vol. 4, editor J. Edward Berk (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1985), p. 2609.
u “Thus, although scientists have long discounted the human appendix as a vestigial organ, a growing quantity of evidence indicates that the appendix does in fact have a significant function as a part of the body’s immune system.” N. Roberts, “Does the Appendix Serve a Purpose in Any Animal?” Scientific American, Vol. 285, November 2001, p. 96.
d . “... the human appendix is well suited as a ‘safe house’ for commensal bacteria, providing support for bacterial growth and potentially facilitating re-inoculation of the colon in the event that the contents of the intestinal tract are purged following exposure to a pathogen. ... the appendix ... is not a vestige.” R. Randal Bollinger et al., “Biofilms in the Large Bowel Suggest an Apparent Function of the Human Vermiform Appendix,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 249, 2007, p. 826.