Talk:Vestigiality

message: === Good Article nomination has failed ===
The Good article nomination for  has failed    
:Good content, but the bullet-pointed list of examples should be converted to normal prose.  Worldtraveller 10:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to say that i think the list format was far superior to the prose. To call it a list is probably incorrect, rather subtitled paragraphs.  In the 'list' format the content is clear as the eye scans the page.  This is not the case for the prose. My gut instinct would be to keep the bullets despite the failure at the good article nomination page. David D. (Talk) 02:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I agree with you in this case which is why I brought it over to Wikipedia:Good articles/Disputes where I was told that having it in lists was actually acceptable. I actually left a message on Silence's page to see what he thought before I went ahead and reverted it.--SomeStranger(t|c) 09:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: GA proceedings

message: The Good article nomination for  has failed    
:Good content, but the bullet-pointed list of examples should be converted to normal prose.  Worldtraveller 10:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to say that i think the list format was far superior to the prose. To call it a list is probably incorrect, rather subtitled paragraphs.  In the 'list' format the content is clear as the eye scans the page.  This is not the case for the prose. My gut instinct would be to keep the bullets despite the failure at the good article nomination page. David D. (Talk) 02:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I agree with you in this case which is why I brought it over to Wikipedia:Good articles/Disputes where I was told that having it in lists was actually acceptable. I actually left a message on Silence's page to see what he thought before I went ahead and reverted it.--SomeStranger(t|c) 09:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Good articles|Good Article]] [[Wikipedia:Good articles/Nominations|nomination]] has failed 

message: I see no problem with the bullet list; this is GA, not FAC. Great content, fully cited, licensed photos... we have a winner. Kafziel 16:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: GA passed

message: I've delisted the article for the following reasons:
*It isn't stable - there are several items on the to do list, and it has recently been moved to a new location. The article most importantly needs to reflect this change by focusing less on the 'structure' on more on the concept - vestigiality can be seen in behavior, metabolic pathways, organs etc. Underlying this are genes that are no longer so useful for their hosts. Whether the new name is where the article shall permanently reside also needs to be discussed.
*More citations are needed, in particular the human appendix example.
*It could still be better written. The examples section needs to go into more depth on some specific examples, not just list a bunch with one line sentences. A few detailed examples including structures, behaviors and cellular and biochemical vestigiality are needed.
*See the to-do list for other details. Richard001 05:18, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Delisted 26 May 2007

message: The clitoris in females and the nipples of males are NOT vestigial, for male nipples never had the function of nursing young, and the clitoris never had the function of a penis. Instead, these are anatomical traits that are formed in an embyro before sexual differentiation occurs. The paragraphs refering to these as vestigial should be removed!!!
The information on this page is very inaccurate. I have taught anatomy at the college level including at the graduate level for over 20 years and not one text book that we have used, or I have reviewed, agree with the section on human anatomy in this article. I have tried to correct this article but my corrections were removed. I now inform students that I will not accept references to this web site on term papers. It seems that Darwinists have little concern for accuracy, but only indoctrination into their world view.
:"I now inform students that I will not accept references to this web site on term papers" Good! They should be using this site as a starting point to direct them to other sources, which they should use as references. Your last comment makes it rather clear to me why your edits were removed... Skittle 21:21, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "It seems that Darwinists have little concern for accuracy, but only indoctrination into their world view." -- With your position as a lecturer, I would haved assumed you would not come here to make sweeping generalization of "Darwinists". I guess I was wrong. Please come here to help correct mistakes, that's what a wiki is for, however I'm pretty sure we can do without these sort of attacks, although I understand you were "offended" by the mistakes being done here. Actually, I think a section here for "commonly mistaken or disputed organs" would be in place, because it's not only on Wikipedia I have encountered this claim. So you shouldn't just teach your students to steer clear of Wikipedia, but to always use multiple sources for verification. This applies to just about any scientific article. -- Northgrove 08:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You should probably advised that "Darwinists" is usually a reference to people who follow outdated and disproven early forms of evolutionary theory. Modern evolutionary theory was inspired by Darwin, but a Darwinist is a living anachronism. The modern term of art is "Evolutionary Biologist" or similar. This is similar to how Freud is handled in psychology, though in that case "Freudian" means Jungian, or rather, it refers to later modifications of the theories. For clarification, please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis 76.105.216.34 (talk) 20:24, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

text: I believe you are confusing anatomical and evolutionary definitions of vestigial. From a biological point of view, a structure is vestigial if it has lost its original function; of course, it may have gained another (indeed, we would expect truly useless organs as you suggest to be lost to natural selection). To the earlier poster, I agree with Skittle: I am not certain why you would ever allow term papers to cite Wikipedia as a source; in general, encyclopedias are inappropriate references for such works, I believe. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vestigal Structure 

message: As just one example, the article says, "The vermiform appendix is a vestige of the cecum."
Could we get proof for that, please? That it is homologous in shape, attachment, or position to the cecum has little bearing on whether it is related by DNA to the cecum. Until and unless someone can demonstrate that the DNA which codes for the cecum is related by X degree or in Y way to the DNA which codes for the appendix, statements like this are just wild speculation. That is, let's see some evidence that the DNA for the different organs is homologous and not just the structure.
Here's a reference to consider:
"... homologous structures need not be controlled by identical genes, and homology of phenotypes does not imply similarity of genotypes."
- Gavin deBeer, formerly Professor of Embryology at the University of London and Director of the British Museum (Natural History), Homology, An Unsolved Problem (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 16
Evidence, please, evidence.
Erik Eckhardt 03:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:   Do you forget where you are?  Wikipedia favors consensus, not evidence.  There are so many blatant unchecked theories (some proven incorrect) being pushed as fact here that it is getting beyond ridiculous. 72.224.189.211 (talk) 22:42, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some more references would be nice 

message: The picture at the top of the article isn't very clear, at least not at its current resolution. It makes it look like the entire cecum is the appendix, because the labels are difficult to make out. 70.20.148.167 03:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The pic 

message: I am removing all references to <http://homepage.mac.com/lpetrich/www/writings/Vestigial.txt>, as it is an inaccurate source in many ways. It claims that penguins have hollow bones (when every source I have ever read states that they have solid bones), and the references at the end are only relevant to single-cellular organisms.
Disconformist 17:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Bad Reference

message: You might find this review useful. TimVickers 17:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Tim. I was looking for information on this subject in some textbooks yesterday and to my dismay I found some texts on evolution didn't even have it in the index, and others gave at most a few paragraphs to the subject. I'll work on it as soon as I have some more time. Richard001 21:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Useful reference

message: It says here that creationists who believe in some sort of microevolution but not macroevolution need not be worried about vestigial traits. Why? Our own appendix is not only a vestige in us, but has been for a long, long time. We would have been treated as several different species during the change from whatever we were when it was functional to what we are now. This is an uncited comment and will be removed completely (at the moment it is hidden) if there is no explanation. Richard001 07:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For the origin of this section, I suggest looking at 2006 in the history as well as archive 2. The seeds of the section were in the article from the earliest days, with weasley definitions of vestigial being included. As the article grew, separate sections were added to gather information under and the "controversy" section ended up in that form as an attempt to finally remove any question of what scientists mean when they use the word, and what they have meant in the past. I still think some history of the term and information on the misinformation and misunderstanding that floats around would be useful. Skittle (talk) 00:00, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Creationism section

message: I don't think it would improve this article to give a long list of examples, but perhaps another page could do so? Of course, it would be impossible to give a full list (in fact most are unknown), but a long list could provide more examples and back up the claim that they occur in pretty much every macro-organism (i.e. plants and animals) for the skeptics out there. So it would be something like a list of vestigial traits or something like that. There are a lot of interesting examples I have heard of (e.g. moths that can hear the ultrasonic calls of bats, despite no longer being nocturnal), and I think there are some people out there who might take a lot of convincing. Would this be a good idea, or is it just overkill?  Richard001 (talk) 07:37, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  More examples of vestigial characteristics 

message: Raising the hair is also used to trap an extra layer of air, keeping an animal warm. This reflex formation of goosebumps when cold is not vestigial in humans, but the reflex to form them under stress is.
This portion of the Vestigiality article is based on a since corrected mistake in the Human vestigiality article. Here is the portion in question, followed by the reasons I gave for altering it:
Raising the hair is also used to trap an extra layer of air, keeping an animal warm. This reflex formation of goosebumps when cold therefore has a useful function in humans with thick body hair, but the reflex to form them under stress is vestigial.
# No source is cited to provide evidence that even “particularly hairy humans” are hairy enough to trap a sufficient volume of air to be considered an efficient thermoregulatory mechanism. Without such evidence, the classification of their function as “useful,” even in such people, is unwarranted. Unfortunately, I am unaware of any studies conducted that measure the efficiency.
# The question of whether or not the contraction of Arrectores pilorum, when a human is cold, is an efficient thermoregulatory mechanism in particularly hairy humans is irrelevant to the question of whether or not the mechanism is vestigial in an overall sense. There is no contention that their contraction, when cold, is has no significant thermoregulatory effect in most humans, thus overall, the mechanism is vestigial in regards to thermoregulation, as well as emotion. (regardless of whether or not particularly hairy humans are exceptions)
# Even the Wikapidia article on Arrectores pilorum arrives at the same conclusion (despite requiring a necessary citation to provide sufficient evidence to that end):
Although humans' Arrectores pilorum also contract in response to cold or arousal, they are vestigial because humans do not have enough hair to make them effective. –Erectores_pilorum
For these reasons, I have reworded the Vestigiality article as follows:
Raising the hair is also used to trap an extra layer of air, keeping an animal warm. Due to the diminished amount of hair in humans, the reflex formation of goosebumps when cold is also vestigial.
FutureMolecularBio (talk) 13:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thermoregulatory effect of Human ''Arrectores pilorum'' 

message: The picture in the human section is used wrong. The picture shows that humans still have a tip on their ear, like ancestors used to have.
It's not about the muscles. -00:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The picture in the human section 

message: The following statement in the article, For example, the wings of penguin or ostrich would not be vestigial, as they have been modified for a substantial new purpose (underwater locomotion or display respectively) directly conflicts with this statement, also from the article, The wings of ostriches, emus, and other flightless birds are vestigial. So which is it? Are Ostrich wings vestigial or not. My understanding is the flight characteristic of Ostrich wings is vestigial, but the wing structure is not as it has another use. Whether my understanding is correct or not the statements need to be clarified in the article as they clearly contradict in thier current form.
196.44.7.221 (talk) 12:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ostrich wings 

message: The section on plants and other organisms clearly needs expansion as the article states. There is a reference on the small sentence leading to a pay article. If anyone has access to this article or is willing to pay, please comment here. This is obvious that they do but the information on it is very scientific and advanced. If someone can read the article, please contribute! :) Andrew Colvin (talk) 23:21, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Science's one-page preview works to our advantage here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/pdf_extract/113/2938/465  - the whole article is less than a page long.  I added a few bits from it, but I'm not a botanist. Mokele (talk) 01:36, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Wonderful! I added a bit more but I am so hoping that someone can gain access to the full article! Andrew Colvin (talk) 02:54, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plants 

message: Chemical insecticides are often mutanogenic, and can result in insects that can "normally" fly (such as cockroaches) to be born with deformed wings, which are too ..... well, deformed, for them to be useful. When I went to school (1968) this was taught as an example of vestigiality.  And the famous Thalidomide babies of the 1960s, again their deformed limbs were termed vestigial Is this still the thinking now?
Old_Wombat (talk) 09:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but in a totally different sense. Vestigial has two meanings in biology. In the context of evolution, it's the one described in this article. In more common colloquial usage, vestigial simply means "degenerate" or "undeveloped" [so as to become useless], from the original meaning of vestige - "remnant".-- Obsidi♠n Soul 09:20, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

text: Not really. Definitions are dealt with in the Wiktionary entry: wikt:Vestigial. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and thus the article only deals with the notable subject discussed by the term itself (that in the context of evolution), not its meanings unless they themselves refer to notable subjects that have their own articles. The meaning of "vestigial" in the context of "remnant" has no encyclopedic significance.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 19:09, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wot about? 

message: I was watching this video by Jack Szostak just now and just past 14:00 he talks about evidence for the RNA world hypothesis in modern life. He shows how certain complex molecules have a nucleotide as part of their structure, which does not serve any useful function in modern life forms, yet it may still be there as a remnant of a time very early in the history of life on Earth when it did serve an important purpose. And it reminded me of vestigiality because it is essentially a part of an organism that once served a function but no longer does. It may in fact be one of the earliest examples of vestigiality in life on earth. I think it would be worth looking into and adding to the article, but unfortunately I am not an expert in this area and I don't really know what to look for in the way of sources. Can someone help? CodeCat (talk) 17:56, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vestigiality at the molecular level 

message: Yesterday I put in a couple of changes amounting to a couple of hundred words. Interested parties can inspect the history to evaluate them. They amounted mainly to putting most of the lede content into an introductory overview section, leaving an adequate lede for potential readers, and correcting a few minor errors and one embarrassing blunder. Judgeking however disapproved and reverted the whole lot without more explanation than his edit summary "Use the discussion page before making changes of this magnitude". Far larger edits without special discussion are routine; if we had to waste time waiting for talk page responses and discussion every time we exceed 200 words, we never would get anywhere. A far more appropriate response is either to correct unsuitable content or to discuss it in the talk page, which I certainly have done often and in this case JK has not. Unless anyone has a clear objection, I shall be reinstating the changes later today. JonRichfield (talk) 11:17, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: No one and everyone gets to 'dictate' magnitude.  In case you're not aware, the subjects of evolution and vestigiality are controversial and highly prone to vandalism.  Just a quick glance of the diff show hundreds of changes and 6 paragraphs reduced to 3.  Is   Just like to leave your mark?  Try and make a few hundred word change on the Jesus or Mohammed and see what happens. --Judgeking (talk) 18:34, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You talk too much. --Judgeking (talk) 18:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Who gets to dictate the magnitude of changes?

message: I have edited the vermiform appendix bit slightly, but I am not happy with it. It seems to me that the present (and past) text is too glib in failing to distinguish between the appendix and the caecum. In humans it is really the caecum rather than the appendix that is vestigial. Relatively speaking, the human appendix is not dramatically smaller than in many herbivores, whereas the caecum certainly is. Comments, anyone? JonRichfield (talk) 09:15, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Small appendix

message: A vestigial is any body part which has lost or originally had no functionality from in any respect and developed in the womb (?), not only through resurfacing ancestral genes which have lost functionality. For example, many supernumerary body parts are vestigial. The header should be adjusted to reflect. 
Macmillion Dictionary says: "SCIENCE remaining or existing, but not developed or working". The word does not only relate to paleo-evolutionary categorization and speculation. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 18:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: According to recent research, including biochemical, clinical, and evolutionary studies, the appendix is no longer considered vestigial:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2009.01809.x/abstract;jsessionid=06619B9F28A175E9D107FDEA7058C72F.f04t04
http://www.cghjournal.org/article/S1542-3565%2811%2900580-5/abstract
The Wikipedia entry should be corrected to reflect this fact. There are plenty of other examples of vestigial structures that can be used without resorting to false information about the appendix 129.63.129.196 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 17:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The human appendix is not vestigial 

message: I just wanted to note that I made a recent revision () where I changed the text regarding Robert Wiedersheim in the history section. One of the reasons given was that a particular quote was from a different edition of The structure of man than the one referenced. This was incorrect, the quote is from the correct edition but I still think the current text is clearer.
Knight of the sorrowful countenance (talk) 19:49, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Robert Wiedersheim

message: This may or may not have been treated in one or more of the above sections: Vestigiality of teeth (wisdom teeth) remains, as far as I am aware, debatable. The lack of sufficient space for the third molars to erupt in their entirety in many human oral cavities is likely caused by the diminishing size of human jaws and mouths when subjected to the processed foods of our times rather than the raw foods of our distant ancestors. This lack of space, however, probably cannot be considered responsible for the natural absence of third molars in some human mouths and jaws. Nomore so than the occurrence of supernumerals (teeth or teeth like structures found behind the third molars) that some people are blessed with. These teeth are often tiny or deformed, and mostly lacking. Is this due to the lack of space that prevents them from growing to 'normal' size or even to form? The theory would be that almost all humans in a distant past had 36 fully grown teeth. We cannot know this with any degree of certainty, or that the limited space in mouths or the relative disuse of third and fourth molars made them go away or grow small. That would, to me, be total and totally unproven Lamarckism. We may speculate that our ancestors lost the first and perhaps even second molars to wear before the appearance of third molars around the age of 16+ and that this ensured the ability to chew and consequently survive. For a stone age human who might only live to be 30 this would be crucial. Today it is unimportant, even if we are twice as old, or more, when we die. So, away goes the third molar? Nah.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxthedog (talk • contribs) 20:12, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Teeth