Talk:Vestigiality/Archive 02

message: Hi! As established, I'm not good at footnotes. Also, I'd rather one person was making these changes as they may have an overall super-plan in mind. Baring that in mind, here are some potential sources for the 'controversy' section. Please use as appropriate. Also, should this section touch on the claims that 'evolutionists' have 'redefined' the word vestigial? I'm also wondering whether 'controversy' should be renamed 'differences of opinion' :-)
*Creationists who have claimed vestigial organs would have to be useless, and thus concluded they don't exist. 
**Bergman, J. and Howe, G. (1990) "Vestigial Organs" Are Fully Functional. Kansas City, MO. Creation Research Society Books.
**Sarfati J (2002) "AiG misunderstands evolution?" Answers In Genesis Feedback Response. June 3 (accessed 2006-06-08)
::In which he says "Some evolutionists, like Dr Meiss, now want to re-define 'vestigial' to mean simply 'reduced or altered in function'. . . . AiG isn't going to let evolutionists change the rules at their whim when they are losing the argument." (Note AiG means Answers in Genesis)
*Textbooks
**"A vestigial structure is a functionless or rudimentary version of a body part that has an important function in other, closely allied species." Freeman S & Herron JC (2004) Evolutionary Analysis 3rd edition. Pearson Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, NJ) p39
**"vestigial Occuring in a rudimentary condition, as a result of evolutionary reduction from a more elaborated, functional character state in an ancestor." Futuyma DJ (1998) Evolutionary Biology 3rd edition. Sinauer Associates, Inc (Sunderland, MA) from Glossary
*Scientific Encyclopedia (already footnoted once)
** "Vestigial organs and structures (also called vestigia, rudiments, or remnants) are reduced body parts or organs, often without visible function in the derived bearers, that were fully developed and functioning in earlier members of that phylogenetic lineage. These structures, sometimes described as atrophied or degenerate, are usually small in comparison with their relative size in ancestral generations or in closely related species. ... vestigial structures may have acquired new, less obvious functions that differ from the original ones. Hence, a vestigium should not generally be considered without function, or only with respect to its ancestral, adult roles." "Vestigial Organs and Structures" Encyclopedia of Evolution (2002) Mark Pagel, editor in chief. Oxford University Press (New York, NY) pp 1131-1133
*19th Century scholarly works that show it is not a recent redefinition
**"Rudimentary organs sometimes retain their potentiality, and are merely not developed. . . ."
::"An organ serving for two purposes, may become rudimentary or utterly aborted for one, even the more important purpose, and remain perfectly efficient for the other. . . . [A]n organ may become rudimentary for its proper purpose, and be used for a distinct object. . . ."
::Darwin CR (1859) On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. John Murray (London) Chapt 13
**"Rudimentary organs, on the other hand, are either quite useless, such as teeth which never cut through the gums, or almost useless, such as the wings of an ostrich, which serve merely as sails." Darwin CR (1872) On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Sixth Edition. John Murray (London) p. 398
**"Comparative morphology points not only to the essentially similar plan of organization of the bodies of all Vertebrates, . . . but also to the occurrence in them of certain organs, or parts of organs, now known as "vestigial." . . . By such organs are meant those which were formerly of greater physiological significance than at present."
(Wiedersheim 1893, p 2)
::"Retrogressively modified, the Organs having become wholly or in part functionless, some appearing in the Embryo alone, others present during Life constantly or inconstantly. For the greater part Organs which may be rightly termed Vestigial."
(Wiedersheim 1893, p 200) 
::". . . as was pointed out in the introduction, the term vestigial, is, as a rule, only applied to such organs as have lost their original physiological significance."
(Wiedersheim 1893, p 205)
::Wiedersheim R (1893) The Structure of Man: An Index to His Past History Second Edition. Translated by H. and M. Bernard (1895). Macmillan and Co. (London)
**"... for, although the latter [ostrich] does not fly, it still uses its wings as aids in running swiftly over the African plains and deserts ... Retrogression is, however, not always carried so far as to do away with a structure altogether ... But not infrequently the degenerating organ can be turned to account in some other way, and then retrogression either stops just short of actual elimination, as in the case of the wings of the ostrich, or so alters and transforms the structure as to fit it for new functions ..."  
::Weismann, A. (1886) "IX. Retrogressive Development in Nature." rerpoduced in Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems. Volume II. Poulton, E. B. and Shipley, A. E., editors., Clarendon Press: Oxford. 1892. pp. 5-9
NB These sources are sourced from the talk.origins page referenced on this page. I have seen the Darwin quotes in context, so know they are as they seem. The others I take their word on because I trust them to provide good sources. Skittle 15:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To be honest with you, I don't really have an overarching "plan" for this article. The topic of Vestigial structures is not very large and I think that the four sections currently covered in the article encompass the general ideas of the topic. What I still plan to do is to expand on these four categories as opposed to making new ones. I will look through these things when I get a chance later today. As far as footnotes go, I suggest you head over to WP:FN where there is an indepth guide on how to use footnotes. Thanks for all your help!--SomeStranger (t|c) 15:42, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okee Dokey, I shall try not to destroy the formatting in the process... Skittle 16:13, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 'Controversy' section

message: I have to admit that I am at a loss for any other information I might add to this article. I had hoped that it might eventually become at least a good article, but now I wonder if Vestigial structures are too small a topic. Does anyone else have any suggestions on possible topics that have not yet been covered. I figure I could continue to add to the list of vestigial structures in animals, but at this point I am not sure if that is a very useul list to create.--SomeStranger(t|c) 22:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What else to add 

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