Review: Why Evolution Is True

3. Remnants: Vestiges, Embryos, and Bad Design

• Vestigial traits
  • “It is vestigial not because it’s functionless, but because it no longer performs the function for which it evolved.”
  • Examples
    • Wings in flightless birds
    • Eyes in species that operate in dark
    • Humans that can wiggle ears
• Atavisms
  • Throwback traits
    • Whales with legs
  • Embryonic developments that disappear
• Dead genes/Pseudogenes
  • No longer function
  • DNA evidence for evolution and common ancestry
• “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.”
  • Kind of
• Bad Design
  • “Perfect design would truly be the sign of a skilled and intelligent designer. Imperfect design is the mark of evolution; in fact it’s precisely what we expect from evolution.”
  • ID proponents still argue “God did it, but we don’t know why.”
    • But evolution as an explanation still makes sense. Who needs God?

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