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→Human appendix: Most of the T.O. article is not on the point in question.
::I am a little confused as to what exactly you're arguing here...the page I cited has copious references most of which are accessible through pubmed. In some cases it even provides a link for you! I am not going to count them all but it looks like over 60 peer reviewed papers. Your sources cited about 4, none of which I could find despite my best efforts. Are you seriously calling the NEJM as POV as the Journal of Creation? It's one of the most widely respected journals in the world. On the ulcerative collitis issue, the proposed '''role''' of the appendix in that disease is that it causes it! I don't know about you, but I think causing a disease does not constitute evidence that the organ is not vestigial. If you are in doubt feel free to read the NEJM paper on the same topic (its just above the one you cherry-picked). The page I cited is correct to claim that the Dasso paper provided no evidence for an immunological function for the appendix, it looked for one and was unable to find it! They didn't say that the authors did an exhaustive search of every possible time and place that the appendix could have a role and conclusively determined that it didn't have one. There is a big difference. Please also keep in mind that the statement that my citation is attached to is "Examples of structures '''claimed''' to be vestigial include, but are not limited to, the human appendix..." I did not attach this to a definitive statement like you did. As for your last statement: are we looking at the same page? Do you see those dozens of blue hyperlinks? Those are all references! Frankly, I think the page I cited does a much better job providing evidence for non-vestigiality than the ones you cited did. Just look at the section of the references titled "possible functions." There are 10 peer-reviewed sources there. Before you do that however, I would recommend taking a look at some of the references under the "Congenital Absence of the Appendix" section. We just might settle this argument after you do that...unless you can tell me how someone born without a non-vestigial organ can survive with no ill effects? [[User:GodWarrior|GodWarrior]] 10:20, 30 May 2007 (EDT)
::I am a little confused as to what exactly you're arguing here...the page I cited has copious references most of which are accessible through pubmed. In some cases it even provides a link for you! I am not going to count them all but it looks like over 60 peer reviewed papers. Your sources cited about 4, none of which I could find despite my best efforts. Are you seriously calling the NEJM as POV as the Journal of Creation? It's one of the most widely respected journals in the world. On the ulcerative collitis issue, the proposed '''role''' of the appendix in that disease is that it causes it! I don't know about you, but I think causing a disease does not constitute evidence that the organ is not vestigial. If you are in doubt feel free to read the NEJM paper on the same topic (its just above the one you cherry-picked). The page I cited is correct to claim that the Dasso paper provided no evidence for an immunological function for the appendix, it looked for one and was unable to find it! They didn't say that the authors did an exhaustive search of every possible time and place that the appendix could have a role and conclusively determined that it didn't have one. There is a big difference. Please also keep in mind that the statement that my citation is attached to is "Examples of structures '''claimed''' to be vestigial include, but are not limited to, the human appendix..." I did not attach this to a definitive statement like you did. As for your last statement: are we looking at the same page? Do you see those dozens of blue hyperlinks? Those are all references! Frankly, I think the page I cited does a much better job providing evidence for non-vestigiality than the ones you cited did. Just look at the section of the references titled "possible functions." There are 10 peer-reviewed sources there. Before you do that however, I would recommend taking a look at some of the references under the "Congenital Absence of the Appendix" section. We just might settle this argument after you do that...unless you can tell me how someone born without a non-vestigial organ can survive with no ill effects? [[User:GodWarrior|GodWarrior]] 10:20, 30 May 2007 (EDT)
:::The Talk.Origins page has copious references, but as I said, most of the article is not actually arguing that the appendix doesn't have a use. It describes the appendix, discusses what it is similar to, puts a point of view about what the term "vestigial" actually means, explains how the human appendix is not the same as the rabbit appendix, discusses older suggestion regarding possible uses of the appendix, and even has a theological argument about it supposedly being a suboptimal design, but spends relatively little space actually arguing that there are no known uses. And in the section in which it does, it provides three references, all three of which I referred to (one to mention as being older) in my reply above. In other words, the remaining references appear to all be tangential to the specific question of whether or not the appendix has a known use.
:::Is the NEMJ neutral on the creation/evolution issue, or does it accept evolution as true? If the latter, then it has a POV just as the Journal of Creation has.
:::You've got me on the point about causing a disease. Have you looked at the paper itself to see what it actually says?
:::If they didn't do an exhaustive search, the possibility remains that it has a use that they didn't find. And if someone else says that they ''have'' found a use, then what weight does the first paper have on that point? You can't argue that the latter is wrong simply because the former failed to find a use.
:::I realise that you didn't attach your reference to a definitive statement, but (a) neither did I reject your statement nor its reference, and, more to the point, (b) you are using your reference to make a definitive statement that my definitive statement is wrong and must therefore be changed.
:::Explaining how a person born without a non-vestigial organ can suffer no ill effects takes no imagination at all, because the question is a non-sequitur. Having no use is not the same thing as having a supplementary or backup use. If a car's spare tyre is missing but the road tyres don't go flat, the spare will not be missed, but it does not follow that the spare tyre therefore has no use.
:::[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 11:23, 30 May 2007 (EDT)