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Author Topic:   human tails and the midriff - hiccups, what are the creatonist theories about them?
slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 31 of 79 (519769)
08-17-2009 5:28 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by Dr Adequate
08-13-2009 9:58 AM


This argument, which I've seen before, seems strange in the mouths of creationists. For if humans would be better if we had tails, then why did an omniscient creator not provide us with them? If, as you must maintain, God did not mess up, then how could our lack of tails be an example of evolution messing up? Surely the creationist question must always be: "How could evolution produce something so perfect that so many people attribute it to God?" not "How could evolution produce something so dumb that I could have designed it better myself?" For if you think that your idea is better, and you attribute the status quo to God ... you see the problem?
Of course, I agree completely. But I do think there was a nuance between my question and the 'creationist argument from undesign' in that my question was not of the style: ''Why didn't evolution give us this or that organ/capacity ?'' but rather ''Why did we lose this or that organ/capacity that our ancestors had ?''.
Because of the difference between the two questions I do think mine was legitimate.
Humans are descended from Old World monkeys. No Old World monkey has a prehensile tail
But if this medical anomaly is indeed a vestigial organ of a tail, than it means our ancestors had a tail. Which means the ancestors of Old world monkeys (the ones we have in common, of course) should also have had a tail.
Technically also, old world monkeys should also have some rare individuals with such vestigial organs.
Natural selection must have a tendency to remove whatever's not really necessary. For consider that every appendage has a cost: it costs to produce it, it costs to maintain it, it carries a risk of injury or infection. If it's not much use, then that's a selective pressure to remove it. Now, in New World monkeys, the tail helps them hang on to trees, in Old World monkeys it serves as an organ of balance ... it is clearly of less use in ground-dwelling apes, such as ourselves, chimp, gorillas, all tailless.
So does the advantaged of having a tail outweigh the disadvantages of having a tail ?
We know that for our ancestors who did have a tail, it was advantageous to have a tail, or else they would not have developped one in the first place. Since we also know it was not prehensile (because of 'Ida', more info on this would be nice), the advantage was not to help them hang in trees. If this advantage was for balance (which is the only alternative I see), they would still not have lost it when becoming ground-dwelling since the tails of other ground-dwelling mammals are advantageous.
Now the other important step in human's evolutionnary lineage is when we become bipedal. Would a 'balance tail' become disadvantageous at that point ? Maybe, its pretty hard to tell. But even then, it would not explain why the other old-world monkeys, who stayed on all four, would have lost theirs ...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Dr Adequate, posted 08-13-2009 9:58 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
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mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 32 of 79 (519770)
08-17-2009 5:29 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by sywen
08-13-2009 7:50 AM


Again, I reiterate that sharing traits is not necessarily relevant.
Does it prove we came from animals with tails? No. Pigs have eyes, does that mean we came from pigs?
Generally we don't have tails. Rather than seeing this "potential" tail-like growth as a sign of evolution, we can see it as a sign of a common designer.
Okay - if we were designed, why do lots of glitches happen? This child was probably subject to a mutation or/and a defective deformity, as a result of living in a fallen world where mutations abound.
Thanks for showing how mutations infact usually only provide defective unhelpful and tragic results.

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Replies to this message:
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bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4189 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 33 of 79 (519777)
08-17-2009 6:43 AM
Reply to: Message 32 by mike the wiz
08-17-2009 5:29 AM


Does it prove we came from animals with tails? No. Pigs have eyes, does that mean we came from pigs?
No, but Humans & Pigs are descended, back to a proto Chordate that had that type of eyes. With the few exceptions that lost their eyes, all Fish, Amphibians,Reptiles including Birds & Mammals have this type of eyes.

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002
Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by mike the wiz, posted 08-17-2009 5:29 AM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 34 of 79 (519797)
08-17-2009 11:04 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by mike the wiz
08-17-2009 5:21 AM


Re: Creationist Answer
My main answer is that biblical creationism explains that this is not a perfect system. Secondly, it follows that in a fallen world many problems will abound.
This is the Science Forum, and it seems you are peddlin' religion.
Unless you have scientific evidence to back up these claims, perhaps?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 35 of 79 (519799)
08-17-2009 11:28 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by slevesque
08-17-2009 5:28 AM


But if this medical anomaly is indeed a vestigial organ of a tail, than it means our ancestors had a tail. Which means the ancestors of Old world monkeys (the ones we have in common, of course) should also have had a tail.
Technically also, old world monkeys should also have some rare individuals with such vestigial organs.
I think there's a bit of confusion here. Old World monkeys do have tails, and our common ancestor with them did have a tail. What they don't have is prehensile tails.
If you look at the phylogeny of primates here, the only animals in it that have prehensile tails are the New World monkeys at the top. As far as I know, all New World monkeys have this prehensile tail, while no other primate we know of, living or extinct, does. The simplest explanation would be that prehensile tails arose just once in the line leading to the New World monkeys. This means that when we're trying to explain the loss of the tail in apes, the tail we're talking about wasn't one that could grip anything.
So does the advantaged of having a tail outweigh the disadvantages of having a tail ?
We know that for our ancestors who did have a tail, it was advantageous to have a tail, or else they would not have developped one in the first place. Since we also know it was not prehensile (because of 'Ida', more info on this would be nice), the advantage was not to help them hang in trees. If this advantage was for balance (which is the only alternative I see), they would still not have lost it when becoming ground-dwelling since the tails of other ground-dwelling mammals are advantageous.
We don't know that our ancestors' tails weren't prehensile just because of Ida - she's just one more primate. As I wrote above, it's because all the known prehensile tails are next to each other on the primate family tree, so it's just the simplest explanation that the trait only arose once.
Bipedalism can't be the explanation behind tail loss. Humans are the only fully bipedal ape, but no apes have tails - including gibbons who spend the majority of their time up in the trees (as do orangutans, I think).
What's more, apes aren't the only mammals to have lost their tails. There are rodents, sloths, hedgehogs, bears and a variety of other ground-dwelling animals without tails - clearly they aren't vital.
I don't really have any idea why apes don't have tails, so sorry if you were expecting a more definite conclusion to this post. It's just a couple of things to think about.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by slevesque, posted 08-17-2009 5:28 AM slevesque has replied

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sywen
Junior Member (Idle past 5336 days)
Posts: 5
Joined: 05-22-2009


Message 36 of 79 (519809)
08-17-2009 1:27 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by mike the wiz
08-17-2009 5:21 AM


Re: Creationist Answer
For example, certain animals might have blue eyes, does this mean I inherited my blue eyes from such organisms?
Does it prove we came from animals with tails? No. Pigs have eyes, does that mean we came from pigs?
that is a common argument from creationists. but it is a fallacy.
no it doesn't mean we canmefrom those animals. but it can mean both humans and that certain animal had a common ancester.
or it could just mean blue eyes are advantageous in a certain environment and that other animal developped those eyes too, because they had a similar environment.
now at the tails, its the same: simply having a few humans with tails doesn't prove we inherited those from the apes. it does prove that humans have the genes for tails. Why do we have those genes? if a creator made those genes, why did he make them, but didnt use them? Didn't made the creator humans as his image? Does the creator have genes for a tail aswell, or does he have a tail? so much questions are rising if you believe someone "created" us.
science can't explain everything.. yet, but creatonism cant explain everything neither, imho, even less.
Edited by sywen, : No reason given.
Edited by sywen, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by mike the wiz, posted 08-17-2009 5:21 AM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
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slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 37 of 79 (519860)
08-17-2009 10:35 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by caffeine
08-17-2009 11:28 AM


I think we are pretty much on the same line here. Only maybe on one little bit I want to clear a misunderstanding:
What's more, apes aren't the only mammals to have lost their tails. There are rodents, sloths, hedgehogs, bears and a variety of other ground-dwelling animals without tails - clearly they aren't vital.
Of course, I didn't mean that a balance tail is vital for a ground-dwelling animal. It is just that if it is advantageous, than there is no reason we would have lost ours considering that our ancestors had one.
Because I do think that someone cannot legitimately claim that these medical anomalies are vestigial organs of a tail our ancestors had, if you cannot explain why it would have become vestigial in the first place.
Of course, I restate that I am creationist, and so I do not believe any of our ancestors ever had a tail. I thus suggested that perhaps this was a simple outgrowth of the coccyx. Now considering sywen's post no27, I do not think this is the answer anymore. Now I have done some research on all this, and it seems that the human embryo does develop a tail-like structure during development, and I would certainly bet that some embryos, due to a mutation, simply keep that tail-like structure during adulthood.
Of course, the fact that embryos develop a tail does in no way mean our ancestors had tails (Unless you want to argue for Haeckel's embryonic recapitulation theory ...). Embryos develop many structures that are not representative of structures possessed by our ancestors, such as a post-anal gut, which clearly none of our ancestors had. The same applies to the tail structure.

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 47 by Dr Adequate, posted 08-20-2009 8:23 PM slevesque has replied
 Message 50 by Dr Adequate, posted 08-22-2009 8:50 PM slevesque has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 38 of 79 (519990)
08-18-2009 10:53 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by slevesque
08-17-2009 10:35 PM


Of course, I didn't mean that a balance tail is vital for a ground-dwelling animal. It is just that if it is advantageous, than there is no reason we would have lost ours considering that our ancestors had one.
Because I do think that someone cannot legitimately claim that these medical anomalies are vestigial organs of a tail our ancestors had, if you cannot explain why it would have become vestigial in the first place.
I did. See post 28.
Of course, the fact that embryos develop a tail does in no way mean our ancestors had tails (Unless you want to argue for Haeckel's embryonic recapitulation theory ...).
It is not necessary to argue for Haeckel's blunders in order to argue that such quirks of embryology provide evidence for evolution.
This is why biologists, who know that Haeckel was wrong about recapitulation, also know that such quirks of embryology provide evidence for evolution.
Embryos develop many structures that are not representative of structures possessed by our ancestors, such as a post-anal gut, which clearly none of our ancestors had.
"Clearly" you say? "Clearly"? Not only is this not "clearly" true, it is, a little research suggests, not even remotely true.
Reasoning that the post-anal gut, if ancestral, was most likely very ancient, I googled the phrase "post-anal gut" together with the word tunicates. You will doubtless recall that chordates are held to be most closely related to the tunicates, or you doubtless would recall this if you were a biologist.
Lo and behold, this google search brought me immediately to a paper, Studies on the Protochordata, which assesses as probable the homology between the endodermic cord of tunicate larvae and the post-anal gut of chordates, and asserts as assured fact the existence of a post-anal gut in certain living chordates:
If the tail of the Ascidian tadpole was primitively segmented, as most authors seem to think, or represents only one segment, as Seeliger (31) thinks, there is in either case no more reason, on this or that account, for regarding the endodermic cord in the tail as representing a rudimentary intestine than for regarding it as the remains of a post-anal gut. The latter was the view which Balfour held (1, p. 634), and is most probably correct, the post-anal gut being typically in many of the higher Vertebratese. g. Selachiansthat portion of the enteric cavity into which the neurenteric canal opens, just as it is in the Ascidians.
Now, considering this, and looking at the embryology of the post-anal gut in tetrapods (in this case the chick, a standard "model organism" in embryology) it seems clear what its role was: like the notocord, with which it lies parallel in the tail, it probably added a certain amount of rigidity which can be dispensed with in animals with caudal vertebrae (again, like the notocord) and still more in animals, such as ourselves, without tails.
Now, perhaps you feel that I have not completely made my case that the post-anal gut is a basal feature of the chordates. But, on the other hand, you haven't even started making a case that it isn't --- you've just used the word "clearly" as a substitute for producing any facts or argument whatsoever.
We cannot therefore accept your entirely unsupported claims about the post-anal gut as a refutation of the proposition that such quirks of embryological development are in conformity with evolutionary history.
---
P.S: what's the creationist explanation for God giving us, and then removing from us, this post-anal gut? Just one of his little pranks, eh?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 39 of 79 (520022)
08-19-2009 4:21 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by slevesque
08-17-2009 5:28 AM


Of course, I agree completely. But I do think there was a nuance between my question and the 'creationist argument from undesign' in that my question was not of the style: ''Why didn't evolution give us this or that organ/capacity ?'' but rather ''Why did we lose this or that organ/capacity that our ancestors had ?''.
Because of the difference between the two questions I do think mine was legitimate.
No, I think the point still stands.
As a creationist, you must assert that God chose to give monkeys tails and humans none, and you must also assert that (being God) his design decision in this respect (as in all others) was a good one.
Well, if humans are better without tails than with, as you must therefore assert, then should not natural selection have removed the tail in the process of turning monkeys into men? If God would have designed us well by not giving us tails, then natural selection would have adapted us well by removing the tails.
The question of whether it would be a good idea for us to have tails now is not affected by the question of whether having tails was the basal state for primates, nor by the question of whether we evolved from them.
---
Your confusion between having prehensile tails and having tails at all has been addressed by another poster.

This message is a reply to:
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mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 40 of 79 (520041)
08-19-2009 6:10 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by sywen
08-17-2009 1:27 PM


Re: Creationist Answer
Hi.
Be fair - "craetionism" has fewer answers as it is relatively "new".
This doesn't mean our answers lack truth. Those with fewer answers aren't necessarily in the wrong.
You ask why God has genes for tails in humans, but in my post I indicated that I don't see it that way. The defection or mutation that would lead to a mistake creating a useless appendage, is not God's will at all, but infact a result of a fallen system.
I can not second-guess God but in my experience, his answers aren't the quick derisive ones that disbelievers come up with.
If it's a quick dig at God, trust me, it's usually nowhere near the real answer.

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mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 41 of 79 (520042)
08-19-2009 6:12 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by bluescat48
08-17-2009 6:43 AM


Prove they are descended.
All you have is a hypothetical cladogram which is nowhere near logical proof. Bare in mind only logic allows your theory to proceed.
This type of evidence that "follows" if evolution is true, is very weak, as you merely have to believe we are related, when the facts themselves do not insist this is so.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 42 of 79 (520048)
08-19-2009 6:41 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by mike the wiz
08-19-2009 6:10 AM


Re: Creationist Answer
Be fair - "craetionism" has fewer answers as it is relatively "new".
Wow.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by mike the wiz, posted 08-19-2009 6:10 AM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 43 of 79 (520049)
08-19-2009 6:43 AM
Reply to: Message 41 by mike the wiz
08-19-2009 6:12 AM


Prove they are descended.
All you have is a hypothetical cladogram which is nowhere near logical proof. Bare in mind only logic allows your theory to proceed.
This type of evidence that "follows" if evolution is true, is very weak, as you merely have to believe we are related, when the facts themselves do not insist this is so.
Prove they are descended.
All you have is a hypothetical cladogram which is nowhere near logical proof. Bare in mind only logic allows your theory to proceed.
This type of evidence that "follows" if evolution is true, is very weak, as you merely have to believe we are related, when the facts themselves do not insist this is so.
I am mildly curious as to what you can be talking about, but I guess it's probably not on topic in this thread.

This message is a reply to:
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bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4189 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 44 of 79 (520072)
08-19-2009 8:59 AM
Reply to: Message 41 by mike the wiz
08-19-2009 6:12 AM


All you have is a hypothetical cladogram which is nowhere near logical proof. Bare in mind only logic allows your theory to proceed.
Actually it is a robust theory rather that your ideas of creation which are no more that beliefs handed down from bronze age myths.

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002
Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by mike the wiz, posted 08-19-2009 6:12 AM mike the wiz has not replied

  
themasterdebator
Inactive Member


Message 45 of 79 (520216)
08-19-2009 11:11 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by mike the wiz
08-19-2009 6:12 AM


Prove they are descended.
All you have is a hypothetical cladogram which is nowhere near logical proof. Bare in mind only logic allows your theory to proceed.
This type of evidence that "follows" if evolution is true, is very weak, as you merely have to believe we are related, when the facts themselves do not insist this is so.
the proof they descended would be in their accurate ability to make predictions. 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent provides a good synopsis of the large body of evidence and predictions that evolution can make. Tell me, how does one test creationism? What predictions does the theory of creationism make that can be tested against reality that evolution would not make? The most important part of any scientific theory(and this is a science forum) is that it can make predictions by which the theory can be tested.
What predictions does Creationism make?
How have these predictions been tested against reality?

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