Page 515 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Harun Yahya

Accordingly, it is accepted that the myth of vestigial organs subscribed to by so many evolutionists is
an argument based on ignorance. In "Do 'Vestigial Organs' Provide Evidence for Evolution?," an article in
the magazine Evolutionary Theory, the evolutionist biologist S.R. Scadding writes:

As our knowledge has increased, the list of vestigial structures has decreased. . . Since it is not possible to un-
ambiguously identify useless structures, and since the structure of the argument used is not scientifically

valid, I conclude that "vestigial organs" provide no special evidence for the theory of evolution. 76

Even though it has taken evolutionists about one and a half century to reach this conclusion, another
myth of Darwinism has evaporated.

The Panda's Thumb

The beginning of this chapter invalidated Richard Dawkins' claim that the vertebrate retina is faulty.
Another evolutionist, supporting the same ideas, is the late Stephen J. Gould, a paleontologist at Harvard

University. Before his death in 2002, he had become one of America's leading evolutionists.
Like Dawkins, Gould also wrote about an example of "faulty" characteristics—the thumb of
the panda.
Unlike a human hand, a panda does not have an opposable thumb apart from
its other four fingers that lets it hold objects easily. Its five digits extend out

side by side. But besides these five parallel digits, there is also a projection
in its wrist called the "radial sesamoid bone." The panda sometimes uses
this bone as a finger, and so biologists call it the panda's thumb.

Gould claimed that this bone in the panda's hand was non-
functional. Gould was so convinced of the importance of his
thesis that in 1980, he published a book on the subject.
Like Dawkins' claim, however, Gould's thesis of faulty
characteristic was also wrong. Gould's error lay in com-

paring the panda's hand with that of a human, assuming
that the panda's thumb had the same
function. On this matter, Paul

Nelson makes the following com-
ment:
Stephen Jay Gould
Although the panda's thumb
may be suboptimal for many
tasks (such as typing), it does

seem suited for what ap-
pears to be its usual
function, stripping
bamboo. 77

The authors of
The Giant Pandas of

Wolong comment as
follows:

The panda can
handle bamboo

stems with great
precision, by
holding them as

Adnan Oktar 513