Dara O'Briain - God Moments

@CherrySprings do u even know what the appendix is?

Yes, a worm-shaped attachement, litterally. Why do you ask?

I love Dara !

I hadn't considered not being finished with evolution, but you're plrobably right. Though I think with the medical care we're not going to get any progress, evolution-wise. That survival of the fittest stuff hardly goes these days. If you're born with an appendix you just have it taken out and go produce appendixed kids. If someone would be born without an appendix nobody feels the need to have kids with this person just because he's a survivor so he doesn't have any evolutionary advantage.

its hard to say, but it certainly isnt as easy as "the stuff that kills you get kicked out". The 2 driving forces behind it im aware of are conscious decision and natural selection. the former happens when we decide we like specific things about each other and decide to reproduce with them. the later happens when a dissadvantaged mutation dies out, and the advantaged lives on to reproduce the population with their advantaged genetics.

clearly both forces arnt capable of getting rid of genetics which are neutral

nevertheless, someday it will dissapear. random variation will produce kids born without the appendix, and due to its neutral status (not advantaged or disadvantaged) , the kids will reproduce other kids without an appendix. for a while 2 variants will exist, until one day all will be gone.

The appendix is involved with keeping the bacteria in your gut healthy, but even if it wasn't, how could it be an argument against evolution?

Well in evolution the stuff that kills you gets kicked out of the system. EternalAtheist commented that we're not finished with evolution (hadn't thought of that but makes sense) The appendix isn't really missed by people who have had theirs removed and basically just gets infected and kills you. In my opinion, that would be something that evolution might have taken out of our bodies already. I believe in evolution, by the way, but appendixes are just weird.

It is weird, but it seems that there isn't much of a selective pressure to get rid of it. Wisdom teeth are seemingly much more dangerous, with every adult growing a pair or two, but things like appendectomies and teeth pulling may have replaced the necessity for a mutation that would prevent us from developing with the aforementioned deathtraps.