Skepchick Presents: A Conversation with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (Part 7)

Sam Ogden, contributing writer for the wildly popular skeptical blog, Skepchick, sits down with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium and the NOVA scienceNOW program for a conversation about the universe, scientific literacy, and sundry other topics.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• astrophysics
• science
• Skepchick
• Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Sam Ogden

[billythefifer]

Science = asking how does this work.

Creation = I don't care how this works coz god did it.

[SockbatReplica]

Actually it's worse than that.. Because not only do creationists not ask how something works.. Or not only do they not have the desire to find out how things work themselves.. But they say that nobody else should go ahead and figure out how things work either. They insist that the rest of us be as ignorant as they are and that no further inquiry is necessary.

[Mhyque]

That... was a really awkward ending line "Don't ever get used to being alive."

It's obvious he's referring to a love of life, but taken out of context it certainly sounds odd... and foreboding.

[freedomland11]

Is this Hootie? where are the blowfish??? hahaha!!! the 2nd black man that could pull of the cowboy look

[TheLostGuitarist]

@drfoxcourt It was actually attached to the coccyx...the vestigial tail bone lol. It's actually nearly identical in structure to the primate tail-wagging muscle. However in the human there is no nerve connections, it just sits there.

[drfoxcourt]

@TheLostGuitarist Thanks for the info. It seems my info is not the most current. More ammunition in the fight for knowledge and truth.

So what was the Coccygeus muscle supposed to do in the pre-human physiology?

[TheLostGuitarist]

@drfoxcourt but back to the appendix, it does contain lymphatic tissue however so does most of your small intestine. The amount of endogenous commensal bacteria in the length of our intestine far trumps anything in the appendix, making it completely unnecessary.

[TheLostGuitarist]

@drfoxcourt there's also the example of the coccygeus muscle which has no nerve connections. For a while it was thought to "hold the pelvic diaphragm" but in reality, experimentation and case studies where that muscle was removed showed it didn't actually hold up anything. It's completely vestigial.

There's also the sinuses - frontal, maxillary, etc. Absolutely no purpose at all except to cause pain when they get infected lol.

[TheLostGuitarist]

@drfoxcourt I'm a medical student this is not true, it was HYPOTHESIZED to be part of the neonatal immune system but none of the papers actually held water.

There are far better examples of vestigial structures though. For instance there is a muscle in the foot that many people don't have, and if you do have it it has no function. It's vestigial from when we used to have feet that were used similar to hands

[drfoxcourt]

@dyly18 The human appendix is not a useless organ. For years physiologists thought it had no function, but now it is recognized as part of the neonatal immune system. This is not to say that the appendix could have been designed better (stoopid design).

The appendix is clearly a holdover from our savannah dwelling primate ancestry and not pooffed into being by some "intelligent"' designer,

[drfoxcourt]

I just love Neil's laugh at 8:05

[0sAndOnes]

How can u not respect this man?