If you're a baby boomer (or earlier) you've no doubt been presented in high school and college the story of the alleged lack of function of our appendix. Instructors called it — and continue to call it — "degenerate" or "rudimentary" — a nonfunctional vestige of evolution that modern man no longer needs.

Removal of wisdom teeth has become commonplace in western countries. Based on evolutionary training, many dentists assume that wisdom teeth are "vestigial," useless evolutionary left-overs from our simian ancestry when jaws were larger.

In an article on whale evolution (Natural History 5/94) peppered with negative remarks toward creationists, Steven J. Gould of Harvard, perhaps one of the more strident anti-creationists today, stated: