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To an extent. But my main claim is that vestigial organs cannot exist if those same organs have a purpose. So far every example of a vestigial organ has turned out to actually have a purpose, thus making it very un-vestigial.

I mean...one of you brought up the appendix, which scientists now widely recognize as an aid to the immune system. It baffles my mind what's so hard to understand about why that means its not a vestigial organ. Its not even worth talking about it anymore.


Just a quick note on this: vestigial does not mean "without purpose". According to the Oxford English Dictionary vestigial="degenerate, rudimentary, or atrophied, having lost its function in the course of evolution".

The appendix plays a minor role in the immune system and you can live without it , it's part of the digestive tract but no longer has its original function, thus atrophied is an appropriate description of its status.

What makes vestigial organs interesting in this context is that you can see how they are essential in one organism and how in other organisms you find similar structures yet they only play a minor role or none at all. The similarity is a good clue to common descent, the existence of a suboptimal organ hints at a suboptimal "designer".