JaeIsGod

Im somewhat of a newbie in this buisness so I have some questions =]

Is it true that sometimes humans are born with a tail , someone told me that today? Can anyone give me some links on that if its true?Does this indicate that we have the genetic code for a tail , but its disabled in general?

Is the human tailbone anything like the tailbone of monkeys ( if they have one)

And if these questions can be answered with yes , isn't the only way to explain this evolution?

JaeIsGod

GunnerJ

The Straight Dope weighs in

That, or a rather playful monkey god.

Valentine Pontifex

Yes this does happen. This is documented in by Douglas Theobald here. It might be best to start reading at the start of that file for full context. It is part of 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution which is the best presentation of the evidence for evolution online that I have seen.

BTW for the crowd here, I see that Dr. Theobald has updated this FAQ today and yes I see stuff in this section that I did not see a few weeks ago.

lpetrich

Some creationists claim that the coccyx or tailbone is somehow essential because certain muscles are attached to it. But if there was no coccyx, then those muscles could attach to the sacrum (pelvis's fused vertebrae) instead.

Oolon Colluphid

And as I have pointed out any number of times before, creationists are misunderstanding ( ) what ‘vestigial’ means. It does not mean ‘useless’ (though something that is vestigial can in practice be functionless, of course). So it’s no surprise if the coccyx, appendix etc do have some minor use.

The point is, in order to perform the claimed function, the item does not have to have the morphology it in fact has. The coccyx has muscle attachments? Well gosh darn. And this explains why it starts off as separate bones, an extension of the spinal column, which fuse into a single lump... how? If a single bone is needed, why not design a single bone? And note that one of its muscle attachments is the extensor coccygis muscle. Which, if it were to contract, would flex these little vertebrae... or would, if they weren’t fused...

Cheers, Oolon

Oolon Colluphid

It also occurs to me that the same is true for any fused-bone complexes.

Only problem is, I can’t think of many others off the top of my head.

There’s the tibiotarsals of birds, which I’m assuming start separately in the embryo, since Hampé’s experiment shows the genes are still present for keeping them separate in an Archaeopteryx-like leg...

Can anyone think of any other bits of skeleton where separate bones fuse to make a single bone? I’ll add them to ‘my’ list .

Cheers, Oolon

Coragyps

The cannon and splint bones in horses - metatarsals that are separate in most foals and fuse by the age of four or so, unless they cause trouble running instead. There are bunches of references to veterinary sites on the web, but biology sites are a little harder to find.

pangloss

Indeed - there is a congenital condition known as sacral agenesis. It is often asymptomatic. as the name implies, the sacrum does not form properly, and as such, the coccyx does not form at all. Yet if the coccyx were so all-important as the creationuts insist, these folks should have all manner of physiological deficieny.

They do not.

Oolon Colluphid

No shit!

ps418

There's the tarsometatarsus of the bird hindlimb, the carpometacarpus of the avian forelimb, there's the six bones of the avian mandible (same six bones seen in adult theropods - gosh!), and IIRC, the 3 avian pubic bones start out unfused also.

Patrick