Science speaks of useless physiological structures, as when we read in
“The Descent of Man”:
Man, as well as every other animal, presents structures which,
as far as we can judge with our little knowledge, are not now of
any service to him, nor have been so during any former period
of his existence, either in relation to his general condition
of life, or of one sex to the other. Such structures can not
be accounted for by any form of selection, or by the inherited
effects of the use and disuse of parts.
Useless structures are not discerned alone by science. History and
experience, in the large field of life, have seen them many times. The
efforts of man have often reclaimed “useless structures.”
(3361)