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- From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
- Newsgroups: sci.space
- Subject: The Appendix? (Re: Acceleration, cats...)
- Message-ID: <1992Dec23.185547.27700@cs.rochester.edu>
- Date: 23 Dec 92 18:55:47 GMT
- References: <Bzp503.648.1@cs.cmu.edu> <Bzq6u7.6AB@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
- Followup-To: sci.med
- Distribution: sci
- Organization: University of Rochester
- Lines: 16
-
- In article <Bzq6u7.6AB@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes:
-
- > Two things come to mind. First, you can't blame everything on
- > evolution. The appendix comes to mind. Some things are around simply
- > because they weren't selected against.
-
- Actually, I was under the impression the appendix was thought
- to have some role in the immune system (say, for acting against
- GI infections). Given that appendicitis can be lethal, evolution
- *should* have gotten rid of it unless it had some compensating
- benefit.
-
- (Note followup.)
-
- Paul F. Dietz
- dietz@cs.rochester.edu
-