6 surprising examples of human vestigiality

Goose bumps, junk DNA, and even a baby's grip of a parent's finger: All seemingly useless traits left over from human evolution

This grasp reflex was useful to our more hairy predecessors. But it's mostly just cute to us now.
(Image credit: ThinkStock/Stockbyte)

People have speculated over the nature of seemingly useless physical characteristics in living things for thousands of years. It wasn't until the late 18th and early 19th centuries, though, that the idea of vestigiality would enter the public imagination via the writings of a couple of French naturalists and pre-emptive Darwinists, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Darwin would, of course, go on to redefine the field of human biology some half-century later with On the Origin of Species, but it was his second book, 1871's The Descent of Man, where he listed a number of the structures we know today as vestigial for the first time, among them the appendix, tail bone, and wisdom teeth.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us