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CRITERIA. "The first criterion for vestigiality is that in comparison to its state in the sister groups the structure exhibits extreme reduction. The second criterion is that the structure has lost the specialized morphology that it exhibits in the sister groups. The third criterion is that the structure has lost a salient ancestral function." https://lnkd.in/eMd4h72 View in LinkedIn

NO LACK. "Mammals provide a plethora of examples of vestigial structures." https://lnkd.in/eMd4h72 View in LinkedIn

VESTIGIAL. "History has revised them, creationists deny them, but vestigial organs are still an unmistakable part of our evolutionary heritage." https://lnkd.in/eTmF_BF View in LinkedIn

PROBLEM SOLVED. "A widely accepted resolution to the seemingly inextricable duality of genotype–phenotype is that the modern ‘DNA–protein’ world evolved from simpler precursor system involving only one major molecular species that played both the role of information carrier and of enzymatic catalyst. In modern organisms, RNA is a biochemical mediator, enabling the translation of DNA to protein." http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/79/20120869.short View in LinkedIn

TWO HISTORIES. "Life is a dynamic process, and organismal structures disclose the history of the two principal levels of biological change: evolutionary and developmental. Vestiges (from the Latin vestigium, for footprint) reveal traces of prior states. Like actual footprints, vestiges offer glimpses of what was once there but is no longer present. In biological terms, they reveal former evolutionary and developmental conditions, and in this way they offer valuable keys to unlock the past." http://evolution-outreach.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-014-0012-5 View in LinkedIn

ANALOG OR DIGITAL. "The chicken-or-egg problem, as traditionally posed, thus amounts to a debate of whether analogue or digital hardware came first." http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/79/20120869.short View in LinkedIn

DEEP VESTIGIAL STRUCTURES. "Vestigial features of humans and other organisms are well known and have long been used as key evidence for evolution. Such features include not only anatomical structures but also physiological processes, biochemical reactions, and even behaviors." Not to mention transposons derived from ancient viruses that dominate genomes. http://evolution-outreach.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-014-0012-5 View in LinkedIn

DECOUPLING. "It is this transition where one should expect to see a chemical system literally take-on ‘a life of its own’, characterized by informational dynamics which become decoupled from the dictates of local chemistry alone (while of course remaining fully consistent with those dictates)." http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/79/20120869.short View in LinkedIn

INSUFFICIENT. "Explaining the chemical substrate of life and claiming it as a solution to life's origin is like pointing to silicon and copper as an explanation for the goings-on inside a computer." http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/79/20120869.short View in LinkedIn

HARDWARE PLUS SOFTWARE. "In our view, an explanation of life's origin is fundamentally incomplete in the absence of an account of how the unique causal role played by information in living systems first emerged. In other words, we need to explain the origin of both the hardware and software aspects of life, or the job is only half finished." http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/79/20120869.short View in LinkedIn