Thursday, December 23, 2010

Counters to Conservapedia (Part 5): Wisdom Teeth

I scrolled down the list a little further to find this gem from the List of Counterexamples to Evolution from Conservapedia:

We have the perfect number of teeth to fit in our mouths. While creationism perfectly accounts for that result, evolutionism predicts a contrary result: As our faces evolved from chimpanzee-like faces to human faces, the shortening of the muzzle would have caused the teeth to become overcrowded in the mouth.
    Where to begin?  I almost think this is an example of Poe's Law (Sarcasm masquerading as Fundamentalism), but I will approach it as a "serious" argument.
    OralMD.Com: Wisdom Teeth another vestige of evolution!

    Many humans have too many teeth.  In fact, I had to have my wisdom teeth removed because of the impact they would have on my other teeth.  Many people go through this same process- clearly.  We do not have the "perfect number of teeth to fit in our mouths".  

    Let's look a little deeper.  One way to divide the primate group is by dentition (pattern of teeth).  New World Monkeys have a dental pattern of 2 incisors, 1 canine, 3 premolars and 3 molars (1/4 of mouth).  Old World Monkeys, Apes and humans have a different pattern of 2.1.2.3.  The third molar in humans we know as the Wisdom Teeth.  From this we conclude that  OWM, Apes and humans shared a common ancestor after the NWM.

    Next, we can look at the muzzle of hominids.  Chimps and other apes have a muzzle that sticks out in front of the nose (bigger jaw = more room for teeth).  On our line to the other hominid species, the muzzle gradually shortens to our modern profile.  That shortening crowds the teeth which have not changed, thus producing the problem of the wisdom teeth.  Variation with in the human family, shows that some of us don't need to have our wisdom teeth removed, while others do. 

    No comments:

    Post a Comment