The human appendix is generally considered to be a vestigial organ. In other words, we needed it “way back when” our diets and lifestyles were more primitive (caveman days, not great-grandma’s days), but now it is considered largely worthless, existing only to provide surgeons with an income stream.
Now, however, all that conventional wisdom appears to be doing another cartwheel. A researcher at Duke University School of Medicine wondered one day if perhaps the appendix serves as a reservoir of the ‘good gut bugs’ our intestines need to function optimally. And now, a few years later, there is some experimental evidence this may be true.
Here is yet another example where we have assumed something was non-functional when it is functional or had a different function than it really has. We understand so much, and also so little. As Christian scholars, the importance of maintaining humility regarding the scope, importance and validity of our scholarship is vital. Neither should we hinder the freeflow of random thought that sometimes leads us to ‘serendipitous’ ideas that revolutionize our fields.
Who knows what God will allow us to discover next?
SDG
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