FYI: When Will We Evolve Out Of Our Useless Appendages?
Wisdom Teeth Are On Their Way Out It will take us a long time to evolve out of our wisdom teeth. p_x_g on Flickr Never. We're probably stuck with our appendix, pinky toes, tailbone and just about all of our other evolutionary holdovers. Wisdom teeth may eventually go, but major changes like losing an appendage (teeth included) take millions and millions of years - who knows if humans will even be around that long. What's more, most of our seemingly useless vestiges are actually helpful. The coccyx, or tailbone, "is an attachment point of a number of muscles at the pelvis. We need it for upright locomotion. It would be catastrophic if it went away," says Kenneth Saladin, an anatomist and physiologist at Georgia College and State University. The appendix, which helped our distant ancestors digest grass, has slowly evolved to take on a new purpose. Research led by William Parker...