Why do we have a tail bone if we don’t come from apes?
Answered by Diane Eager ,
The “tail bone” is the small triangular bone at the lower end of your back bone or vertebral column. Early anatomists thought it was shaped “like a cuckoo’s beak” they gave it the name coccyx (from the Latin for Cuckoo). They didn’t call it a tail because it doesn’t look like one. It’s nickname of “tail bone” came from Darwin and his followers who believed it was the useless or vestigial remains of a tail, left over from monkey-like evolutionary ancestors. However, this bone is no more useless than any other bone in the body. So what does it do?
One of the editors AskJohnMackay.com found the answer the hard way when he tore the ligaments attached to his’ tail bone’ whilst doing sports training. He writes about the experience: “ I knew something was badly wrong when I could only walk by shuffling each leg forward using my upper body strength. If I was standing up, that’s where I preferred to stay. It was too painful to try and sit down. If I was sitting down, I didn’t want to get up – shifting position was exquisite agony.”
Medical research has shown that the muscles which help us sit or stand, all gain their ability to move us only because they are attached to our fully functional and necessary so called ‘tail bone’ which of course means that human beings do not actually have a useless or even vestigial “tail bone”!
The coccyx is fully functional part of the system of bones, ligaments and muscles of the pelvis, that protects and supports the pelvic organs, and contributes to our upright stance and walking. It provides stable anchorage points for ligaments and muscles which is an essential function of all bones. Without this – we don’t move. Bones must never be considered in isolation, since they are part of an integrated musculoskeletal system that supports and protects body organs, and enables us to move.
The claim that the tail bone or coccyx is useless, and therefore must be evidence for evolution, as well as evidence against creation, (because no intelligent Creator would make useless organs) is claim made out of ignorance. The human musculo-skeletal system shows all the evidence of brilliant creation. Consider how much clever engineering has already gone into attempts to make a robot that can walk like a human. When robot scientists do manage this it will be because of intelligent, creative design and engineering, not because of chance random processes.
Abu Hurayrah (RA)narrated that Rasool Allah (Prophet muhammad PBUH said:
“The earth would consume every part of the son of Adam (after his death) except for one bone; the coccyx (the bone at the base of the vertebral column) from which he is created and from which his body will be reconstituted on the Day of Resurrection”.
Hadith 457 sahih bukari (detailed in hadith 338) chapter ‘Prophetic Commentary on the Quran (Tafseer of the Prophet (pbuh)
It has been proven that this preliminary strand decomposes (after man’s death) except for a small part (the origin of the coccyx), which remains at the end of the vertebral column (or in the vertebra known as the coccyx) and this is what is meant by “Agbu adh-dhanab” in the hadith.
When man dies, the whole body decomposes except for this part, from which – as mentioned in the hadith – man is recreated, exactly as a plant germinates from a seed. This process takes place, when, at the time of Resurrection, special rain falls from the sky, by the Will of Allah, The Almighty.
Abu Huraira said, “Allah’s Messenger (PBUH) said,
‘Between the two sounds of the trumpet, there will be forty.” Somebody asked Abu Huraira, “Forty days?” But he refused to reply. Then he asked, “Forty months?” He refused to reply. Then he asked, “Forty years?” Again, he refused to reply. Abu Huraira added. “Then (after this period) Allah will send water from the sky and then the dead bodies will grow like vegetation grows, There is nothing of the human body that does not decay except one bone; that is the little bone at the end of the coccyx of which the human body will be recreated on the Day of Resurrection.”
(Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith No. 338)