Question

Study of rudimentary organs is
(a) Dermatology
(b) Dysteleology
(c) Chirology
(d) Etiology

Answer 1

Hint: Rudimentary organs are vestigial organs. Vestigial organs do not provide any significant function to us hence the name vestigial. So, the term used for the study of vestigial organs would mean something related to studying wasteful things.

Complete answer:
The study of rudimentary or vestigial organs is known as Dysteleology. The term dysteleology means the study of something that is pointless or doesn’t have any purpose for the life of the organism. Vestigial organs are those organs of our body that used to be functional and helpful for our ancestors but now they do not have much purpose in our body and with time their size has diminished due to less usage. There are many vestigial organs in our body like the appendix, wisdom tooth, tailbone, muscle ears, etc.

Additional Information: Now, we will go through the terms mentioned in the remaining options.
Dermatology: It is the field of study involving skin, hair, nails, etc. Skin is the largest organ of our body and is also very important as it is the barrier that protects us from the outside world.
Chirology: It is the study of reading the palm lines of a person in order to predict their future.
Etiology: It is the field of study of causes and origins of diseases. This field proves to be very crucial for the prevention and further spread of the disease. For example, the cause of COVID-19 was an infection from a bat which will help us prevent this disease because now we will avoid bats.
So, the correct answer is ‘Dysteleology.’

Note: Vestigial organs provide proof of organic evolution. Proof that as we got selected to better suit our environment, the organs which we didn’t require anymore became non-functional.
Our ancestors used to have long and thick body hair. This was because when approached by a predator, goosebumps would make the hair stand straight, giving the illusion that we are much bigger in size. This was a tactic used by our ancestors to scare away predators.
But as we evolved, we learnt how to make weapons to scare away the predators thus we didn’t need body hair anymore. Now we have a very reduced form of body hair left.