Our ears once breathed [evolution of ears]

Nature Magazine ^ | 18 January 2006 | Helen Pearson

[PatrickHenry]

Alas for irreducible complexity.

[PatrickHenry]

Evolution Ping The List-O-Links

A conservative, pro-evolution science list, now with over 340 names. See the list's explanation, then FReepmail to be added or dropped. To assist beginners: But it's "just a theory", Evo-Troll's Toolkit, and How to argue against a scientific theory.

[crghill]

Our ears could have started evolutionary life as a tube for breathing, say scientists, after examining the ancestral structure in a 370-million-year-old fossil fish.

Why do scientists continue to deny the fact that God created mankind? There is more scientific evidence that points to that fact than the scientists can ever make up for their imaginary beliefs. Our ears never breathed...what a bunch of hooey!

[Senator Bedfellow]

Preach on!

[caffe]

You really believe this junk science?

[Emmett McCarthy]

All these "discoveries" and "facts" seem to be set 370 million years ago. I think they do that so that not as many people will laugh at them.

[shuckmaster]

provides tangible evidence against the idea, put forward by some proponents of creationism, that sensory organs are so intricate that they must have been designed by a higher being. Brazeau says: "It's a slap in the face to that kind of thinking."

That kind of ignorant thinking needs all the slaps in the face and kicks in the butt educated people can possibly dish out!

[Rudder]

There is more scientific evidence that points to that fact than the scientists can ever make up for their imaginary beliefs.

Hogwash! Put forth your evidence.

[Strategerist]

Why do scientists continue to deny the fact that God created mankind?

If a couple of space aliens walked out of a UFO on to your lawn, you'd "prove" the above fact to them how, exactly?

[M203M4]

"Why are there still monkeys!?"

Now available in a new flavor: "Where are the transitional ears???

[PatrickHenry]

There's another article on this in Science Magazine: The Ear's Missing Link, with a better illustration than the one you can see in the Nature article:

Ear in sight. The middle ear evolved as primitive fish (top) became more advanced (bottom): The spiracle enlarged as the proportions of other bones (yellow, blue) changed.

[Strategerist]

All these "discoveries" and "facts" seem to be set 370 million years ago. I think they do that so that not as many people will laugh at them.

It's because this particular fossil was found in rock strata dated by multiple means to be 370 million years old.

[gcruse]

To be ignorant is curable. The exaltation of ignorance is a life being wasted in slow motion.

[Moonman62]

I wonder if God gets tired of you telling Him how He did it.

[crghill]

Let me translate the article for you:

I don't want there to be a God. I don't want to be responsible to a God. I don't want to think that maybe I'm not the highest thing in the Universe. But more than anything, I don't want you to think that their is a God who is smarter than we scientists because in our little world, WE ARE GOD.

[phantomworker]

Our ears could have started evolutionary life as a tube for breathing

I thought it was common knowledge that our ears evolved from the gills of fish.

[bigcat32]

300+ million years ago? What's so special about this? Evolutionary Biologists talk out of their asses to this day.

[wyattearp]

Some have previously speculated that our ancient ears may have had a role in breathing.

Well, that certainly explains a few things. Everytime I get an earache, three days later - BAM - I get bronchitis or pneumonia. I am AKA 'the wearer of the dorky hat with the earflaps on a sunny day guy' (which was far too long to use as a screenname).

[phantomworker]

Get over yourself. God and evolution are not mutually exclusive.

[manwiththehands]

So, for how many generations did our ancestors have to live with a hole in their heads before it became a lousy "ear" before it became an ear?

And for how many generations did "dinosaurs" have to live with lousy "arms with feathers" before they became wings?