Our ears once breathed [evolution of ears]

Nature Magazine ^ | 18 January 2006 | Helen Pearson

[PatrickHenry]

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.

Evolutionary biologists are intrigued by how complicated sensory organs evolved from structures that may have had completely different uses in ancestral creatures. The bony structures in ancient fish, which at some point turned into ears, for example, appear to have had mainly a structural function, bracing the cheek and holding up the jaw. How exactly they made the transition to their role in hearing has proved a bit of a mystery.

The ear is a relatively easy organ to study. Its evolving bones have been preserved as fossils, whereas the soft tissues of other specialized features, such as eyes and noses, have long decayed.

So Martin Brazeau and Per Ahlberg of Uppsala University in Sweden decided to take a close look at the ear-like features of an ancient, metre-long monster from the Latvian Natural History Museum in Riga. Panderichthys was a fish, but is thought to be closely related to the earliest four-limbed tetrapods that eventually climbed on to land and gave rise to modern vertebrates.

The researchers examined Panderichthys and found that the bony structures in its head combine features of fish and tetrapods, capturing a snapshot of evolution in action. "It's neat to see that transition," says Hans Thewissen who studies the evolution of the ear and other organs at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Rootstown.

Half-way house

Ancient fish have a narrow channel from the roof of the skull into the mouth, known as a spiracle, which is bounded by a long bone known as the hyomandibula that braces the cheek. In tetrapods, the equivalent bone is stubbier, a step towards the stirrup-like stapes bone that helps to transmit sound waves into our skulls.

The team found that Panderichthys has a wide, straight spiracle rather than a narrow one, and a shortened hyomandibula. They report their findings in Nature¹.

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

On the basis of this new fossil evidence, the team speculates that the widened spiracle may have served Panderichthys much like the breathing holes used by modern-day sharks and rays. These allow the fish to inhale water over their gills while lying on the seabed, and avoid gulping in grit through the mouth.

The demonstration of an organ evolving 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."

---

Footnote 1: Brazeau M. D.& Ahlberg P. E. Nature, 439. 318 - 321 (2006).

[wyattearp]

Remember the "primordial soup" of the early earth, made up of NH3 CO2, H2O that we were told gave rise to the first life.

I wasn't aware that anybody had nailed down the exact recipe.

Well it should have left behind a lot of nitrogen bearing sediments.

Assuming that your ingredients are correct, why would it have done that, and how would we test for it?

[Ichneumon]

You guys spend the rest of the evening feeling smug about how your scientific knowledge trumps my common sense.

It does. Common sense is often very wrong. Beliefs need to be reality-checked, which is what the scientific method is all about.

Be sure that you don't forget that your just trying to make yourselves feel better.

No, we're trying to advance knowledge, and hold back the spread of falsehoods born of ignorance.

Perhaps you could get together and write an article on how our noses used to be appendages utilized to help us swing from tree to tree!

If that's what the evidence indicates, we would. But it doesn't.

Now if you have any objection to the actual evidence, feel free to state it. Otherwise, your despreate cries of "lies, all lies" just make you look silly, and rather pitiful.

[Strategerist]

You guys spend the rest of the evening feeling smug about how your scientific knowledge trumps my common sense.

"Common Sense" has been repeatedly proven to be wrong through scientific inquiry. For example, "Common Sense" would tell you that heavier objects fall faster, which people believed till Galileo proved that wrong.

[Mamzelle]

And you trust the PEERS? I'm glad America moved beyond the peerage. I don't need barons and squires and such--

Fraud is rife in scientific academia. The stakes are high--prestige, money, status, money, careers, money, tenure, money. A scientist is just as likely as anyone else to fall to tempation.

I think I'll keep this article in the "entertainment" category. Such speculation is fun--but only a fool would take it all that seriously.

[gotribe]

So now I have to worship ear breathing tubes? Damn, this religion stuff just gets so confusing.

[GadareneDemoniac]

Back when women had tails....

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"I don't remember it being answered, so please tell me again."

It gets answered every post. The origins of life are not part of evolutionary theory. You have been told this over and over again.

[Ichneumon]

Macro Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics.

Oh, puh-leaze, not another person parroting what they've read in the creationist pamphlets... No, son, sorry -- it doesn't.

Nothing gets more complicated without external influences.

Gee, really?

This became more complicated than the amorphous water vapor from which it formed, and it did so by natural processes, no "designer" had to be involved for it to crystallize, and this doesn't violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics (nor any other law of nature). Neither does evolution.

I'm sorry, your ignorant notion is mistaken.

We did not evolve from some ooze.

Then how do you explain the vast amount of evidence which indicates that we did?

Micro evolution yes. Macro no.

Okay, I'll bite -- what magic difference do you see by which "microevolution" is within the bounds of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but "macroevolution" isn't? This should be really funny!

Also, feel free to explain how you account for the massive amount of evidence which demonstrates that "macroevolution" has indeed occurred, and that, for example, all vertebrates have evolved from a common ancestor?

I leave it to your own belief system to determine how that happened.

I'd rather rely on looking at reality to see what it tells us, and it tells us that modern life arose via common descent.

[wyattearp]

And you trust the PEERS? I'm glad America moved beyond the peerage. I don't need barons and squires and such--

Um, peer review is other scientists reviewing the research and attempting to replicate the experiments that produced the results. Peerage? Barons and Squires?

Fraud is rife in scientific academia. The stakes are high--prestige, money, status, money, careers, money, tenure, money. A scientist is just as likely as anyone else to fall to tempation.

If a scientist commits fraud, that fall is a long one. It is something that the scientist never recovers from. It wouldn't matter what he/she discovered, absolutely nobody would take them seriously.

[Ichneumon]

And please give me the proof.

Science doesn't deal in proof. Nothing in this real world can be proven. If you want proof, you'll have to go to artificial realms like mathematics, where you can define your own terms and scope.

[Mamzelle]

re: I'd rather rely on looking at reality to see what it tells us)))

Ah---that's absolutely exquisite. (the flake)

[Ichneumon]

And you trust the PEERS? I'm glad America moved beyond the peerage. I don't need barons and squires and such--

Are you really this confused about peer reviewed journals, or are you just trolling?

[pa mom]

Why can't God have created evolution? It is such a beautiful, complex mechanism, it must have been designed to work that way.

[Rudder]

The Korean stem-cell scientist was "peer reviewed"

Some people fabricate data. That's hard to detect in peer review of a journal article, isn't it?

But our ears could smell--until we evolved. That's according to the peers who pitch their wares here--

You're making up stuff that isn't in the article, why?

[jwalsh07]

Correct me if my science is wrong.

We go from a fish with three bones in the inner ear to a reptile with one bone in the middle ear and to mammals with three boned inner ears.

Help me out here Senator.

[Syntyr]

How does a tree get all of that wood out of a tiny little acorn.

Your thinking to narrowly.

Yes a tree grows from a seed. Then dies. It does not evolve into lizard, monkey, fish, dog or anything else. Just like a human being is created by the external influence of Sperm on an egg. It too grows in to a human being. If that human mates then it passes on micro evololutionary traits to its off spring. Yes we elvolve duhh. Survival of the fittest and micro evolution. We evolve to fit environment.

However, if you have ever studied organic chemistry or physics you will understand that again my statement is correct.

In the greater scope of life nothing gets more complex. Time affects us all. We all die and break down into our compsite elements.

If you dont understand that I can give you a challenge that may prove enlightning. Take all of the chemicals that make up the human body. Feel free to use any combination or any amount. Put them togethor to create any living thing. A single cell will do.

On the greater scale we all break down nothing "fixes" itself.

For your further reading pleasure -

http://www.secondlaw.com/

Written by Frank L. Lambert, Professor Emeritus
Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041

Your welcome :)

[Ichneumon]

So is "Science" magazine. Can we depend on the peers to review? After all, the Korean stem-cell scientist was "peer reviewed" so well that John Edwards used him to claim that Christopher Reed could be cured if it were not for the "anti-science" Republicans. And I don't know if you've heard, but it turns out that trees produce methane (lots and lots of it) even when they're alive and not decaying. Global warming caused by global greening. A whole slew of biochemists missed out on that until just this week. But our ears could smell--until we evolved. That's according to the peers who pitch their wares here--

Are you this bitter in real life, or do you just play that on the internet?

In any case, if you have an issue with the actual research results or evidence, feel free to present it. If instead you just want to rant because science reveals things you don't want to face, just say so.

[wyattearp]

Oh, and, BTW, you forgot the CH4.

[Mamzelle]

Maybe we should regard all scientists with a heapin' helpin' of sketpticism--after all, they claim to be the sponsors of reason and Pure Truth.

But all human endeavors are fraught with --dare I say it?-- sin. And academia is cruelly competitive at times. Those who long so badly to prove something are those to be watched closely. Those who merely doubt have a more comfortable position from which to observe the proceedings.

Why should I trust "Science" magazine, for instance, when they have clearly failed so outrageously? California set aside $3B (three Billion dollars, that's a B, not an M) to do embryonic stem cell research based on the vainglorious claims of one "superscientist."