[PatrickHenry]

Alas for irreducible complexity.

[DouglasKC]

Alas the article is so full of "could of's" and "speculate" that it's hardly science.

You know, the ear could of evolved from mothers pulling their kids up by the side of the head. I speculate that this pulling motion hurt the kids and hearing evolved as a kind of early warning system that let them know when their mom was coming to pull on their head.

Now I'm an evolutionist. Pay me.

[A CA Guy]

Yeah and evidence shows most Democrats can still talk out of their rear ends. :)

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP

[onedoug]

They might have gone with the evolution of the eye. But there is none in the fossil record. The eye simply "appears" in each phylum with no antecedent.

Likewise reproduction. It evidently has to have been "programmed" in from the beginning, or there'd be no "evolution" to discuss.

[crz]

I can hear ya breathing..

[P.O.E.]

New answer to the immortal question:

How does a fish smell?

(drumroll)

Awful!

(budum-chhh)

(crickets)

[Revolting cat!]

THIS JUST IN:

Washington, AP. Scientists at the National Institute of Evolutionary Physics reported today that their just completed $27 million study may have proved conclusively that the walls have ears!

[Ichneumon]

In case anyone actually wants to check out the paper:

Nature 439, 318-321 (19 January 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature04196

Tetrapod-like middle ear architecture in a Devonian fish

Martin D. Brazeau¹ and Per E. Ahlberg¹

Few fossils show the incipient stages of complex morphological transformations¹. For example, the earliest stages in the remodelling of the spiracular tract and suspensorium (jaw suspension) of osteolepiform fishes^{2, 3, 4} into the middle ear of tetrapods have remained elusive³. The most primitive known tetrapods show a middle ear architecture that is very different from osteolepiforms such as Eusthenopteron³, with little indication of how this transformation took place. Here we present an analysis of tetrapod middle ear origins that is based on a detailed study of Panderichthys, the immediate sister taxon of tetrapods. We show that the spiracular region is radically transformed from osteolepiforms and represents the earliest stages in the origin of the tetrapod middle ear architecture. The posterior palatoquadrate of Panderichthys is completely tetrapod-like and defines a similarly tetrapod-like spiracular tract. The hyomandibula has lost its distal portion, representing a previously unrecognized advance towards a stapes-like morphology. This spiracular specialization suggests that the middle ear of early tetrapods evolved initially as part of a spiracular breathing apparatus^{5, 6}.

[razorbak]

ears could have started evolutionary life as a tube for breathing

On the basis of this new fossil evidence, the team speculates

the widened spiracle may have served

Alas for irreducible complexity.

Alas for irreducible pomposity.

[DennisR]

Oh, great - another evolutionary fairy tale.

[nightdriver]

"Our ears could have started evolutionary life as a tube for breathing, say scientists...."

Yeah, but I haven't breathed through my ears for some time now. ;^)

[potlatch]

Al Gore failed to evolve! He's breathing hard!!

[jennyp]

I think this is a picture of the study specimen.

[Old Professer]

There are times when my ears plug up so bad I feel like I can't breathe.

[dread78645]

FYI

From the article:These allow the fish to inhale water over their gills while lying on the seabed, and avoid gulping in grit through the mouth.

I've kept rays in aquariums. In addition to moving water over their gills, they'll also squirt it out of their mouth to stir up the sand/gravel to find food.

[conservative barking moonbat]

Evolution, the tool of the quasi-scientist.

[wallcrawlr]

I understand sometimes our ears dont hear?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!


evolution?

[RightWingAtheist]

Here's an article explaining the process of exaptation, which this is a perfect example of.

[chipguy123]

Awesome. The evolution of ears and the evolution of hearing is fascinating.

[ColdWater]

Irreducible complexity is not an argument that evolution does not occur, but rather an argument that it is “incomplete”.