Many modern scientists tell us we evolved from an apelike ancestor. But when you stop and take a closer look at how the human ear is designed, our semi-circular canals are different than that of the ears of apes.
The ear canals are arranged in 3 planes:
1. Horizontal
2. Vertical anterior
3. Vertical posterior
These are at right angles with each other. This arrangement gives three-dimensional sensing for balance!
Why is this something we should observe?
Humans have two large vertical planes and one small horizontal plane, while apes have three small canals similar in size. Since the apes’ three canals are of similar size, it is designed especially for climbing trees and maintaining their balance in the heights of the jungles. Since we do not live a majority of our lives climbing trees, it is incredibly unique that we have ears that are created in such a way to aid the balance of walking upright on our two legs! Does that sound like an accident or created design to you?
The problem lies in how this would evolve as mankind evolved from primates like evolution claims. How would the ear suddenly decide to change to help humans walk upright? This special design could not simply “evolve” as needed it to improve our balance for no reason. No one has ever seen any signs of this being possible or ever happening.
Hearing Harmonies
When we hear music, we can detect different instruments blending together to make a specific sound. Music also emotionally moves us to feel many things: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and anticipation. Music linking to emotion is quite common, and films, commercials, and music in public places relies on this fact to try to control these emotions to impulse buy or drive a point across to us.
In the last lesson about the ear, we briefly mentioned the joy of hearing and singing harmony and how pleasant that it is to our ears. This is a special thing God has given to us!
The amazing sounds of harmony, brought together, is actually pleasant vibrations that the human ear sends to our brain. Some people have an “ear” to sing harmonies, and others cannot carry a tune at all. But all of us, love music in different styles, and genres.
A biophysicist by the name of Bernardo Spagnolo at a University in Italy, as well as some collaborators at a State University in Russia, came up with a simple model that explained how sound waves makes your eardrum vibrate when it hears harmonies, and it causes the spiraling basilar membrane within the ear to vibrate.
Depending upon the frequency of the sound, the vibration tremors at different areas along the membrane. This stimulates neurons that convey the frequency information to the brain. If a sour note is hit, the vibration sends the sour sound through a vibration that seems to clash with our neurons! Isn’t that something?
Animals and music:
The interesting assumption that Charles Darwin taught, was that all of nature enjoyed music as much as humans. That animals, even apes, would appreciate the harmonies, blends, beats, and sounds like humans. It only makes sense if we came from animals that we all would hear music in the same manner.
However, in the sense that animals do not see the same colors and light humans can, animals do not hear music in the way we do. It seems to be linked to the area of the brain that allows humans to speak in specific tones and sounds.
Our ears are a large part of this special phenomenon: the ear sends the vibrations of sound to our brains where we “unravel” if you will that sound into a specific order or way!
In fact, scientists were so curious about whether or not primates could hear music the way that we do, they performed different tests, and experiment in zoos, and labs. The results did not support Darwin’s theory of evolution, in that, there was an appreciation for music among animals. Dr. Emma Wallace from the University of York’s Department of Psychology studied these data and experiments. She said the results suggested that to captive chimps, and zoo-housed orangutans, music seemed irrelevant, and they were unable to distinguish music from digitally scrambled up noise.
She went on to make a very amazing statement: “These results also highlight the possibility that music appreciation is something that is a uniquely human trait."
She also went on to note that music did not seem to have any positive or negative effects on chimps.
In one instant, they created a special music juke box for chimps, and they could select the music they liked most, and it seemed like they had no favorites, or even preferred to listen to music at all.
