This is the text of a speech Amy gave to her speech class during Jan Term, 2001.
A car goes by, and without seeing that car you know... it’s your best friend. How did you know whose car it was? You knew it by sounds. The car is noisy and you couldn’t miss that sound anywhere! The wonderful thing that allows you to hear that sound and every sound around you is your ear. Most people think nothing of the strange looking contraption attached to both sides of our heads. However a quick look at what is call an ear shows just how complex that contraption is and it also shows that evolution could never have happened. Something that complex just doesn’t evolve from primordial soup. Today we are going to first take a quick look at the ear and how it works. Second we will look at why the complexity of the ear logically disproves evolution. Last we will see how a newly discovered inner protection of the ear proves that the ear could not have evolved the way evolution says it did and that something or someone, like God, had to have made the ear. First let me define a few of the more heard of terms for the ear. I will be taking all definitions from the online dictionary. Almost everyone has heard of the eardrum, which is a thin semitransparent, oval-shaped membrane that separates the middle ear from the external ear. Another common term is the middle ear. The middle ear is the space between the eardrum and inner ear. It contains three auditory ossicles which convey vibrations through the oral window to the Cochlea. The cochlea is the spiral-shaped cavity of inner ear that resembles a snail shell and contains nerve endings essential for hearing. The auditory, and vestibluar nerves are also very important to hearing. The auditory nerve is either of the eight pair of cranial nerves that divides to form the cochlear nerve and the vestibular nerve. The vestibular nerve is the division of the acoutic nerve that conducts impulses related to maintaining balance to the brain. As we can see here the ear is very complicated, as I have only gone over a few parts. Something this complex would take forever to evolve the way evolutionists claim things evolved. When this magnificent ear is working properly, the authors of Waves and the ear, say “The human ear perhaps can discriminate among some 400,000 similar sounds in the sense of telling that there is a difference between any two when the two are presented in rapid succession under favorable conditions.” The sounds the ear can hear are incredible and cover a large range. Waves and the ear claim, “the sounds audible to the human ear cover a range of sound power of around a million million times or 120db.” Now that we have looked at the complexity of the ear, let’s look at some logical questions. Consider, for a moment, the lowly mousetrap. How many parts does this have? 8? Maybe 10 at the most? However, all of the parts MUST work correctly and in a smooth fashion to catch a mouse. If you were to take away even one part, or bend a part a little bit, the trap is useless. Compare the mousetrap to the ear. Basically, the ear uses an eardrum, an inner ear, middle ear, an auditory nerve and a vestibular nerve, and the brain then gives us sound. Of course it is much more complicated then this, but for our purposes let’s keep it basic. Now, consider the theory of evolution. It states that living things evolve from simple forms to more and more complex forms because each new evolved part grants the evolving creature an advantage over those life forms that may not yet have evolved the new part yet. I will admit that a properly functioning ear would give a tremendous advantage over one that has no hearing. However, what advantage would a creature have if it had evolved, an inner ear but no eardrum. Or perhaps an eardrum and an auditory nerve, but no oval window. You see, in order for the evolving creature to have any kind of advantage, it would have to evolve a complete, functioning ear, with all its working parts, simultaneously! If any part failed to evolve along with the other parts, the pieces of the so called ear would be as worthless as the mousetrap with the trigger missing. Now that we have looked at some logical questions, let’s take a look at why only God could have made the ear as an entire thing all at once. Have you ever considered how your body disposes of earwax? Dr. David Menton, professor of Anatomy at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis says “ Over most of the body our skin is growing out from deep within the skin and coming up to the surface, like an elevator. But in the ear canal the cells are actually sliding like a conveyor belt, starting from precisely the center of the eardrum, and going radially until it gets to the edge of the eardrum, then spirals on out.” Such an intricate process for such a seemingly ordinary task. If the entire ear had not developed all at one time, it wouldn’t be able to deal with the ear wax. What would have happened then? Not only does the complexity of ear wax removal disprove evolution, but a tiny muscle that protects three tiny bones all disprove evolution. This tiny muscle is called the Tensor Timpani. If you have ever been to a concert with a timpani player, I’m sure you all have see that person put their hand on the timpani. This causes the sounds to cease. The tensor timpani muscle does about the same thing as the hand. Dr. David Menton says, “ When we hear an extraordinarily loud noise that would just overload our hearing system, the tensor timpani muscle dampen the drumhead (or the eardrum) and protects the stirrup bone before we even hear the sound.” This is all very interesting, but couldn’t it have evolved once humans were subjected to loud sounds? Menton also says. “ From a creationist’s standpoint, this is the most interesting, because the only time that humans, in the history of the world, have been subjected to sudden, loud, high intensity sounds is during and after the Industrial Revolution. And as you look at this acoustic reflex that protects the inner ear, you get the very distinct impression that this acoustic reflex is a pre-adaptation that was designed into the human ear by a creator in anticipation of modern living.” Since the Industrial Revolution has not been that long ago, we as humans have not had time to evolve such a thing as the tensor timpani. Today I went over a little about the ear. We looked at some logical questions, and I showed why only God could have made the ear, and why He made it all at one time. Menton says, “It [the tensor timpani] does not appear to be able to be explained by any precess of natural selection. The Bible explains it beautifully in Proverbs 20:12 “Ears that hear and eyes that see -- the LORD had made them both.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com