Anatomy, Comparative; Embryology, Human; Evolution; Human beings -- Origin
However, we must grant that at the first glance the teleological
theory seems to give the simplest and most satisfactory explanation of
these purposive structures. If we merely examine the structure and
functions of the most advanced sense-organs, it seems impossible to
explain them without postulating a creative act. Yet evolution shows
us quite clearly that this popular idea is totally wrong. With its
assistance we discover that the purposive and remarkable sense-organs
were developed, like all other organs, without any preconceived
design--developed by the same mechanical process of natural selection,
the same constant correlation of adaptation and heredity, by which the
other purposive structures in the animal frame were slowly and
gradually brought forth in the struggle for life.
Like most other Vertebrates, man has six sensory organs, which serve
for eight different classes of sensations. The skin serves for
sensations of pressure and temperature. This is the oldest, lowest,
and vaguest of the sense-organs; it is distributed over the surface of
the body. The other sensory activities are localised. The sexual sense
is bound up with the skin of the external sexual organs, the sense of
taste with the mucous lining of the mouth (tongue and palate), and the
sense of smell with the mucous lining of the nasal cavity. For the two
most advanced and most highly differentiated sensory functions there
are special and very elaborate mechanical structures--the eye for the
sense of sight, and the ear for the sense of hearing and space
(equilibrium).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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