The Hearing Ear

Proverbs 20:12
“The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them.”

The human ear has to be one of the most remarkable mechanisms that you can find. The bit of the ear that we can see is only part of the mechanism that God created for us to hear with.

The outer ear, or pinna, is shaped in such a way as to direct the compressions and rarefactions of sound waves into the ear-hole – or auditory canal. What do you do if you can’t quite hear what is being said? Do you cup your hand around your outer ear? This helps collect a little more sound, reflecting into the auditory canal.

At the inner end of this canal, there is a layer of skin stretched across – the timpanic membrane, or “eardrum”. The sound waves cause this to vibrate. This, in turn, sets three tiny bones vibrating – the smallest bones in your body known, because of their shapes, as the hammer, anvil and stirrup. These bones, known collectively as ossicles, vibrate each other in a manner which achieves two important effects. First, the sound entering the ear is concentrated and amplified, and second, distracting side sounds are reduced considerably. The ossicles amplify sound by up to 20 times. Finally, the stirrup vibrates the secondary timpanic membrane – another layer of thin skin – which, in turn, affects the vestibulocochlear nerve which transmits the messages to the brain.

Evolutionists believe that the ossicles evolved from the reptilian jaw bones. Yet, everything in the ear works together so well that it is an obvious example of high level design.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for our ears and our ability to hear, by which we gain understanding. Amen.

Author: Paul F. Taylor

Ref: Encyclopaedia Britannica, < https://www.britannica.com/science/ear >, accessed 12/31/2018. Image: CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported.

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