# How Exceptional Is the Ear?

## TL;DR

This paper examines claims about the ear's exceptional abilities and explores how natural selection shapes hearing compared to engineered systems.

## Contribution

The paper systematically evaluates and contextualizes commonly cited exceptional features of the ear across different species.

## Key findings

- Some claims about the ear's exceptional features are supported, while others are not when scrutinized.
- Features vary in their presence across different animal taxa.
- The ear's remarkable abilities often stem from natural selection rather than engineering design.

## Abstract

Studies of hearing often conclude that the ear is “remarkable” or that its performance is “exceptional.” Some common examples include the following: \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\triangleright $$\end{document}▹ the ears of mammals are encased in the hardest bone in the body; \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\triangleright $$\end{document}▹ the ear contains the most vascularized tissue in body; \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\triangleright $$\end{document}▹ the ear has the highest resting potential in the body; \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\triangleright $$\end{document}▹ ears have a unique “fingerprint”; \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\triangleright $$\end{document}▹ the ear can detect signals below the thermal noise floor; and \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\triangleright $$\end{document}▹ the ear is highly nonlinear (or highly linear, depending upon who you ask). Some claims hold up to further scrutiny, while others do not. Additionally, several claims hold for animals in one taxon, while others are shared across taxa. Most frequently, our sense of wonder results from the differences between ears as products of natural selection (over eons) and artificial systems as products of engineering design. Our goal in analyzing claims of remarkable or exceptional performance is to deepen our appreciation of these differences.