Re: The Appreciation of Music (this time) and Evolutionary Biology

Assuming you will not be going off on one about denying climate change, I'll say this. It is a fact that ears are logarithmic in their detection of the loudness of sound. That means they are a very good mixer and this allows us to hear harmonies and other clever stuff when more than one frequency is played. Some people have got what is termed perfect pitch, but everyone can detect differences between sounds. When in a forest and there are friends and foes about calling to each other, it is very important not to make yourself obvious by shouting. So it has evolved for us to hear all the people we knows voices and tell them apart. The reason for the non linear hearing is just that the dynamic range of sound is huge, and low level sounds would be undetectable and or louder ones far too loud, and evolution has come up with the neat solution most mammals and many other land based life forms have. I cannot speak for aquatic life forms, but as sound travels in water a very long way, its probably similar There was a recent study done on the problem of man made noise on wildlife, and how it can have both positive and negative effects. I bet its in Inside science pod cast from last week Brian