Given the amount of time I've dedicated to this topic, this is something that I've actually never thought about. It reminded me of something mike said a while back here, I think in regards to intelligent design. I'm paraphrasing, but he suggested that having our sexual organs be used both for procreation and peeing and so close to our asses didn't make good design sense. He suggested that we should defecate out of a hole in our foot, or something like that... (sorry for the poor recollection Mike). Anyways, the reason it brought that to mind is because, given all of the importance we place on these things, sex and defecating/urinating we rarely think about how our bodies are designed for these things. At least I don't think about it often. Peculiar stuff.
I'm not a science-y person butttttttt... It seems like the less orifices we have the better. It cuts down on the risk of things like foreign objects and bacteria invading our bodies. If you think about it, we only have eyes, ears, nose, mouth, pee hole, and poop hole. (I realize the vagina is technically not a pee hole but let's call them one in the same for now, since they are right on top of one another.) They all use things like hair/mucus/tears to protect them as much as possible. The systems of the body that use these things have pretty much combined as many of the holes as possible (ie breathing/eating), while still being optimized for their use. It wouldn't be as practical to hear through the nose because we get omnidirectional sound by placing them on the sides of our heads. Our digestive system leads out in the most efficient way and a pee hole on the bottom of our foot would require a lot more tubing. If you look at it like that, deciding to piss out of the reproductive organ isn't as weird. There's already a hole that isn't used to much. May as well use it instead of figuring out how to create another hole and protect it. edit: This is fun. I don't think it is possible to smell through our ears because of the (1) sound air moving makes across the eardrum (2) the pressure in our ears that maintains our balance wouldn't work either. Smelling through the eyes could be interesting. The sensory stuff that allows us to smell could have a smaller tube placed in the inner section. Probably mess up how wet/dry our eyes are. I wonder if this has something more to do with the evolution of organisms in the water originally. Most of them have sealed eyes right? But they still have nostrils?
1) Yes, there are always trade offs in evolution... cost/benefit analyses of a sort. So in the case of orifices, many have to do double (and triple) duty (depending on organism of course). 2) The combination of breathing/eating was pointed out as unintelligent design by Tyson because it is something that could easily be separated and would have functional survival value. All cetaceans have separated the two (because of their unique evolutionary history of being descendants of land mammals). You're of course right about the impracticality of "hearing through the nose". 3) Our digestive system is semi-efficient. It isn't necessarily weird that our digestive disposal system is where it is - but it is unfortunate that it has to be combined with our reproductive organs. That is definitely something that would ideally be separated, but meh, clearly it hasn't stopped me from engaging in the behaviour. 4) In terms of why organisms don't combine sight and hearing - I'm not sure it is connected to evolution of organisms in water. Eyes have evolved separately 20 times and not all of these independent evolutions occurred in an aquatic environment. I think it must have to do with the cellular complexity required for the two activities are very different, so it makes sense that those specialized cells require their own regions on an organisms body.
That may not be science-y, but I'd say that it is some pretty well reasoned logic. For the sake of fun, I still think I should be able to piss out of my knee caps but you are probably right that having another orifice there could only lead to increased infection etc. Good call insom. Makes sense, don't you think theadvancedapes?
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i9u18/el.../ Found this. Interesting
Haha, yes Neil deGrasse Tyson brought up a similar point in a presentation on "unintelligent design". He also referenced the fact that it would be nice if we had two different holes for breathing and eating (like cetaceans!). And yes, it is very gross that we have to deal with the reality of our sex organs and our defecating organs being the same. It will be interesting to see what sex becomes.
Perhaps women will take over and men will become less relevant in all areas of society and will therefore cling like crazy to their ability to create sperm. Synthesize that and well... men may be obsolete and sex may be just a recreational thing participated in by the luddites. Really, I made this comment for the sake of sharing a great Jim O'Rourke tune, but I do think that the role sex plays in our society is going to change drastically, especially as things like virtual simulation improves. If you are able to very closely approximate the feeling of sex in a virtual environment with someone who is not directly in the room with you, people will likely do it. I know I'd give it a whirl, why not?
Actually, the first vibrators were developed to treat female hysteria which is no longer (thankfully) considered a legitimate ailment. Doctors would use the vibrators to induce orgasms to treat the wide and varying array of ailments ascribed to the condition.