• Question: why is the human body made up of so much things? because couldnt it just be easier to have one big organ that does all the jobs?

    Asked by conchod123 to Antonia, Douglas, Hugh, Matt, Tom on 14 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Antonia Hamilton

      Antonia Hamilton answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      there are a lot of different things that the body has to do. and different bits have evolved at different times for different functions so it is easier to have lots of parts. Just like a car has an engine and a radio and a seat and they all have different functions. I don’t think you would want a car where you sat on the engine and listen to it!

    • Photo: Matthew Hurley

      Matthew Hurley answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      It would be so much easier…..except that if that one organ went wrong we’d be totally in trouble!. By having two of most things means we can get by if one of them goes wrong.

    • Photo: Hugh Roderick

      Hugh Roderick answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      There are living things that are pretty much that: bacteria. We have developed specialised organs that do their jobes better then a generic organ could do and that has given us advantages over bacteria like being able to tell when we are in danger and move away. But then bacteria are also very successful and are capable of producing many more individuals then larger animals. They are just different solutions to the problem of survival.

    • Photo: Tom Hardy

      Tom Hardy answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Wow, what a question. Yeh I guess it would be easier to have one big super organ but evolution has taken many thousands of years to get us where we are in terms of our bodies. Because we are such complicated beings each organ is very specialised, our heart has special muscle to make it strong enough to pump so much blood around the body every second of our lives and our skin is designed to be a barrier against the outside world. I suppose one point to note is that having lots of organs means we can be repaired. We can survive with one kidney and our livers are capable or repairing themselves, people can survive without a leg or an arm, but if we just have one big organ and it got damaged what would we do?

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