Why did Nature not provide us with two hearts?

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   hubby7posted 15 years ago

   The thought just occurred to me today: Why did Nature provide us with only one heart? Why did it not give us two? That way if one heart failed, we would have a second heart to back it up. It's like a engine on a plane. If one engine fails, the other engine continues to operate allowing the plane to continue to fly. Again, why did Nature not do the same for us humans? Why did it not supply us with two hearts so that if we were to suffer a massive heart attack, we could continue to function as normal by relying on our other heart? What are your thoughts on this question?

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      Rafiniposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Well, because we were meant to die at some point of our lives!

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      StormRyderposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Then we would have to find other ways to thin the herd so to speak...Nature had a way of keeping things balanced and preventing over population by any one species...We have over population in the world now and with medical advances we are keeping people around years beyond what nature would have intended...and all the while more are being born. Maybe nature and evolution are smarter than us??

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         logic,commonsenseposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         There is not much doubt about that!

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         hubby7posted 15 years agoin reply to this

         I like your answer. Absolutely and thoroughly enjoyed your reply. Balance. Nature. Evolution. Intelligence!

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      cosetteposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      wow, that is really interesting.
      
      and why two kidneys? it seems two hearts and two brains, even, would be more valuable

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         Rafiniposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         in all  of life the most valuable is the hardest to obtain - such as, expensive diamonds, pure gold, etc...
         
         two kidneys, hhhmmmm, probably because they actually do much more work, they don't get to sleep/rest such as the brain and heart  (pure guesses!!)

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            cosetteposted 15 years agoin reply to this

            heh, interesting topic to muse on, at any rate. hmm if we had two hearts could we fall in love with two different people at once? gives new meaning to the terms "half hearted" and "wholehearted" anyway

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         hubby7posted 15 years agoin reply to this

         hmmm

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      Brenda Durhamposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Great question!
      
      Somehow I think the heart, like the brain, is an organ that individualizes us, unlike the lungs and limbs......
      
      Don't ask me to explain that, medically nor scientifically.  It's just my take on it....

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         brianzenposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Nah A baboon heart works pretty good for us too, just makes us want to climb stuff.

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            hubby7posted 15 years agoin reply to this

            Oh.

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         hubby7posted 15 years agoin reply to this

         If that were the case, heart transplant patients would lose their identities. They would have become the person from whose heart they were the recepient. Good thinking anyway.

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            Justine76posted 15 years agoin reply to this

            I have seen horror movies where this sort of  thing happend.

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      BDazzlerposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      You are aware of the redundancy already built into the four chamber design, correct?
      
      The design is far more efficient and resilient than a "simpler" two heart design, which would be more prone to failure because of synchronization issues.
      
      Having just replaced my swimming pool pump, I have an experiential appreciation for the delicacy of a pressurized fluid  circulation system.  To "simply" add another pump to the system could create issues with filter tanks, chlorination systems, pipes, hoses, etc. leading to a need for a complete system re-design.
      
      However, a well designed single pump, with built in redundancy (such as the four chamber system in the human heart) is both resilient and applies the proper fluid pressure without the  additional complexity of increased pressure and synchronization issues.
      
      Solutions to the fluid pressure problems alone would be far more complex with two pumps ... to maintain the same system pressure after a pump failure the second pump would need to work twice as hard, and would therefore fail sooner.
      
      From an engineering perspective, without a complete system redesign, the idea of adding a second pump to the fluid flow system is a bad design. 
      
      I reject your redesign proposal in favor of the original.

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         hubby7posted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Excellent reply. However, I was not making a proposal. I was merely engaging in speculation and drawing an analogy between a plane's engines and human heart. Again, excellent reply.

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            BDazzlerposted 15 years agoin reply to this

            That's good ... I hate all the meetings that go with redesinging major systems...

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      Justine76posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      nothing lasts forever

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      Evan G Rogersposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      The answer is easy, with evolution. The average human/primate/mammal/animal lifespan was less than about 40 years until just about 2 centuries ago.
      
      Not too many people need to worry about their hearts failing before 40.
      
      Thus natural selection didn't work towards it.

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      Old Geezerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Embryologically we DO have two hearts; a left one and a right one!  As our fetus grow in the womb,  left and right sides grow adjacent to each other.  The right heart takes over circulation to the lungs, and the left side takes over circulation for the rest of the body.  In a small number of people, this process differs in that the left heart takes over lung circulation, and the right heart takes over circulation to the rest of the body.  Thus, these people have what is usually called a right sided heart and most of us have a left sided heart.
      
      So our double heart split the work load!  And we have two atria and two ventricles.

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   TLMinutposted 15 years ago

   Wouldn't whatever one does that messes up the first one also cause the other to fail? Why doesn't it happen that way, lungs both fail at the same time but kidneys don't. As far as I know, they don't alternate handling the workload.

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      hubby7posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      The brain does. The left hemisphere might take over some of the functions of the right hemisphere and vice versa if some of its functions are damaged beyond repair.

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   earnestshubposted 15 years ago

   In the near future, (very near future) we will be able to rebuild all our organs with a simple injection of stem cells. This type of medical tech is up and running for eye repairs.

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      JeanMeriamposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      The ethics questions that will come up with that could keep us busy for a long time. In a way I am all for this, but also against. How long do we really need to keep people alive?
      
      If you are 17 and an organ fails by all means rebuild. If you're 70?
      
      If I am 70 and able to rebuild my organs I might want to just to stay alive longer, but it's not fair to the younger ones who also need space and resources. Maybe 70 is a bad example, but you know what I'm getting at.
      
      My oldest daughter is in biochemistry at university and my sister in biotech and the debates over what they are able to do opposed to what they should do are never ending.

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         hubby7posted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Good questions.

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         earnestshubposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         I agree, in fact it has been said by some very credible people that we lag behind with social solutions to new medical science which is in the pipeline at this time.
         
         Solving these problems will be very difficult, although for those who wish to know a lot more, the information and discussions are already under way.
         (Hedweb.com) the hedonistic imperative is a great read.

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         Zaharkinaposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Age and time are just some thing created by human , to coordinate our actions, We didn't come on this earth to accomplished anything, Life is endless . and we came here only for JOY , we have to do what we want to do , do anything what make you happy , When we are in discomfort zone , we can more understand what we really want and it gives us a new desire and we have to fallow it . This is the life , And we have to live as much as we want to live , Some people at 90 you have plans ahead of them for the next 10 years .... but some at 20 yo believe that life is over and nothing ahead. We are responsible only for ourself , for our believes and our feelings. I don't believe in Death , no such of thing as a death , it is only transformation, but we have to use as much as we can that chance to be on this beautiful Earth and use our magnificent bodies. Give a birth to new desire and fallow it . This is the purpose of life . discomfort
         And what about 70th..... i know one lady , who start take her Yaga classes , when she was 72. Don't think about the outhers , discover yourself .

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      kephriraposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I wonder if in the not so near future we will also be able to install a back up, just in case. And maybe even get upgrades, or new ones we don't even have at the moment.

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         hubby7posted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Good thoughts.

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      quicksandposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      That's interesting.

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      hubby7posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      That's true.

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         earnestshubposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         

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   Ivorwenposted 15 years ago

   One broken heart is bad enough, as is having your heart repeatedly broken.  I can't imagine having two of them to guard.  I know this is not the slant you are going it, but it is what comes to mind.  Also, the spleen, if ruptured, will re-grow.  Actually, we have multiple spleens, but only one is of functioning size at a time... why not multiples of most organs?

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      brianzenposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Nature provides way less digestible cholesterol than say, 85% of the companies clogging our natural arteries (one heart should be sufficient)

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         Pandoras Boxposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Very true. Good answer.

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   Brenda Durhamposted 15 years ago

   LOL
   
   
   hmmm...
   
   Still, there must be more to it than that....

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   H.C Porterposted 15 years ago

   I am sure this is not what you were looking for in a response- but organs are not really my expertise
   But...
   Nature has it's own way of balancing things- Maybe one good heart is strong enough to get the job done-and there is no need for a 2nd, kind of like love and marriage, (no need for 2- if you find yourself in love with 2, you'll probably find yourself in trouble)

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   china manposted 15 years ago

   never mind two hearts - other organs could come higher in the double dose category so that we can enjoy the short time we get more

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      H.C Porterposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      lol        

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   aka-djposted 15 years ago

   Who says nature did this anyway?
   Oh,yes, the evolutionists did?
   I'm still not convinced!

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   thisisoliposted 15 years ago

   I think you have to remember that both the brain and the heart require a lot of oxygen to operate, duplicating these could make it very hard to supply enough oxygen to the rest of the body. Also, what would happen if the hearts began to beat out of sync, or the brains had seperate personalities?
   
   The heart and the brain are incredibly reliable, and until recently the majority of people did not live to the age where heart attacks became more common.
   
   Maybe as evolution progresses it will provide us with more ways of living longer, we have a good few millenia to wait though untill we see any product of that.

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      china manposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Like someone with multiple personalities and one of them got religion and decided to go it alone ?

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    Lecieposted 15 years ago

    i think we do have 2 hearts.
    if your heart gets broken someone else comes along and uses theirs to repair yours. we back each other up. nature is unpredictable. but you always know another human is out there waiting to help back up your heart with the strength of theirs. i just might take a while to sort out which human will.

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       Madame Xposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       What a wonderful thought

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    rebekahELLEposted 15 years ago

    we don't need 2 hearts. the human body wasn't designed to eat stuff that resembles food. if we ate right and moved our bodies more, there wouldn't be so much heart disease, etc.

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    skyfireposted 15 years ago

    Heart attack doesn't have to be from physical stress only it can be from mental stress as well. Imagine if you get two hearts can you minimize the mental stress ? No, so that way you can't even keep up with multiple hearts cause when you get stress it'll affect all the hearts. Evolution is slow process that we observe in nature, it balances life by discarding things which are unnecessary for survival. The way humans evolved i doubt there was possibility of two hearts in the branch.

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    ralwusposted 15 years ago

    Were you a god why would you choose to be married?

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    AEvansposted 15 years ago

    It wasn't in God's blueprint and think about this both hearts would have to pump continually at the same time , so there would be a possibility of both hearts giving out at the same time. If many of us can not take care of one heart, how would we be able to take care of two hearts?

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       quicksandposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Let someone steal one!

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          AEvansposted 15 years agoin reply to this

          You are funny!!! lololo

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    mega1posted 15 years ago

    ok - say we had two brains - (two hearts would not work at all, so forget that) and say that meant you could have all that extra brain power BUT I know for sure I would never be able to make up my mind about anything!  just think of all the indecision in the world and the impact that would have!

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    IzzyMposted 15 years ago

    One heart, one brain, one liver, one bladder, one gall-bladder, on stomach, one extremely elongated set of intestines - did you know that if someone stripped you intestines out, they could lay the length and breadth of a full-sized football pitch?, but of course, you'd be dead.
    Two hands, two arms, two legs, 2 kidneys, 2 lungs, 2 feet, 10 fingers, 10 toes, one nose, 2 eyes, 2 ears, one mouth...what else?
    
    Anyway, if we had to have two hearts, our upper body would have to broaden to make room for them and we're be even stranger shapes than we are now.

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    quicksandposted 15 years ago

    The heart does not take up much space. They say it is the size of the fist and so the body could easily accommodate another heart. With two hearts it is recommended that the coronary arteries be connected parallel and not in series such that when one stops the other will continue.

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    Rookie70posted 14 years ago

    Simple answer, the same reason nature didn't give us 2 dicks.

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    thirdmilleniumposted 13 years ago

    Ha, Two hearts could mean you can give one each to two girls, how nice!

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