why do we have senses? – Catalysis Zone

Question: why do we have senses?
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  senses
Asked by Molly.x to John, Laura, Luke, Rob, Ruth on 20 Jun 2016.
- Laura Finney answered on 20 Jun 2016:
  
  We have senses to help us survive. We need to be able to see, hear, touch, smell and taste so that we can hear/see predators (historically), make sure we don’t eat things that are poisonous and generally do things to keep us in good health 🙂
  It’s evolutionary. Moles can’t see as it is dark so it would be useless for them to be able to see but they have incredible smell and hearing!
- Ruth Patchett answered on 20 Jun 2016:
  
  We have evolved to have these senses we need to survive. It’s really incredible that something as complicated as the eye has evolved over time, but it is important to remember it was really slow over millions of years, for example in early life there was probably an animal that had a random genetic mutation that meant it was better at sensing light, making it more likely to surivive passing on this useful gene to future generations and so forth. The combination of all of our senses will have helped us to survive and pass on our genes. As we can see looking at other animals we didnt get a lot of cool senses (like bats ability to use echolocation which we have not evolved to have).
- Robert Williams answered on 20 Jun 2016:
  
  See my answer to the related question about tears/emotions.
  It is an evolutionary thing.
  Had the dinosaurs not been wiped out by the meteorite/volcanic super-eruption, we would most likely still be being chased around by them.
  Our bodies use senses to keep us safe.
  If we eat something unpleasant the body’s response it to vomit
  If we are too hot, we sweat
  If we are too cold we shiver
  If we feel in danger we ‘run’ – fight/flight sense – this is where Adrenaline comes into play.
  Whales use ‘sound’ to communicate and also locate food
  Some animals have evolved to give up one of their senses such as sight [eg Blind Mole Rat] – but have also got heightened others senses such as smell or hearing
  If you were to loose a sense such as hearing you would find that your eyes and brain would adapt to lip read. If you loose your sight your hearing would improve etc.
- Luke Williams answered on 21 Jun 2016:
  
  I think the others have nailed the answer pretty conclusively, but I would add that we have many many more senses than just five.
  
  A good article on the subject is:
  http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141118-how-many-senses-do-you-have

Question: why do we have senses?

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