Why did the ears not develop a "blink" type reflex to guard themselves?

Evolution is imperfect.

You can use your hands to cover your ears.

There were fewer instances where man needed to protect his ears, but protecting our eyes happened daily just being in the, wnd storms, other elements.

You can lose your sight in an instant, but hearing usually needs extended exposure.

Most loud noises that cause hearing loss are man made, not naturally occuring.

Just guessing.

You can cover your eyes with your hands, too.

I thought it might be like a sleep protection thing. You can keep your eyes shut, while you sleep, but if something stirs…pop, eyes open… Ears don’t go off, because they are like an alarm system. That is my guess.

They did. Have you ever gone to a rock concert and them came out being temporarily hard of hearing that took awhile to get better? That’s your “blink reflex.”

it’s not blink-like. It’s not a voluntary motor skill. I asked for reflex in the main body of the question, but voluntary motor skill is the blink I’m thinking about.

I think @JLeslie‘s last point is probably the biggest factor. There aren’t many natural sources of noise loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage, and it clearly doesn’t play as large a role in our evolutionary fitness. The fact that our ears are much less sensitive than other species is also a good indicator that excellent hearing is less important to our survival than say having those brain cells being used for problem solving, language or memory etc.

We do have earwax and cilia that remove dust and debris from our ear canal and protect the structures of the ear, as well as the geometry of the ear offers a lot of protection from a foreign object accidentally penetrating our ear canal in the same way an eyelid might prevent a tree branch from scratching your cornea.

@gorillapaws I agree. No loud enough stimuli.

We do have hair covering them unless we mess with evolution and cut it.

Is called the tensor tympani muscle, and some people, myself included, can flex it willingly. It’s a protection against sudden loud noises, I believe in the upper register, but don’t quote me on that.

Where’s @hearkat?

We have needed our hearing to work 24/7 for our survival. If we somehow evolved to sleep with our ears plugged, we never would have made it. Also, everything works just ‘well enough’ to pass on our genes. Why do so many women still perish during what is one of the most risky and life threatening things she can do with her body? Because it is one of the most natural and necessary things to pass on her genes; childbirth. Why is it so painful, but yet we keep doing it? The systems work just well enough.

Our world has gotten much noisier, but only recently, and because of ourselves. Our need to protect our hearing against constant loud noise is a recent and industrial problem.

I used to have excellent hearing. I could hear things other people, even kids, couldn’t, like the high pitched whining of security cameras mounted in the ceiling of some businesses.
However, one day, in my late 20’s, I had some headphones on, but I couldn’t get the music to play. I flipped one switch and BAM! the music HIT my ears at FULL VOLUME! And my ears took the full blast because I had on head phones. It physically hurt. Of course, I snatched the headphones off but…..I’ve never heard the security cameras since that day. BUT, I still have very good hearing, much to my husband’s chagrin. Heh.

Hello! Thanks to those who forwarded this to me. At the time this question was posted, I was sleeping, and until now have been occupied with my vocation of Audiology, or getting to/from the place where I practice.

I really don’t have much to add, because most of my points have been made. The ability to detect vibration in the space around us and our own movement are very primitive senses that were crucial to survival. There are many creatures that have little to no use of vision but have highly keen acuity for sound, vibration and movement. As you point out yourself, when we’re sleeping our ears are constantly aware of what is happening in our environment, while our eyes aren’t not doing anything but bouncing around in REM sleep. The ears are they eyes in the back of our head and awareness beyond the 4 walls or whatever else might obstruct our vision. We humans give them far less credit than they deserve.

Historically, there were very few noises that have been loud enough to be damaging until industrialization. The sudden percussive sounds that might occur in the environment are offset by the reflex of the tensor tympani muscle which tightens the eardrum to muffle the sound slightly. For more prolonged loud noises there is the temporary threshold shift, which was recently determined to be a reflexive action and protective mechanism from loud sound. Those two involuntary reflexes were able to handle most of the potentially damaging sounds in the environment before man-made machinery came along.

Beyond that is the voluntary action of covering one’s ears with one’s hands. Simply pushing your finger to block the tragus over the ear canal opening is fairly effective, and something that we do reflexively, and voluntarily.

The system is very effective unless we choose to expose ourselves to louder sounds. As the sources of noise in the environment become more numerous in industrialized cultures, we tend to turn up the things we are listening to, and we’ve become increasingly desensitized to noise. Therefore, we have fooled ourselves that because we can tolerate a sound it is not potentially damaging. Now we have people needing hearing aids in their 50s and 60s because they were too cool or tough to wear hearing protection. The people in their 70s and 80s are the ones who we learned about noise damage from. Occupations with risks for noise-induced hearing loss include dentists, mechanics, seamstresses, housekeepers, hairstylists, and fitness instructors (I’ve worn earplugs to Zumba class) – not just soldiers, rock stars and construction workers.

Might also have something to do with keeping them moist and hydrated.

@hearkat The music in my zumba class is ridiculously loud. I know wear earplugs, I wish I had all along. I just moved and it is even worse at my new gym. That was one good thing about ballet over zumba, my ears had less damage.

House keepers and seamstresses?

@Dutchess_III – Yup. Hair dryers, sewing machines and vacuum cleaners aren’t damaging for the short amount of time that the average person uses them; but people who are exposed to the drone for far longer amounts of time on a regular basis do have “wear-and-tear” on their inner ears as a result.

That’s why I have my husband do the vacuuming. He already has hearing damage due to years of racing.

That’s another thing. My ears are so damaged from the race track. Race Track, Zumba, and for many years going out to dance clubs.