Why Can We Shut Our Eyes But Not Our Ears?

We’ve all been in the position of something or someone warbling incessantly into our ears, frustration mounting with no way to block the noise out. Why is this? Why can we close our eyes and remove anything from our line of vision, and yet be condemned to have to accept listening to the enthralling (for no one but her) tale the lady in front of us on the bus is telling?

Is evolution to blame for the unfair advantage eyes have over ears? Has nature equipped us suitably or cheated us? Is it only us mammals who struggle with this problem?

There appears to be some argument within scientific circles, with one side supporting the theory that we developed the ability to shut our eyes and not our ears as a way to protect us from danger, whilst the other side argues that ideally we would be able to close our ears too, but because it was not necessary for survival our bodies did not achieve this capability. And it seems we are not alone. There is only one lucky member of the animal kingdom able to shut their ears, the grey seal, who can close their ear flaps when they go diving.

Let’s take a closer look at evolution. Nature’s prime concern is our survival, and so it stands to reason that there should be an explanation for this question rooted in keeping us and our ancestors alive. And indeed there is. It is said that babies are born with an instinctual fear of only two things; falling from a height, and loud noises. This makes sense. After all, in our primitive days noise would have been the first thing to alert early man to danger, and if ears are closed that all important alert will be missed. Eyes, on the other hand, are not so good for seeing the initial danger as they are for protection upon waking up after the more vigilant ears respond to noise. Even in today’s world open ears are vital whilst we are sleeping to hear a range of things from smoke alarms to alarm clocks.

So there’s one theory. That our ears must stay open during periods of unconsciousness to keep us from coming to harm. But that doesn’t explain why we do not have the tools to shut our ears consciously, and leave them open at night, the way we can shut our eyes consciously without having to sleep. It is this that is said by some members of the scientific community to be one of Mother Nature’s cock ups. It can be easy to assume, with all the tools evolution has armed the human form with, that our bodies are designed to nature’s optimum ability.

However, this is not thought to be the case. Instead, it is said that nature simply evolved far enough to get us to the point where everything worked well enough, instead of brilliantly. And so, our inability to consciously shut our ears as we can our eyes is the result of the ears working well enough without being able to be shut, whereas our eyes need our eye lids to protect them from harm and keep them clean and moisturised.

So there we go. It might come in extremely useful to shut our ears and block out the innate chatter, the too loud music coming from someone else’s headphones, or the sound of traffic when you’re trying to sleep, but in nature’s view we’re safer not being able to do so.