I’ve already admitted that I “haven’t yet found that peer-reviewed paper that explains in detail the evolution of the human ear in purely naturalistic terms.” What's so special about the human ear? As far as mammalian ears go it's nothing special.
Now the evolutionary transition from a reptilian ear to a mammalian ear is interesting, and books have been written about that.
Thanks to antiRepublicrat, a few posts later, he found via an embarrassingly simple google search,
this.