Logical Reasoning

PT102 · S4 · Q6 The male sage grouse has air sacs

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The male sage grouse has air sacs that, when not inflated, lie hidden beneath the grouse’s neck feathers.

Curious Fact

Why does the male inflate its air sac and display it to the female, during the courtship ritual?

Hypothesis

It's so the female can select healthy mates.

Evaluate

The most common way to strengthen a hypothesis is to add plausibility to the causal story the author is telling. We'd love to hear that displaying air sacs is a way for a female to select healthy mates. We'd love a "no cause, no effect" answer that suggests that .

Goal

Let's find an answer that supports the plausibility that inflated air sacs help a female to determine how healthy a male is, (or an answer that rules out an alternate explanation for why the male inflates its air sacs during the mating ritual, like .)

6.

Which one of the following, if true, most strongly supports the scientists' hypothesis?

  1. Some female sage grouse mate

    Opposite (if anything)

    The fact that some females will mate with unhealthy males, if anything, undermines the author's story that females are investigating whether a potential mate is healthy.

    2% picked this

  2. When diseased male sage grouse

    Unclear Impact

    It's hard to interpret this because it's not clear whether the males' inflated air sac display looked like that of a sick male or that of a male who was healthy again from antibiotics. We can't really tell whether the female rejected them when they still look diseased (which would fit the author's hypothesis) or whether she rejected them even once she were back to normal (which would undermine the author's hypothesis).

    17% picked this

  3. Some healthy male sage grouse

    No Impact

    This is incredibly weak (so unlikely to be correct on Str, Wkn, Paradox) and also off topic, since it's talking about males that don't inflate their air sacs. It could be relevant if we knew these males were uninterested in mating with females. That would sort of be a "no cause, no effect" strengthener (males who have no interest in mating with females DON'T bother to inflate their air sacs for the health inspection). But this is saying there's at least one male that does want to mate but doesn't inflate its air sac. That doesn't help us figure out why the males that DO inflate their air sacs are doing so.

    2% picked this

  4. Correct

    Male sage grouse are prone

    Why this is right

    If male sage grouse are prone to parasitic infections that exhibit symptoms visible on their air sacs, then a visible cue exists that females can use to judge a male's health based on the appearance of the air sacs. This provides a direct link that supports the hypothesis that the air sac display helps females select healthy mates.

    Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    79% picked this

  5. The sage grouse is commonly

    No Impact

    The fact that sage grouse are commonly afflicted with a particular strain of malaria doesn't tell us anything about whether the malaria presents in the air sacs, or whether females would be able to ascertain any health information by looking at inflated air sacs.

    1% picked this

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