Logical Reasoning

PT148 · S1 · Q12 In a national park located on an island

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In a national park located on an island, a herd of moose was increasing in number and threatening to destroy species of native plants.

Given that ...

Wolves were introduced onto an island to eat up the local moose and thin out the herd,

and that ...

the wolves prospered in this new environment.

How can it be that ...

The moose herd continued to grow?

Evaluate

Maybe the wolves ate something besides moose. They found an easier food supply to help them sustain and flourish.

Maybe the wolves ate the moose, but the moose reproduced at a great enough rate that it didn't cause a net reduction.

Goal

This paradox could be resolved different ways, but fundamentally they should either be like,

12.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the failure of the strategy involving wolves?

  1. The presence of wolves in

    No Impact

    We might try to take this answer and spin this story for why there are still more moose: the wolves came in but then they discouraged other predators from coming into the area. since those other predators would have been helping to kill moose, their absence means that there's more moose. The problem is that we're talking about an island. Land predators aren't going to just wander on to the island. We "introduced" the wolves there, meaning we brought them in cages and released them. So we can't tell some story about how wolves prevented other land predators from swimming across a body of water and moving into the island's habitat.

    16% picked this

  2. Attempts to control moose populations

    What, not Why

    This just reiterates our surprising fact. Now we have two reasons to be confused. Introducing predators didn't work at the island, just as it didn't work in national parks. But why ... ?

    5% picked this

  3. Correct

    Wolves often kill moose weakened

    Why this is right

    Wow, what an angle. This answer reminds us why we don't try to predict an exact answer on Paradox. They're too creative. We just need to flexibly listen for a way to tell a story that, "even though we brought wolves to eat the moose, there's more moose". This is doing the "the wolves are eating the moose, but there's still more moose because Z" type of resolution. The wolves are eating these sickly moose that otherwise would have infected and possibly killed other moose in the herd. Suppose that Ed the Moose gets covid and will ultimately die from it. If he stays with the herd until his dying days, he will possibly get the rest of the herd sick, and maybe five other moose will die as a result. Meanwhile, if a wolf eats him when he first gets slower from the early stages of the disease, then he won't live long enough to infect the herd. In a sense, the wolf that ate Ed saved five other moose. If wolves tend to eat moose that would have, if left alive, killed five other moose, then it makes sense how introducing wolves led to an increase in the moose population.

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

    76% picked this

  4. Healthy moose generally consume more

    Unrelated to Goal

    This answer has nothing to do with wolves, so it's not going to help us explain what's going on with the wolves we introduced to eat up the moose.

    1% picked this

  5. Moose that are too old

    Opposite Direction

    If we found out that wolves were primarily eating old moose that were too old to breed, then that would explain why their moose-eating hasn't affected moose population. If wolves are only sending the geriatric moose to their graves a little earlier, they aren't affecting the birth rate of the moose population. A mother moose might birth five moose kids over the same period that a wolf eats both of her aging parents (this is so dark, apologies). That would be a net gain of 3 moose. This answer isn't suggesting that wolves preferentially favor older prey. It's saying the opposite: older moose are just as likely to die of natural causes as of wolf attack.

    2% picked this

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