Self-study
Although instinct enables organisms to make complex responses to stimuli, instinctual behavior involves no reasoning and requires far fewer nerve cells than does noninstinctual (also called flexible) behavior. █ █████ █████████ ███████ ██ ████████ ████████ ████ ████ █ █████ ██████ ██ ████████ ███ ██ ██████ █████ ███ ███ ███████ █ ████ ███████ ██ █████████ █ ████████████ █████ ██████ ██ ████████
Summary
Instinct allows organisms to make complex responses to stimuli.
Instinctual behavior doesn’t use reasoning.
Instinctual behavior uses fewer nerve cells than does noninstinctual (flexible) behavior.
In order for an organism to perform flexible behavior, their brain needs to have a lot of neurons.
As of now, no insect brain is big enough to hold enough neurons to facilitate flexible behavior.
Very Strongly Supported Conclusions
Insects aren’t currently capable of flexible behavior.
Insects currently only act based on instinct.
7.
Which one of the following ███ ██ ████████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██████
a
The behavior of █████████ ████ █████████ █████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████████
Unsupported. Even though instinctual behavior involves no reasoning and requires fewer nerve cells, this type of behavior might still utilize elaborate brain mechanisms. After all, it allows organisms to make complex responses!
b
Insect behavior is ███████████ ████████████
Very strongly supported. As shown below, by chaining the conditional claims, we see that “instinctual” is a necessary condition of “not having many neurons.” Insects don’t have many neurons; therefore, their behavior is instinctual!
c
All organisms with ██████ ██████ ████ ████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ████████ █████████
Unsupported. There might be a gap between the size of insects’ brains and the size of brain required for flexible behavior! Also, while we know that having a relatively large brain is a necessary condition of flexible behavior, we don’t know that it’s sufficient.
d
All organisms with █████ ██████ ███ ████████████ ████████ ███ ████████ █████████
Unsupported. While we know that having a relatively large brain is a necessary condition of flexible behavior, we don’t know that it’s sufficient: maybe flexible behavior requires other attributes, as well!
e
Only organisms with ██████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███████████ █████████
Unsupported. Animals with larger brains than insects might still not have big enough brains for flexible behavior! Furthermore, organisms might need other attributes to exhibit flexible behavior, so even organisms with large brains might still behave purely instinctually.