Practice question · Multiple choice
Asked why a spider builds an orb web, a student answers: "It's instinct." Which of Tinbergen's four questions has that answer actually addressed?
Hints
- Try substituting the word: does "it's instinct" tell you anything you did not already know from watching the spider?
- Four questions are on the table. Test the answer against each one in turn.
Show the answer
C. None of them; it names no process, function or history.
Why
'Instinct' feels like an explanation and functions as a full stop, run it past the four questions and it survives none. 'Unlearned' is a genuine developmental claim and names the process only by what it is not, leaving the real question untouched: how does a spider with no model to copy build a species-typical web?
Practise Tinbergen's Four Questions
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