Question

There is a widespread belief that people can predict impending earthquakes from unusual animal behavior. Skeptics claim that this belief is based on selective coincidence: people whose dogs behaved oddly just before an earthquake will be especially likely to remember that fact. At any given time, the skeptics say, some of the world’s dogs will be behaving oddly.

Clarification of which one of the following issues would be most important to an evaluation of the skeptics’ position?


(A) Which is larger, the number of skeptics or the number of people who believe that animal behavior can foreshadow earthquakes?

(B) Are there means other than the observation of animal behavior that non-scientists can use to predict earthquakes?

(C) Are there animals about whose behavior people know too little to be able to distinguish unusual from everyday behavior?

(D) Are the sorts of behavior supposedly predictive of earthquakes as pronounced in dogs as they are in other animals?

(E) Is the animal behavior supposedly predictive of earthquakes specific to impending earthquakes or can it be any kind of unusual behavior?

Answer 1

The most important issue for evaluating the skeptics' claim that animal behavior predicting earthquakes is based on selective coincidence is to determine whether animal behaviors are specifically linked to impending earthquakes or if they represent any unusual behavior.

Step-by-step explanation:

To evaluate the skeptics' position that unusual animal behavior predicting earthquakes is based on selective coincidence, the most important issue to clarify would be E) Is the animal behavior supposedly predictive of earthquakes specific to impending earthquakes or can it be any kind of unusual behavior? This is crucial because it addresses whether the behavior is a reliable indicator of earthquakes or just random occurrences that are retrospectively linked to the events.

While some animal behavior patterns have been noted before natural disasters, like dogs howling or rodents fleeing their burrows, it is essential to determine if these behaviors are usual or have a direct correlation to the earthquakes. The challenge lies in the post-hoc recognition of such behaviors, which could lead to confirmation bias, where only the instances supporting the belief are remembered and reported. Therefore, scientific research into this relationship is necessary to establish whether animals can sense and react to precursory earthquake signals or if these are simply coincidental behaviors.