To find out how barn owls learn how to determine the direction from which sounds originate, scientists put distorting lenses over the eyes of young barn owls before the owls first opened their eyes. The owls with these lenses behaved as if objects making sounds were farther to the right than they actually were. Once the owls matured, the lenses were removed,
yet the owls continued to act as if they misjudged the location of the source of sounds. The scientists consequently hypothesized that once a barn owl has developed an auditory scheme for estimating the point from which sounds originate,
it ceases to use vision to locate sounds. The scientists’ reasoning is vulnerable to which one of the following criticisms?
(A) It fails to consider whether the owls’ vision was permanently impaired by their having worn the lenses while immature.
(B) It assumes that the sense of sight is
equally good in all owls.
(C) It attributes
human reasoning processes to a nonhuman organism.
(D) It neglects to consider how similar distorting lenses might affect the behavior of
other bird species.
(E) It uses as evidence experimental results that were
irrelevant to the conclusion.
A weaken question.
Why scientists think that owls cease to use vision to locate sounds? Was that experiment not harmful or were there any other reasons? E is plain wrong. D is irrelevant. C is altogether in other direction. B also takes into consideration things that don't impact the conclusion.
Only A gives us some reason to doubt the theory extended by the scientists.
Answer A.