Selena: Asteroid impact on the

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: any1% picked this

   any collision of an asteroid with the Earth would have occurred on a land area

   Trent isn't committed to the idea that 100% of asteroid impacts are on land. He's reacting to Selena's causal story about the Yucatan asteroid, which did occur on land, but he hasn't made it seem like asteroids only hit land. If we negated this and said that some asteroid collisions hit the ocean, would that give us a way to argue that asteroid impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? That would only work if we had some common sense idea that a collision hitting the ocean would be more likely to make dinosaurs go extinct than would a land impact. But there's no common sense notion that an ocean impact would be particularly bad for dinosaurs.

   1%
2. B

   Too Specific: impact site's neighborhood9% picked this

   dinosaurs in the neighborhood of an asteroid impact but not within the zone of direct impact would have

   Trent isn't denying that this asteroid killed everything underneath it and he would potentially agree that it also killed everything else in the neighborhood of the impact. He's only saying it wasn't big enough to cause a global extinction. If we negate this and say, "Trent, dinosaurs in the neighborhood of the impact would not have survived it", he would say, "I agree. But the impact wasn't big enough to kick up enough dust to block out the sun and ruin plant life for multiple years."

   9%
3. C

   Too Strong: Any16% picked this

   any event that takes place over a long period of time has many different

   The author doesn't have to assume that 100% of events that take place over a long period of time have many different kinds of causes. In fact, he's not even assuming that the dinosaur extinction has many different kinds of causes. He might think it only has one cause, which is not asteroids.

   16%
4. D

   Too Strong: No Cooling Effect12% picked this

   dust from the impact of an asteroid on the Earth would not have had any cooling

   Trent is saying that there wouldn't have been enough dust from the Yucatan impact to block the Sun and cool the planet beyond the capacity of dinosaurs or plants being able to adapt. But that doesn't mean he thinks the asteroid had zero cooling effect on the climate. He could happily agree that it probably cooled the climate somewhat, just not to such an extreme extent that it would eradicate a species.

   12%
5. E

   Correct61% picked this

   no more than one large asteroid struck the Earth during the period when the dinosaurs

   Why this is right

   This reflects Trent's move from arguing that the Yucatan asteroid wasn't big enough to produce the requisite amount of dust to concluding that "extinctions weren't due to (any) asteroid impact". If we negate this answer, it's saying that "there was more than one large asteroid that struck Earth during this period when they went extinct". That would weaken the argument badly, by making creating a possible storyline where it was still an asteroid impact (or multiple impacts) that caused the extinctions. Perhaps there was an asteroid even larger than the one that hit Yucatan. Or perhaps there were several of comparable size over the course of some years, so that there was a large and long-term amount of dust in the air.

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

   61%