Ecologist: Forest fires, the vast

Answer choices

1. A

   Wishy-Washy (tends to) Unrelated to Goal35% picked this

   Human intervention in natural processes tends to reduce the biological diversity

   On Sufficient Assumption, if you had to guess, you would never guess any answer that wasn't 100% black and white, because almost all correct answers are. Words like "generally, tends to, typically, usually, etc." don't provide the certainty we need for a correct answer. Also, this answer doesn't have either of the conclusion phrases we're looking for: "ill-advised / shortsighted" or "should be left alone to burn out naturally"

   35%
2. B

   Correct50% picked this

   Protection of forests and their ecosystems is the only legitimate reason for attempting to prevent

   Why this is right

   "The only legitimate reason" is getting at the normative language we're looking for, to prove a conclusion about "should we / shouldn't we". If you don't have a legitimate reason, then you shouldn't do it. This answer says, if your attempt to not a legitimate prevent or control ? reason to prevent forest fires isn't or control forest to protect forests fire or their ecosystems From the Evidence, do we know whether our attempts to prevent/control forest fires are about trying to protect forests and their ecosystems? We do. We know it's not about that, because we were told "all forest ecosystems are well adapted to forest fires". We were also told that many forests couldn't flourish without forest fires, and then we heard about all the good things that forest fires do. So forests certainly ain't asking us to stop forest fires. Since they're all well-adapted to fires and benefit from fires, our attempts to prevent/control forest fires must be for some other reason, and thus they are not legitimate (thus, we should not be attempting to prevent or control them). The correspondence between the correct answer language and the conclusion is a little bit more of a stretch than we usually see on Sufficient Assumption, but the strength of language is unequivocal (the only) and the meaning of "you have no legitimate reason to do X" is pretty close to "you should not do X".

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

   50%
3. C

   Weakens2% picked this

   Forest fires begun by careless campers should be the target of human

   The author is categorically saying "forest fires should be left alone", not "forest fires should generally be left alone, except those caused by careless campers". This answer actually goes against the author's conclusion.

   2%
4. D

   Unrelated to Goal Wishy-Washy (tend to)1% picked this

   Humans tend to view forests as well as other ecosystems as instruments for the satisfaction

   We don't really care about how humans tend to view forests. We need a rule with normative force that allows us to definitely say "humans should never be attempting to prevent or control fires".

   1%
5. E

   Bad Trigger Match11% picked this

   If the health of an ecosystem is threatened by insects or other predators, human beings should not intervene

   This has the conclusion language we'd like, "Humans should not do X". Does the trigger apply to "forest fires"? We obviously know that forest fires are not insects and forest fires are not predators, but are forest fires something that threatens the health of an ecosystem? We were actually told the opposite. We were told that all forests are well-adapted to forest fires and that many forests are threatened if they don't have forest fires (they need the fires to flourish). Since we were never told that forest fires threaten the health of an ecosystem (in fact, we were mostly told the opposite), there's nothing we can do with this rule to connect it to forest fires.

   11%