PT122 · S4 · Q8 One good clue as to which

This feels tempting because it sounds like it's saying that there are superior alternative methods. Two problems, though: 1. The author is only selling this method as "one good clue", not the only way or the best way. So the existence of other viable methods doesn't undermine this method. For example, I might say, "One good way to flatter a girl is to write a song that has really insightful lyrics about her personality." If you were to say, "there are less complicated ways to flatter a girl: tell her you think her bracelet is cool, for example", would that weaken my method? Not really. I didn't say writing a personalized song was the only way or the best way, just a good way. 2. This answer doesn't really solidify that these other methods are superior. It says they are less complicated (which sounds like a good thing), but are they comparably reliable or accurate? If a Dad was like, "Hey, one good way to decide where our family takes its summer vacay is to go on AirBnb to check prices, cross reference that with local COVID counts, and finally read about types of experiences people have there on Lonely Planet", can his kid object by saying, "hey, Dad, a less complicated way of deciding is to just spin a globe at plop your finger down somewhere random"? No, that's not a great response. Yes, it's an easier way to pick a vacation, but it might overall be a much worse way.

The author's method doesn't assume that "all, or nearly all, types of pollen are unique to one geographical region". It just assumes that "many / most types of pollen are unique to one geographical region". The author is assuming that this method will often be feasible because we will often be able to find a type of pollen on the relic that is unique to a certain area. Since she wan't assuming that "nearly all pollen is unique to a certain area", we can't hurt her by saying, "many types of pollen are not unique to any one area".

Out of Scope: pollen with unknown origin Similar to (C), this answer weakens in the sense of showing that not all forms of pollen would be useful for this analysis. (C) Many of them are known to come from multiple regions. (D) Many of them have unknown regions of origin. But the method is only talking about being used when we can identify pollen that is known to have been unique to that area. Let's say we have a relic and it has Pollens A, B, C, and D on it. Even if pollens B and D come from plants that are in multiple regions of the world and pollen A comes from an unknown region of the ancient world, it might be that pollen C is known to be unique to the Hawaiian islands. So according to this method, we know this relic passed through the Hawaiian islands. This method is only used when we find a pollen from a plant that is known to be unique to an area. It's not a method we can necessarily use on every single pollen, but the author never promised us it would be.

We're only worried about the reliability of the method. This answer is telling us about the economic feasibility of the method, but we can't argue, "This isn't a reliable method. After all, it's painstaking and expensive." We have to argue, "This isn't a reliable method. After all, it will sometimes give us false positives or negatives."