Biologist: Many paleontologists

Answer choices

1. A

   Reversal4% picked this

   It fails to address adequately the possibility that even if a condition is sufficient to produce an effect in a species, it may not

   Close, but we need this type of structure to say, “Even if your premise is true, it may not be that your conclusion is true”. So a correct re-write of this answer would sound like, “even if a condition does not necessarily produce an effect in one species, it may still be sufficient to produce that effect in another species”. In other words, even if ice ages didn’t change the brains of most animals, they may have still changed the brains of humans.

   4%
2. B

   Correct81% picked this

   It fails to address adequately the possibility that a condition can produce a change in a species even if it does not

   Why this is right

   This correctly has “even if your premise is true, your conclusion might be wrong”. It says, even if ice ages didn’t produce brain changes in other species, they may have produced brain changes in humans.

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

   81%
3. C

   Too Strong: “needed”11% picked this

   It overlooks the possibility that a condition that is needed to produce a change in one species is not needed to produce

   We never discussed whether a certain condition was needed to produce a change. This answer would be objecting to an argument that said, “Since brain evolution was required for humans to get through ice ages, other animals must have also had brain evolution as a result of going through an ice age”. We could fix this answer by making it sound more like, “overlooks that a condition that did not produce a change in other species could still have produced a change in one species”.

   11%
4. D

   Opposite0% picked this

   It presumes without warrant that human beings were presented with greater difficulties during ice ages than were individuals

   If anything, the author is assuming that humans are similar to other species, because he is assuming that what was true of most species would also be true of humans. So the author would be closer to assuming the opposite of this answer choice: that humans were not presented with much greater difficulties during ice ages than were most other species.

   0%
5. E

   Wrong Flaw: Correlation vs. Causality3% picked this

   It takes for granted that, if a condition coincided with the emergence of a certain phenomenon, that condition must have been

   If anything, the author is assuming that humans are similar to other species, because he is assuming that what was true of most species would also be true of humans. So the author would be closer to assuming the opposite of this answer choice: that humans were not presented with much greater difficulties during ice ages than were most other species.

   3%