PT139 · S1 · Q23 Anthropologist: Every human culture

Does the conclusion establish that an explanation is false? No, she only says that it's unwarranted. That means "you haven't convinced me you're right yet". It doesn't mean, "I'm convinced you're wrong". We can stop reading this answer at this point. The second half almost works. "Demonstrating" is too strong. Raising an alternate explanation possibility is softer than "demonstrating". But otherwise, the second half is probably fair. Any author saying, "How do you know it's X? Couldn't it be Y?" apparently believes that the evidence for X was inadequate.

Bad Premise Match Too Strong: more plausible Does the author reject the reasoning used to justify a hypothesis? Sure. Our author is not persuaded (conclusion is unwarranted) by the researchers' hypothesis that the origins of food taboos was practical concerns. Is our author's evidence that there is another, more plausible hypothesis? No, our author doesn't indicate that it's more plausible. If an alternate hypothesis is even equally plausible, it serves the same effect: it shows that someone was hasty in concluding a certain causal story, when other possible causal stories haven't been ruled out. Our author brings up her alternate explanation by saying "taboos might instead have arisen for symbolic reasons".

Does our author's conclusion argue in support of one explanation? No, this is like (C) calling our author's alternate explanation "the more plausible" option. The author is agnostic about which causal story is correct. She is concluding that "an inference is unwarranted". Unwarranted doesn't mean wrong; it just means too hastily drawn, unproven. She also doesn't cite evidence that's incompatible (i.e. contradictory) to the researchers' evidence. In fact, as the correct answer reminds us, her alternate explanation is completely compatible with the author's evidence about food taboo animals often being useful animals used for labor.

There is a hypothesis about the sequence of events involved in the origins of the food taboo phenomenon: Researchers hypothesis people realize horses are useful. people invent a food taboos for horses, because they're worth more alive than dead. The author talks about a different sequence, sort of: people invent a food taboo for horses, for symbolic and ritualistic reasons, and then people realize horses (which they can't kill because of this taboo) are useful. Those aren't quite the same events in reverse. The useful / taboo relationship is switched, but the author's explanation involves a particular event ("taboo arose for symbolic reasons") that isn't in the original story. Perhaps the easiest way to get rid of this without thinking too hard is again to just understand the noncommittal strength of arguing "that conclusion is unwarranted". All a person needs to do to win that conversation is create some doubt about the original conclusion. The author isn't personally invested in this alternative hypothesis; she's just bringing it up as a possibility. We can say that she presents the possibility that some of those events were in a different sequence, but saying that she argues they were in a different sequence is ascribing to her a conclusion that is confidently choosing one possibility.