Logical Reasoning

PT151 · S3 · Q6 Watanabe: To protect the native kokanee

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Watanabe: To protect the native kokanee salmon in the lake, we must allow fishing of native trout.

Conclusion

Eradicating the mysis shrimp is preferable to allowing trout fishing.

Evidence

The shrimp each plankton, which is food for young kokanees, thus the young kokanee are starving to death.

Evaluate

The conclusion is saying that This Plan is better than That Plan, so we would expect the evidence to also be comparative --- This Plan does X, while That Plan does Y, and X is better than Y.

The evidence here, though, doesn't mention anything about the plan to allow trout fishing. It just explain the motive for getting rid of the shrimp (they eat the same food source as young kokanees).

So why does Lopez prefer that plan? We should think about and articulate the differences we have been told about the Trout vs. the Shrimp:

TROUT SHRIMP

eat adult kokanee eat baby kokanees' food

native introduced into lake

Goal

Because we have those two differences to go off of, we'd anticipate that an answer will say something from the Shrimp column is preferable to something from the Trout column:

it's better to do something to protect the babies lives than the adults lives it's better to get rid of something introduced into the lake than get rid of something native to the lake

6.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most strongly supports Lopez's conclusion?

  1. Correct

    Eliminating a non-native species from

    Why this is right

    Are the shrimp a non-native species? Yes, they were "originally introduced into the lake as food for adult kokanee". Are the shrimp threatening a native species? Yes, they're threatening the native kokanee, by gobbling up plankton and thus starving young kokanee to death. Well, then, according to this rule, Eliminating [the shrimp] is preferable to any other method [such as trout fishing] If we were thinking, "Wow, is that too strong?", we would want to remind ourselves that there is no such thing as TOO STRONG, if a question stem begins this way: if valid, Which of the following, if true, if assumed, So there is no such thing as TOO STRONG (but there is such a thing as TOO WEAK) when we're dealing with Strengthen, Weaken, Paradox, Sufficient Assumption, and Strengthen-Principle.

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

    82% picked this

  2. When trying to protect the

    Bad Trigger Match

    In order for us to use this rule to vote in favor of eradicating the shrimp, we would need to know that eradicating the shrimp would have quicker results than would trout fishing. We weren't given any information to judge that comparison, so we don't know how this rule would apply to this decision before us.

    1% picked this

  3. The number of species in

    Opposite, if anything

    Both plans would reduce the populations of certain species in the lake, either reducing the shrimp or the trout population. But this is talking about the number of species. Was either plan going to literally remove the species from the lake? Yes, the shrimp plan calls for eradication of the shrimp, so that plan would reduce the number of species in the lake by 1. Thus, this rule is telling us to avoid doing the shrimp plan if at all possible.

    0% picked this

  4. No non-native species should be

    No Impact

    Does either plan (eradicate shrimp / allow trout fishing) involve introducing species into a habitat? No, so this answer is totally irrelevant to the decision before us. This answer sounds more like it's trying to litigate whether it was appropriate to introduce shrimp into the lake back in the day. Whether it was or wasn't wouldn't clearly tell us what we should currently prefer as a plan to save the kokanee.

    2% picked this

  5. When seeking to increase the

    Opposite

    We are seeking to increase the population of the kokanee. The "eradicate shrimp" plan is hoping to preserve the young kokanees' food in order to protect them. The "allow trout fishing" plan is hoping to preserve the mature (adult) kokanees by reducing the number of kokanee-killing trout. Which kokanee is in the prime reproductive stage of its life? Young or Mature If the answer is "hey, how should we know", then this answer is wrong because it's unclear how we would apply it. But to me the common sense answer is Mature kokanee are adults, so they are in prime reproductive stage. The young kokanee are like babies / kids. In human life, sometimes we say "mature" as a polite euphemism for "old" (like, 'Wow! Kevin's new girlfriend is ... mature.') But it's more commonly understood to mean, "this person has passed through puberty and reached physical maturity". TV shows and video games have "rated M for mature", which is meant to mean like 18 and up. So this rule is telling us we should be trying to preserve the mature/adult kokanee, which means it would dictate that we go with the trout fishing plan.

    14% picked this

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