Logical Reasoning

PT154 · S1 · Q5 Taste buds were the primary tool

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Taste buds were the primary tool early humans used for testing foods.

Evidence

Taste buds were the primary tool early humans used for testing foods.

Sour taste warns of possible spoilage of food while bitterness is a warning of many poisons.

Early humans also recognized sweet foods and salty foods as meeting nutritional needs.

Conclusion

The fact that people can now clearly distinguish these four tastes— sour, bitter, sweet, and salty— is completely explained by people’s use of taste to test for the healthfulness of foods.

Evaluate

Wow! Completely explained? That's a mighty strong conclusion.

The evidence describes details about food that would have been important for early humans to know, like possible spoilage, and describes a correlation between these details and certain tastes like sourness and bitterness.

This correlation doesn't guarantee that needing to know about spoilage caused our ability to detect a sour taste. It doesn't guarantee that the need for nutrients caused our ability to detect sweetness or saltiness.

The evidence doesn't guarantee that this one use for our sense of taste completely explains our ability to distinguish these four tastes. The ability to distinguish these four tastes could have developed for more than one reason.

Goal

Since this is such a strong conclusion, a correct answer only needs to point out that there could be more than one reason for our ability to distinguish these four tastes.

5.

The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

  1. takes a necessary condition for

    Necessary vs. Sufficient

    This answer describes a conditional logic flaw: Evidence: A → B B Conclusion: A This argument doesn't use a conditional statement as evidence and then draw a conclusion based on an illegal reversal.

    5% picked this

  2. fails to consider that many

    Irrelevant Comparison

    "Fails to consider" means that this answer choice should weaken the argument. The fact that some people associate foods with their smells more than their tastes doesn't prove or disprove the argument's claim about why we can distinguish between a certain four tastes.

    2% picked this

  3. fails to consider that some

    Irrelevant Comparison

    Without more information, this doesn't really impact the argument. Are these foods poisonous when raw but not after being cooked? Even if they aren't, do humans normally to eat these foods without cooking them first?

    2% picked this

  4. fails to consider that most

    Irrelevant Comparison

    Does this mean that early humans had a greater need to test food before eating it, or did they have less need? Without more information, it's not clear how this comparison between early humans and contemporary people impacts the argument.

    4% picked this

  5. Correct

    takes what might be only

    Why this is right

    The need to test food could certainly help explain why people can now clearly distinguish these four tastes. It might easily be a partial explanation. But the evidence doesn't support a claim that the need to test food completely explains our ability to distinguish these tastes.

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

    87% picked this

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