Passage Discussion

[agutman]

Please see the attached summary and diagram. Thanks!

[andrewgong01]

I found this passage extremely hard to do because I had no idea that the author had a stance and that would explain why I struggled with the questions.

How did we know it was the last sentence that was the author's stance? I thought it was Anthony Speke's stance from Line 55. Were there any subtle hints elsewhere that allowed us to conclude this was the author's stance : he does not buy into Stanely Temple's thesis.

[ohthatpatrick]

The author is pretty detached, but there's a general rule in RC that if there's a debate going on in the passage, and the author never directly chimes in, then whomever the author gives "the last word" to is who the author [i]implicitly[/b] agrees with.

I would track the big point of view / opinion ideas with these moments:

4-10:
Temple proposed ______ , a hypothesis that subsequently gained considerable currency.

16-19:
The temporal coincidence led him to posit this causal connection.

31-34:
Although direct proof was unattainable, T offered some support which lent his argument 'a semblance of rigor' (that's a big clue about the author's eventual attitude)

42-43:
[stuff happened], which he saw as vindicating his hypothesis (foreshadowing)

44-45:
Though many found this interesting and plausible, T's proposals have been strongly challenged by leading specialists. (The author emphasizes the strength and authority of objections)

51-53:
The author is saying "So these trees ARE still growing, even though the dodo is gone."

54:
"Additional counterevidence" ... also the author's choice of wording.