Q16 - Wildlife management experts should not

[noah]

I think Cyrus nailed it.

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Flaw

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: WME's shouldn't interfere with the natural habitats of wild creatures.
Evidence: interfering with the wild environment to help endangered species makes it harder for non-endangered ones to survive

Any prephrase?
This doesn't resemble any classic flaw. I would try to debate the conclusion by saying "given that changing the environment to help endangered species will make it harder on non-endangered species, how would we argue that WME's should change the environment to help endagered species?" I would probably say something like, "Deal with it, non-endangered species. The habitat will get worse for you, but you're not as big a priority as the endangered species. If we DON'T change the environment, that species might go extinct, which is a worse outcome then 'making it harder to survive'."

Answer choice analysis:
A) only deals with the conclusion.

B) is more or less a strengthener - the reverse of what we want. If we knew that non-endangered species can NOT become endangered, then we wouldn't care about this issue.

C) is out of scope - we're not discussing the overall diversity. Furthermore, the argument doesn't overlook the problems caused by this management technique, it actually emphasizes them.

D) is tempting, however it compares the relative value of endangered species to each other, not endangered to non-endangered, as (E) does.

E) Looks good! Kinda sounds like our prephrase.

The correct answer is E.

Takeaway/Pattern: A, B, and C are Weaken answers. ("fails to consider / overlooks the possibility" = if true, would this weaken?). D and E are Necessary Assumption answers ("presumes / takes for granted" = did the author need to assume this?) D is wrong, like so many Necessary Assumption answers, in part because of the extreme language. Does the author need to assume that EVERY SINGLE endangered species is EQUALLY important? Of course not. Meanwhile, if we negate (E), it says "preserving the endangered DOES have a higher priority than preserving the non-endangered", which is a perfect way to weaken the argument.

#officialexplanation

[pinkdatura]

I know E is a perfect answer, but why B is wrong? Is it too extreme: non-endangered animal because endanger vs make it harder for non-endangered to survive?

[cyruswhittaker]

B is not the correct answer because failing to recognize that a nonendangered species can easily become an endangered species wouldn't weaken the argument at all.

In fact, if this were true, it seems like it would actually help to strengthen her argument. After all, if manipulating the environment to help endangered species is making it difficult for nonendangered species to survive, then it could be more likely that it would also lead to these species to easily become endangered.

[interestedintacos]

This is very similar to the stimuli that show up often in "which of the following principles would do the most to justify..." questions. The principle, which the arguer takes for granted, is in E.

[JosephV]

I think Cyrus nailed it.

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Flaw

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: WME's shouldn't interfere with the natural habitats of wild creatures.
Evidence: interfering with the wild environment to help endangered species makes it harder for non-endangered ones to survive

Any prephrase?
This doesn't resemble any classic flaw. I would try to debate the conclusion by saying "given that changing the environment to help endangered species will make it harder on non-endangered species, how would we argue that WME's should change the environment to help endagered species?" I would probably say something like, "Deal with it, non-endangered species. The habitat will get worse for you, but you're not as big a priority as the endangered species. If we DON'T change the environment, that species might go extinct, which is a worse outcome then 'making it harder to survive'."

Answer choice analysis:
A) only deals with the conclusion.

B) is more or less a strengthener - the reverse of what we want. If we knew that non-endangered species can NOT become endangered, then we wouldn't care about this issue.

C) is out of scope - we're not discussing the overall diversity. Furthermore, the argument doesn't overlook the problems caused by this management technique, it actually emphasizes them.

D) is tempting, however it compares the relative value of endangered species to each other, not endangered to non-endangered, as (E) does.

E) Looks good! Kinda sounds like our prephrase.

The correct answer is E.

Takeaway/Pattern: A, B, and C are Weaken answers. ("fails to consider / overlooks the possibility" = if true, would this weaken?). D and E are Necessary Assumption answers ("presumes / takes for granted" = did the author need to assume this?) D is wrong, like so many Necessary Assumption answers, in part because of the extreme language. Does the author need to assume that EVERY SINGLE endangered species is EQUALLY important? Of course not. Meanwhile, if we negate (E), it says "preserving the endangered DOES have a higher priority than preserving the non-endangered", which is a perfect way to weaken the argument.

#officialexplanation

Hi,

Would someone please quickly jot down why (A) is problematic on the basis of dealing solely with the conclusion? In order to weaken the argument, do I always need to attack the connection between the premises and the conclusion?

Thank you.

P.S.: I did try to look up the answer in the LR book but couldn't find it.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Hey JosephV, interesting question.

First, let's clarify the task of the question - this is a Flaw question, not a Weaken question. They function a bit differently.

That being said, an answer that only dealt with the conclusion would miss the mark in either case. For a Flaw question, we are being asked to identify an error in the author's logic. In other words, a mistake in the way the author leapt from the premises to the conclusion. Many Flaw answers tap into assumptions of the argument, as unwarranted assumptions are themselves flaws.

But an assumption of an argument is by its very nature a connection between the premise and the conclusion.

For (A), the idea that wildlife management experts know better than regular joes how to save endangered critters seems to touch on the question of 'should they interfere or not' (the conclusion) - but it does so by suggesting that if anyone should interfere, it should probably be these guys.

Unfortunately for (A), the author isn't concluding that wildlife management experts specifically shouldn't interfere, but rather that interfering is a bad thing to do generally - for anyone! Including wildlife management experts! How do we know the author thinks that? By looking at the premise information. The premise lays out how interfering causes a Bad Thing (nonendangered critters have a worse time).

To accurately characterize a flaw, I can't just look at the conclusion in a vacuum and imagine why I think it's wrong. I have to look at the logical steps the author made in jumping from the safety of the premises to the sketchy conclusion.

(And as a side note, for a Weaken question, the answer will bring up a new tidbit of information that, if true, would make that logical jump from premise to conclusion less likely to work. So we've still got to be looking at the whole argument, not just the conclusion.)

Does that help a bit?

[JosephV]

Hi again Christine,

Once more, thanks a lot for your very intelligible and thorough explanations/answers to my specific questions. Much appreciated!

Cheers,

-- Joseph