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- jimmy902o
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Elle Woods
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Q2 - Commentator: My people argue that
Got this one right, but was still pretty tempted by E. Can someone please help explain why its wrong?
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- bbirdwell
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q2 - Commentator: My people argue that
(E) says genetic changes occurred.... So what? This information does nothing to support or weaken the argument being made: that CFCs are not harming us by damaging the ozone.
It helps to see the common pattern here. It's an argument by analogy.
CFCs aren't hurting us by damaging the atmosphere, because our ancestors didn't get hurt by a damaged atmosphere.
The way to weaken this? Make the analogy bad! (Like (C) says: It's a bad analogy! Ancestors were different in an important way -- they were resistant to radiation!)
The way to strengthen? Make the analogy good.
What if it were an assumption question? We have to assume the analogy is good!
What if it were a flaw question? The flaw is that the author assumes the analogy is good!
(E) doesn't give us anything. "Genetic changes" doesn't mean good or bad, and we have no evidence regarding whether modern humans are also undergoing genetic changes, etc... After reading (C) it might be easy to assume that these genetic changes are bad or good, but the fact is we don't know. Therefore, this fact does nothing to the argument either way.
Hope that helps!
It helps to see the common pattern here. It's an argument by analogy.
CFCs aren't hurting us by damaging the atmosphere, because our ancestors didn't get hurt by a damaged atmosphere.
The way to weaken this? Make the analogy bad! (Like (C) says: It's a bad analogy! Ancestors were different in an important way -- they were resistant to radiation!)
The way to strengthen? Make the analogy good.
What if it were an assumption question? We have to assume the analogy is good!
What if it were a flaw question? The flaw is that the author assumes the analogy is good!
(E) doesn't give us anything. "Genetic changes" doesn't mean good or bad, and we have no evidence regarding whether modern humans are also undergoing genetic changes, etc... After reading (C) it might be easy to assume that these genetic changes are bad or good, but the fact is we don't know. Therefore, this fact does nothing to the argument either way.
Hope that helps!
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- tuf58975
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Vinny Gambini
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Re: Q2 - Commentator: My people argue that
Why D is not correct?
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- ohthatpatrick
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q2 - Commentator: My people argue that
The argument was basically, "Since X happened before and was harmless, we don't have to worry about X happening now."
How do you argue with something like that?
If you have to accept that X was harmless before, (as we do, since it's a Premise), you're basically stuck arguing something to the effect of "Yeah, but THIS time is DIFFERENT."
So how does (D) do that?
The author isn't in any way troubled by the fact that the ozone layer takes a long time to regrow, because our author isn't worried in the first place that there's damage to the ozone layer.
How do you argue with something like that?
If you have to accept that X was harmless before, (as we do, since it's a Premise), you're basically stuck arguing something to the effect of "Yeah, but THIS time is DIFFERENT."
So how does (D) do that?
The author isn't in any way troubled by the fact that the ozone layer takes a long time to regrow, because our author isn't worried in the first place that there's damage to the ozone layer.
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