Q8 - Monarch butterflies must contend with

[Laura Damone]

Question Type:
ID the Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Migration allows monarch butterflies to avoid parasite infection. Premise: In populations of monarchs that haven't migrated, as many as 95 percent are infected. In populations that have migrated, less than 15 percent are infected.

Answer Anticipation:
This is a classic example of the reversed causality flavor of Causation flaw. Could mitration be protective? Sure. But couldn't it also be the other way around: monarchs who are infected are unable to migrate?

Correct answer:
D

Answer choice analysis:
(A) If this is true, it doesn't weaken our argument, so it isn't a possibility the argument has overlooked.

(B) This is an irrelevant comparison.

(C) This one is tempting. The stimulus deals only with percentages of populations, so we might feel that information about the size of those populations is overlooked. But be careful here. "Unmentioned" is not the same thing as "overlooked." A possibility can only be considered "overlooked" when it is both unmentioned and, if mentioned, would negatively impact the argument. Answer choice C meets the first criterion but not the second. If there are way more butterflies that don't migrate, it doesn't make it any less likely that migration protects against parasite infection.

(D) Bingo! A perfect match for our prephrase.

(E) So what? If this is indeed the case, it has no impact on our argument.

Takeaway/Pattern:
When an argument tells you that two things are correlated and concludes that one of them caused the other, always ask yourself "could they have it backwards?" And when an ID the Flaw question is looking for an answer that represents an overlooked possibility, make sure that the answer, if true, would weaken the argument.

#officialexplanation

[creek1262]

Hello, thank you for the explanation!
Would C be correct if it said that populations of monarch butterflies that have migrated are much larger than those that did not migrate?
This seems like a similar question in PT85 about percentage of dog owners with degrees and cat owners with degrees.

Thank you!