Self-study
Biologist: Many paleontologists have suggested that the difficulty of adapting to ice ages was responsible for the evolution of the human brain. ███ ████ ██████████ ████ ██ █████████ ███ ████ █████ ██████ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████████████ ███████ ██ █████ ███████
Argument Summary
Some paleontologists think ice ages drove the evolution of the human brain. The biologist rejects this, reasoning that most other animal species adapted to ice ages without any brain changes. The biologist's logic is essentially: ice ages didn't change other species' brains, so ice ages didn't change human brains either.
Questionable Analogy
The biologist treats other species' experience as proof of what happened with humans. But why should we assume humans would respond to ice ages the same way other species did? A condition can affect different species differently. Most people who eat peanuts are perfectly fine, but that doesn't mean peanuts can't cause a severe reaction in a specific person. The relevant question isn't what ice ages did to other species' brains. It's whether something about humans — maybe their pre-existing cognitive abilities, their social structures, their reliance on tools — made them uniquely susceptible to ice-age-driven brain evolution, even though other species weren't.
The biologist never addresses the possibility that humans were different from other species in some way that made ice ages a catalyst for brain evolution specifically in humans.
11.
The biologist's argument is most ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████████
a
It fails to ███████ ██████████ ███ ███████████ ████ ████ ██ █ █████████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████ ██ █ ████████ ██ ███ ███ ██ █████████ ██ ███████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ████████
(A) says the biologist confuses sufficient and necessary conditions within a species — overlooking that a condition could be sufficient to produce an effect without being necessary for it. But that's not the biologist's error. The biologist's error is about whether ice ages were sufficient to produce brain evolution in humans at all. The biologist sees that ice ages weren't sufficient to cause brain changes in other species and concludes they weren't sufficient to cause brain changes in humans either. What the biologist overlooks is that a condition can be sufficient to produce a change in one species without being sufficient to produce it in others.
b
It fails to ███████ ██████████ ███ ███████████ ████ █ █████████ ███ ███████ █ ██████ ██ █ ███████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ████████
This identifies the core flaw. The biologist concludes that ice ages didn't drive human brain evolution because most other species' brains weren't affected. But a condition can produce a change in one species without producing it in others. Humans might have been different from other animals in ways that made ice ages a trigger for brain evolution in humans. The biologist never considers this possibility and instead assumes that whatever happened to other species must have happened to humans too.
c
It overlooks the ███████████ ████ █ █████████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ███████ █ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █ ███████ ██████ ██ █████ ████████
(C) talks about whether a condition is needed (necessary) to produce a change. But necessity isn't the issue here. The paleontologists' claim is that ice ages caused (were sufficient for) human brain evolution, and the biologist rejects that causal claim. Whether ice ages were necessary for brain evolution — whether brain evolution could have happened without ice ages — is a different question from whether they were sufficient to produce changes.
d
It presumes without ███████ ████ █████ ██████ ████ █████████ ████ ███████ ████████████ ██████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ███████████ ██ ████ █████ ████████
If anything, the biologist actually seems to assume the opposite. The biologist's reasoning treats humans and other species as being in the same boat during ice ages: they all faced the same challenge, most didn't evolve new brains, so humans probably didn't either. If the biologist were assuming humans faced greater difficulties, that would undermine his own argument by providing a reason why humans might have responded differently from other species.
e
It takes for ███████ █████ ██ █ █████████ █████████ ████ ███ █████████ ██ █ ███████ ███████████ ████ █████████ ████ ████ ████ ████████ ███████████ ███ ███ ███████████
This describes a correlation-to-causation error, where someone concludes that because two things happened around the same time, one must have caused the other. But the biologist doesn't make this error. The biologist is rejecting a causal claim, not making one. It's the paleontologists who suggest that ice ages caused brain evolution. The biologist argues against that suggestion.