Self-study
Support In the bodies of reptiles, some industrial by-products cause elevated hormonal activity. ████████ ██████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████ ████ ██████ ███ ██ ████████ ████████ ███████████ ██ █████ █████ ██████ ████ ████ ████████ ████████ █████████ █████████ ███████ ██████████ ████ ███ ████████ █████████████ █████████████ ████ ██████████ ██ █ ██████ ███ ███████████ ██████████ ███████████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████ ██████████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that industrial by-products have entered the swamp’s ecosystem. This is based on the following:
Some industrial by-products cause elevated hormonal activity.
Recently, some reptiles in this swamp had abnormal development that occurs only with elevated hormonal activity.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author assumes that there’s no other cause of the elevated hormonal activity besides the industrial by-products. This overlooks the possibility that the reptiles’ hormonal activity could be due to something else, in which case, we cannot conclude that industrial by-products have entered the swamp.
1.
The reasoning in the argument ██ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████
a
provides no explanation ███ █████████████ █████████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ████████ ████████ ████████
The argument concerns abnormalities that are caused only be elevated hormonal activity. Other abnormalities don’t have any impact on the reasoning.
b
fails to consider ███████ ████████ ████████ ████████ ███ ██████ ████ ███████ █████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ ██████████ ███████████
If elevated hormonal activity can result from things besides industrial by-products, then the elevated hormonal activity that the reptiles in the swamp have does not prove that there are industrial by-products in the swamp. The elevated hormones might result from other things.
c
fails to address ███ ███████████ ████ ██████████ ███████████ ████ █████████ ██ ████ ███ ██████████ ███
The author doesn’t make any assumption about exactly how the by-products got into the reptiles in the swamp. Maybe the reptiles ate food in the swamp, and that food contained the by-products. This doesn’t undermine the author’s reasoning.
d
fails to say ███████ ████████ █████ ████ ██████████ ████ ████████ ███ ███ ████ █████████████ █████████████ ████ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████████
We know there are reptiles in the swamp with the abnormalities that are only caused by elevated hormonal activity. Whether there are other reptiles that have those abnormalities or not has no impact on the reasoning.
e
uses evidence drawn ████ █ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ██████████████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███████
The conclusion doesn’t concern alligators in general. So there’s nothing flawed about relying on evidence drawn from a sample of alligators in the swamp.