All right, let's take a look at this question here, which is a couple of steps up in difficulty from the previous one, right?

So first, let's start with the question stem.

The claim that there is a warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface figures in the argument in which one of the following ways?

So the question stem is telling us to focus on a particular claim, and it's asking, hey, this claim over here,

how does it figure into the argument overall, right? What does it mean for a claim to figure into the argument?

It's asking about how it relates to the argument, right?

What is the relationship? Is it context? Is it premise? Is it conclusion? Is it someone else's argument?

Is it something else? This is a particular type of Logical Reasoning question, and later in the curriculum, in the

Logical Reasoning Unit, we have lots of lessons about this. Okay, so right now, let's just dissect this argument.

Let's just ignore this specific claim. We'll just dissect the argument and label every single part of it.

Okay, so photographs show an area of Europa, a moon of Jupiter, right? That's what Europa is,

Okay, buckled. So I'm thinking cracks, right? As a result of turbulent water moving underneath. Oh, I see.

So it's got an icy surface, but it's got water underneath, right?

That's churning and moving around, and that's what made the ice surface buckle and crack.

Okay, what is this? Like, where is this going? I don't know.

I mean, if I had to guess, I would guess maybe context, right?

But then as soon as I read the next sentence, I would know that I was wrong, right?

This photographic evidence indicates that. Okay, so right away

this is explicit, rather explicitly telling me that this here is being used as support for this

conclusion, right? For this conclusion. It's saying it's evidence, right?

It's saying it indicates that. What does it indicate? That there is a warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface.

So you can play this premise-conclusion game, right? Like conclusions receive support, premises give support.

I can ask, like, why should I believe that there is a warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface?

Well, this photographic evidence, right?

What photographic evidence? This one right here that shows Europa

with icy surface, with buckles and cracks in it as a result of turbulent water moving underneath, right?

So that's the support structure. You got premise-conclusion. Great. Where's this going, right?

I see one more sentence. The presence of such a sea, referential, right?

The warm sea, is thought by scientists to be a primary factor in the early development of life,

so, right? So there is reason to believe that there may be life on Europa. Now, this is interesting too.

"So" is clearly a conclusion indicator,

which means we also have a premise-conclusion support structure happening here.

Like, why should I, why should I believe that there may be life on Europa?

Well, right over here, scientists think that, you know, the presence of warm sea is a primary factor in early development of life.

Okay, so both because there's an explicit conclusion indicator and because you know this, like, "why should I believe" game works out that way.

So now I'm kind of in a pickle. I got two claims that receive support. So what's going on, right?

What is the relationship between this conclusory claim and this conclusory claim?

Are they totally unrelated or is it that maybe one of them supports the other one?

And if it's one that supports the other, which one, right? Which one? Well, you can play that game again.

Why should I believe that there may be life on Europa?

Perhaps because there's a warm sea, and the presence of a warm sea is a primary factor in the early development of life.

That's your evidence for believing that there may be life on Europa. That makes sense. That checks out, right?

That means this is not a main conclusion. It's a subsidiary conclusion

supporting the main conclusion over here. Now, if you flip this around, it wouldn't make much sense.

Why should I believe there's warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface? Well, because of this photographic evidence, right?

It's not because, it's not like, oh, some scientists think there may be life on Europa. Okay.

Uh, and because of that, we therefore think there's warm sea? No. No, it's the other way around.

It's because we think there's warm sea that we hypothesize that there may be life.

Okay, so now we've totally worked out the structure of this argument. We've labeled every single piece of it. We start with premise,

photographic evidence which supports a subconclusion that, hey, look, there's warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface,

which works in conjunction with scientists believe that warm sea is a primary factor in the early development of life, right?

And look, Europa has it, right? This is a primary factor in development of life. This is a condition.

Okay, and Europa has this condition. That's what this claim shows us.

Therefore, main conclusion. Hmm. There's reason to believe that there may be life on Europa. Okay. Look, it's kind of total overkill,

I will grant, because, like, you know, I just say let's ignore this.

But you know, they really could have, they didn't have to ask for this particular claim.

They could have picked any of these claims and dropped it into the question stem, right? And then in other question

stems of this kind which you will encounter, they're gonna do that. They're gonna pick other, you know, other parts of the argument.

Okay, so here, right now, like, you're not getting points, you know, getting this question right doesn't really matter.

Okay, so I think it is very important to fully dissect and break down this argument so we're ready for whatever they're asking.

Okay, so with that, let's actually isolate the specific claim.

There is a warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface, which is this claim right over here. What is it?

Well, we called it a subconclusion, right?

We call it the subconclusion because it receives support and it goes on to support the main conclusion.

Okay, so let's take a look at the answers.

First up, (A) says, it is a subsidiary conclusion used by the argument to support its overall conclusion. Good.

Sometimes you'll see them use the word "subsidiary conclusion" or "intermediate conclusion," again, synonymous, but this is right.

It's a subconclusion because it itself receives support,

but then it is used by the argument to give support, okay, to support the overall conclusion right over here.

but that's not right because the overall conclusion of the argument, as we've already noted, is this last claim.

But this is not correct because the author isn't trying to dispute any theory.

Okay, so there is no theory that the author is fighting, right?

Like, what would that even look like? Perhaps someone says, no, there is no life on Europa.

Okay, well, if someone had presented that, then I suppose, you know, this could be trying to discredit that, but yeah,

I'm just making that up. Next up, (D) says, it is the only consideration presented in support of the argument's overall conclusion.

You know, possibly more if you want to count this subpremise as a consideration too, but at least two.

Okay, but I can see how (D) is attractive if you thought that this claim, you know,

there is warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface, if you thought this claim was substantively

identical to this claim, right? The presence of warm sea is thought by scientists to be a primary factor.

If you thought these two are the same claim, then yeah, okay,

well, I suppose, you know, maybe there is only one claim, but they're very different claims.

Okay, I want you to see that this claim is not a claim about whether warm water, whether warm sea is present

anywhere. This claim is just, it's a causal claim. It's saying, look, life, right? You want life to develop?

I'll tell you one primary causal factor. You gotta have warm sea. Okay. Does Europa have warm seas?

Well, this premise is silent on that. You know what's not silent on that? This premise. This premise is not silent.

This premise says there is warm sea, right?

So it's like, you know,

you can think of it like this premise is laying out these conditions, and this premise triggers one of these conditions.

Right? This premise says you want development of early life? Well, you gotta have warm seas. This premise comes in,

it's like, oh yeah, great. Europa has warm seas, right? So they work together, right?

They work in conjunction to support the conclusion.

Okay, so that's why (D) is not right. And lastly, (E) says, it is presented as support for a subconclusion drawn in the argument.

Well, look, this would be accurate, right, this first premise here. That's presented as support for a subconclusion, for this claim here.

Okay, but now, if you picked (E), I don't know, maybe you were thinking,

hey, could it possibly be that this claim is actually somehow supporting this claim, right?

Could it be that there's warm sea beneath that supports this, the presence of such a sea is thought by scientists to be.

And I hope you see after the analysis of (D) that the answer is no, right?

These two claims are working together to support the claim that there may be life on Europa.

Okay, it's not that like this one here supporting this. And if you think about it, it just doesn't make sense.

Like, why do we think that a warm sea is a primary factor in the early development of life?

It's probably because that's what happened on Earth, the only place we know of that had life, right?

Like, you look back in the history of Earth, when life first developed, there was warm sea.

That's probably why. We don't even know if there is life on Europa, right?

So how could, how could it be that finding warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface,

how could it be that that makes us think that warm sea is a primary factor, is one of the causal factors

for development of life, right? That logic just doesn't run through.

Okay.

Whereas if you interpret these two claims to be this one is laying out a rule and this one is triggering something,

well, then together that's what leads to the conclusion that there may be life on Europa.

Okay, that just makes a lot more sense. All right, so takeaways. I'm gonna guess that, you know,

you probably learned quite a bit from this question.

So here I'll just emphasize a couple of things that will definitely repeat. You have to internalize the different methods of identifying premises and conclusions

ideally to the point where it's just intuitive. Okay, but like, look, if your intuition fails, and it probably will at some point,

okay, this like, ah, just get to the point, author, right? If it's not working, back up, right? Back up to where you can consciously

look for words like "so," or, you know, "evidence indicates," right, these structural indicator words,

or just kind of asking yourself, like, why should I believe this?

Does it make sense if I think about the support structure this way?

Does it make sense if I think about the support structure the other way, right? Like, get comfortable with consciously going through the motions.

That's how you're going to improve your skills in argument analysis.