I feel 7Sage could do a better job of explaining why Q2 is not an argument, otherwise the explanation is confusing.

Thankfully, I've spoken with my good friend Claude, who says that in the future, I should look for clues to help me determine whether the author is reporting vs speaking from their own point of view.

For example, the passage says:

• Scientists theorize...

• Scientists concluded...

• They further concluded...

These all show how the author is not making an argument or trying to persuade the reader of anything by making their own claim, but they are simply reporting about the scientists' research process and findings.

For this to be an argument, the author would need to be advocating for a position, like "This genetic dating method is reliable" or "These scientists' conclusions are correct."

Instead, the author is neutrally presenting information about what the scientists theorized and concluded.