PT8.S4.Q11 - a distemper virus has caused

cest_la_vie

I don't get how (a) can strengthen the argument. It says "several species of shellfish and seabirds in the North Sea waters.." but how can being in the North Sea help the conclusion? Isn't it also possible that those shellfish and seabirds died because of the distemper virus, not the pollution?

Clemens_

According to the stimulus, the author is trying to argue that there were more than one causes that brought about a certain effect, on the grounds that only one cause would have been insufficient to bring this effect about: According to the author, the virus is typically quite harmless, but in the particular case under consideration it is supposed to have a truly dramatic effect (reducing the seal populations by two thirds). To strengthen this, we could thus show that the virus is typically really quite harmless, for instance. This would underline the need for a contributing cause that augments the virus's effects. Alternatively, we could strengthen this argument by identifying more correlations to which the author's reasoning applies. Say it was not only in the case of this particular virus that North Sea animals are disproportionally affected by ordinarily harmless health issues but also in further cases. Then it again would seem that there needs to be some sort of contributing cause that augments the effects of illnesses in this particular domain, just as the author is trying to argue.

(A) goes for this second option: It is not only in the case of seals that ordinarily harmless health issues have disproportionate effects upon North Sea animals but also in the case of shellfish and seabirds. This makes it more likely that there indeed is a deeper underlying issue that contributes causally to the effects of these illnesses.

cest_la_vie

Thanks for the detailed explanation! It really helped!