Cynthia: Promoting innovation is certainly important. For this reason, patents should be granted only for truly innovative drugs, not for minor variants of previously existing drugs. Since it is much less expensive to tweak an existing drug than to develop a wholly new one, pharmaceutical companies tend to focus primarily on the cheaper alternative.
Speaker 1 Summary
Dario says that patents should be granted for all new drugs. Why? Because patents promote innovation. Dario supports this major premise by explaining that patents reward pharmaceutical companies for spending money on researching new drugs.
Speaker 2 Summary
Cynthia thinks that patents should only be granted for “truly innovative” new drugs, not absolutely all new drugs. Cynthia also supports this proposal by saying it will promote innovation. So how does limiting patents help innovation? Because it would deter companies from just developing variations on existing drugs, which is cheaper than coming up with truly new drugs.
Objective
We’re looking for a point of disagreement. Dario and Cynthia disagree about whether absolutely all new drug developments should be rewarded with patents.
A
pharmaceutical companies should be rewarded for pursuing innovation
Both Dario and Cynthia agree with this. Both speakers want to encourage innovation by offering pharmaceutical companies rewards, they just disagree on what counts as innovation.
B
patents should be granted for all drug compounds
Dario agrees with this, but Cynthia disagrees: here’s the point of disagreement. This claim is Dario’s main conclusion. Cynthia’s conclusion, however, is that only certain drug compounds should get patents.
C
developing truly innovative drugs is costly
Both speakers agree that this is true. Dario talks about the “costly” research needed to develop any new drugs, and Cynthia says that varying existing drugs is “much less expensive” than innovative drugs (meaning innovation is much more expensive).
D
pharmaceutical companies have an incentive to create minor variants of existing drugs
Cynthia agrees with this, but Dario doesn’t express an opinion about minor variants specifically. Dario groups all sorts of new drugs together, and never distinguishes between minor variants and totally new drugs.
E
drug patents can promote innovation
Both speakers agree with this claim. Both Dario and Cynthia think that awarding patents can promote innovation, they just disagree about when precisely the decision to award patents should be made.
Summary
Researchers placed electrodes in a pool with a dolphin. When activated, the electrodes created a weak electric field, causing the dolphin to swim away. When they were not activated, the dolphin behaved normally. After covering the dolphin's vibrissal crypts with a plastic shield, the dolphin no longer swam away when the electrodes were activated.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
The vibrissal crypts impact a dolphin’s ability to detect electric fields.
Dolphins instinctively swim from electrical fields
Dolphins instinctively swim from electrical fields
A
In the wild, dolphins sometimes encounter strong electric fields.
There is no information about this in the stimulus. You have to assume that because they have vibrissal crypts, there are strong electric fields in the wild.
B
Vibrissal crypts enable dolphins to sense electric fields.
The experiment showed that the dolphin no longer reacted to the electrical field when the vibrissal crypts were covered. It is reasonable assume that the crypts impact the dolphin’s ability to sense electric fields.
C
Dolphins do not instinctually avoid electric fields, but they can be trained to do so.
This is antisupported. The study showed how the dolphins instinctively avoided the electric fields when they were present.
D
Electric fields interfere with the normal functioning of dolphins’ vibrissal crypts.
This is antisupported. The plastic shields interfere with the normal functioning of vibrissal crypts. That’s why the dolphin no longer avoided the electrical field.
E
Under normal circumstances, dolphins are unable to sense electric fields.
This is antisupported. Dolphins are normally able to sense electric fields. It is only when their vibrissal crypts are covered that it no longer detected them.