Q14 - Dr. Libokov: Certain islands

[b91302310]

For this question, I think the possible answers are (B) and (E). However, they are both partial right.

For (B), it's true that Dr. Santos restates the hypothesis of Dr. Libokov; however, he or she also adds something to it.(i.e. the examples of mammals ).

For (E), it's true that Dr. Santos provides addtional evidence; however, I could not identify whether Dr. Santos is in support of Dr. Libokov's hypothesis.

Could anyone explain it?

Thanks!

[bbirdwell]

Be meticulous with the way you conceptualize these arguments!

The first guy's statement looks like this:
Conclusion: Land mammals ate all the sphenos.
Premise: Sphenos used to be plentiful. The only place they still exist (New Zealand), there are no land mammals.

The second guy's statement is this:
Where land mammals have been recently introduced in New Zealand, the sphenos have gone extinct.

This is it for the second guy. notice that he doesn't, in fact, restate the first guy's hypothesis. He does add some new information that supports that hypothesis, though, so (B) is wrong on both counts, and (E) is definitely correct.

[justindebouvier7]

I'm not quite sure how this would be considered additional evidence to supporting Dr. L's hypothesis. Although the first researchers states that land mammals were the predators, I don't see the relevance of Dr. Santos additional information. I selected (B) as well believing Dr. Santos was assuming that just because land mammals were introduced into the land during the same period that they were the ones who contributed to the extinction of the sphenodontidans. Similar to a causation/correlation flaw.

[justindebouvier7]

I'm not quite sure how this would be considered additional evidence to supporting Dr. L's hypothesis. Although the first researchers states that land mammals were the predators, I don't see the relevance of Dr. Santos additional information. I selected (B) as well believing Dr. Santos was assuming that just because land mammals were introduced into the land during the same period that they were the ones who contributed to the extinction of the sphenodontidans. Similar to a causation/correlation flaw.