Manatees, aquatic mammals inhabiting Florida's rivers and coastal waters, swim close to the surface and are frequently killed in collisions with boats. To address the problem, boat traffic in manatee-populated waters is being required to maintain very low speeds. Unfortunately, manatees are unable to hear low-pitched sounds and a boat's sound lowers in pitch as the boat slows. Therefore, this approach may in fact make things worse rather than better.
Which of the following, if true, casts most doubt on the conclusion?
GWD29-9 Q9: Manatees, aquatic mammals inhabiting Florida’s rivers and coastal waters, swim close to the surface and are frequently killed in collisions with boats. To address the problem, boat traffic in manatee-populated waters is being required to maintain very low speeds. Unfortunately, manatees are unable to hear low-pitched sounds and a boat’s sound lowers in pitch as the boat slows. Therefore, this approach may in fact make things worse rather than better.
Which of the following, if true, casts most doubt on the conclusion?
A.The areas where boats would have to maintain low speeds were decided partly on the basis of manatee-population estimates and partly from numbers of reported collisions between manatees and boats. B.Because the water hyacinth that manatees feed on grows best in water that is nearly still, water hyacinth beds can be disturbed or damaged by fast-moving boat traffic. C.Over the last several decades, boat traffic in Florida’s coastal waters has been increasing almost continuously and now represents the greatest threat to the endangered manatee population.
D.The sound of a boat engine generally travels much further under water than it does through the air.
E.When experimenters exposed manatees to the recorded sounds of boats moving at various speeds, the creatures were unable to discern the sounds over normal background noise.
The most important thing is to separate the premiseand the conclusion and focus on them only. Youcan then easily answer the question. You willgrasp it as you practise and practise.
Premise: Lowering the speed of the boats causelowering of the pitch of the sound
This can be stated as, Speed lowers=>itch lowers - (1)
Conclusion: Detection of boats decreases as thepitch of the sound is lowered implying collisionincreases which can be written as
Pitch lowers=>Detection more difficult - (2)
From (1) & (2) we have,
Speed decreases => Detection more difficult -(3)
We also have,
Detection more difficult=> Collision increases -(4)
(Why (4) is not the main conclusion?We will talk about that later.)
The best answer is that which falsifies one of thefirst three relations.
Only E does that by falsifying (3). Iteffectively says that the detection of the boat
(i.e., discernment of the sound) by the manatees doesnot decrease with the decreasing speed butis actually indifferent to various speeds.
It is not D because the distinction between thedistance travelled by sound in air or watercannot falsify any of the three relationsbecause that issue is not at all addressed
there. Similarly other choices can be ruled outRemember to focus only on the premise and the conclusion.Anything is relevant only if it affects thepremise or the conclusion.
Tip: How would you separate premise from conclusion?
We explain one useful way of doing it.In other questions we talk about other ways.
Conclusion is something which does not logicallyfollow from the premise. It needs assumptionsIn the above question, (4) is not considered asthe main conclusion because it logically followsfrom the argument. That is, it need not bebe explicitly stated. Detection decreseslogically implies collision increases.Even if the author doesn't state it, it isunderstood. So, instead of (4), we have (2) as theconclusion and is not part of the premise.Also consider, the example
Fact:He passed the exam.
Now the sentence: "He is intelligent" may be considereda conclusion because it is not implied from the Fact.It needs the assumption:"Those who pass theexam are intelligent". However the sentence:"He appearedfor the exam" is not a conclusion as itcan be deduced without any assumption. It iscalled an inference and is part of the Factin this exampleThere are other ways in which we can identify the premise and the conclusion whichwe discuss in the course material.