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I found an MANHATTAN instructor's reply http://www.beatthegmat.com/evaluation-genetic-modifiers-t167096.html:
"Typically, when we want to evaluate a question, we need to find a logical gap between the premises and conclusion.
Premises:
- amount of insecticide/acre only slightly lower for modified cotton seed than regular
- modified seed costs more
- modified seed doesn't produce yields of higher value
Conclusion:
Switching to modified seed would be unlikely to benefit farmer economically
Logical Gap:
We have some information about revenue (no higher value) and cost (higher cost of seed, slightly lower cost of insecticide), and we're making a conclusion about profits. What we're missing is further information about revenue and cost. What if the modified seeds produced higher yields? Even at the same market value, higher yields would be more revenue. What about other costs, such as differences in costs of insecticide, labor, production, etc?
A. Other crops from modified seed are irrelevant to our argument. Incorrect
B. Here's what tricky about this question (which is why I'm curious about the origin). Usually, any information about other crops would be irrelevant here, too. But what they're getting at is this - cotton insecticide is really expensive. Therefore, any slight reduction in insecticide might make a big difference to overall profit. This decrease in this cost might then offset the increase in cost of seed, and would actually increase profits. CORRECT
C. Whether it's the primary crop doesn't effect the revenue/cost equation here. Incorrect
D. This would be relevant if the costs in our premises were total costs. But the premises were about costs per acre, so it doesn't matter how many acres were planted. Incorrect
E. This speaks to the farmers' motives. Most of the time in CR, we don't care why people did something, or what their feelings were about it. We only care what they did. This wouldn't actually speak to whether they're better off economically by switching. Incorrect" |
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