"If the forest continues to disappear at its present pace, the koala will approach extinction," said the biologist. "...

SamA January 21, 2020

Hello @annetr0712,

The wording here is tricky, partially because the two statements use different terms. Let's assign them some common abbreviations.

Stop Deforestation = SD
Forest Continues to disappear = not SD

Koalas approach extinction: KAE
Koalas are saved: not KAE

Biologist: "If the forest continues to disappear at its current pace, the koala will approach extinction."
not SD - - - - - -> KAE
or
not KAE - - - - - - - > SD

Here, stopping deforestation is a necessary condition for koala survival.

Sounds like you figured that part out.

Politician: "So all that is needed to save the koala is to stop deforestation."

Unlike the biologist, the politician believes that stopping deforestation is sufficient for koala survival. It is "all that is needed." It guarantees the conclusion, like sufficient guarantees necessary.

SD - - - - - - -> not KAE
KAE - - - - - - > not SD

You are correct that "all" presents the sufficient condition, but the order of this sentence is strange. Pay attention to the "is." What is the word "all" actually addressing? "All that is needed to save the koalas is..." actually presents "stop deforestation" as the sufficient condition. The "all" describes stopping deforestation, not saving the koalas.

Think of it this way: "Stopping deforestation is all that is needed to save the koalas."

I just rearranged the sentence to make it clearer what the "all" is addressing. Usually you can rely on your indicator words, but make sure you understand what the sentence is saying.

0tas> August 5, 2020

I do not understand why saving the koala is the same as koalas not approaching extinction. When I first attempted this question, I interpreted "the koala will approach extinction" as merely saying that koalas will get closer to extinction. I did not think that the biologist was saying that koalas will become extinct if "the forest continues to disappear at its present pace." I did not think that the politician said that stopping deforestation was all that was needed to stop the koala from approaching extinction. In sum, I did not think preventing the koala from approaching extinction was the same as saving the koala from extinction. I thought that "approaching extinction" merely meant that that the koala was getting closer to becoming extinct, but not extinct already. I thought that saving the koala only meant keeping the koalas alive even as they approaching extinction. Can someone please help me understand what I did wrong here on this question?

Julia96 September 6, 2023

Bump ^

The question made sense to me when I saw that the politician's claim was diagrammed as follows: /D --> /KAE.

However, I first diagrammed the politician's claim as follows: /D --> SK.

My trouble in finding the correct answer stemmed from the necessary condition not matching the necessary condition from the biologist's claim.

It seems in most S&N questions, diagramming the differences in subtle language are usually essential in selecting the correct answer (i.e. meaning we would interpret "slowing deforestation" differently from "stopping deforestation").

In short, why in this case did paraphrase "If the forest continues to disappear at its present pace" and "stop deforestation" to mean the same thing.

I have struggled with understanding this for over the year I've studied and a response would be immensely appreciated

Emil-Kunkin September 12, 2023

I think it's critical to understand the plain meaning of a term. Here, the ideas of saving the koala and stopping it from approaching extinction are doing the exact same thing, while the words are different they are expressing ideas that are effectively the same- at least in this context.

The idea of slowing deforestation and stopping deforestation is a bit different. You correctly identified that the politician is talking about completely stopping deforestation, while the biologist is talking about slowing it. One is more extreme than the other. However, in this case, it matters which is the more extreme. The idea of stopping inherently contains the idea of slowing. If we stop deforestation we necessarily have slowed its rate to zero. Since the scientist is talking about the weaker option, it's not really wrong for the politician to suggest doing the stronger one, since it would have the same effect as the weaker.