Purebred dogs are prone to genetically determined abnormalities. Although such abnormalities often can be corrected b...
JeromeJune 26, 2020
Why not E?
Answer (E): "A dog that does not have genetically determined abnormalities may nevertheless have offspring with such abnormalities."
I understand that answer (A) serves to weaken by stating that such abnormalities do not need surgical intervention thereby not needing to pay for it. However, answer (E) suggests that the fact that the risk of abnormality in purebred and non purebred dogs are unfounded. I thought this offered a good alternative reasoning to weaken claims of purchasing a non purebred dog to save money.
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Thanks for the question! So, it is possible that (E) weakens the argument, but it definitely doesn’t do so directly as (A). Remember, the argument is basically saying that because purebred dogs suffer from genetically determined abnormalities that might need expensive surgery, people who want to reduce the risk of having costly medical bills for their pets should pick non purebred dogs (which don’t suffer from those abnormalities). (A) directly attacks this idea because it says that most abnormalities don’t affect well-being, which means that surgeries wouldn’t be necessary.
Now, let’s take a look at (E), which tells us that dogs that don’t have genetically determined abnormalities might have offspring with such abnormalities. That might be true, but that requires assuming that the owners of these pets are going to allow their pets to have offspring, and then raise those offspring themselves. That’s an extra level of assuming that (A) doesn’t require. In addition, (E) doesn’t exclude the possibility that dogs with genetically determined abnormalities might have offspring with such abnormalities, which seems pretty likely. And most important, if you pick a dog with genetically determined abnormalities, you’ll 100% have a dog with genetically determined abnormalities (because, duh). But if you pick a dog without, then not only do you currently have a dog with 0% chance of genetically determined abnormalities, but the offspring still have X < 100% chance of having abnormalities. So clearly, the argument would still stand, since it would still be BETTER to pick the dogs without genetic abnormalities (non purebred dogs), since it would still reduce the risk. And that’s all the argument’s saying. So (E) doesn’t really weaken the argument as much as (A), if at all, and (E) isn’t the correct answer choice.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
