Essayist: When the first prehistoric migrations of humans from Asia to North America took place, the small bands of ...

Mehran on April 1, 2017

@ariella (C) is the correct answer here.

Are you seeing otherwise somewhere in your materials?

Please let us know. Sorry for the confusion.

JayDee8732 on August 4, 2017

Why is C correct?

Mehran on August 30, 2017

@JayDee8732 this is a Cause & Effect argument.

The observed effect that the author is trying to explain is "many species of animals that would be extinct only 2,000 years" after they encountered the new arrivals of humans from Asia to North America.

The author's proposed cause? Disease-causing microorganisms, NOT hunting.

This is a Weaken question so we are looking for an answer choice that weakens this cause and effect argument.

(C) weakens this argument by pointing out that very few species that were not hunted went extinct 2,000 years after.

This weakens the author's argument that it was disease-causing microorganisms by showing cause without effect, i.e. disease-causing microorganisms but no extinction.

It also weakens by showing that when the alternate cause of hunting was removed, the effect was not present either, i.e. no hunting, no extinction.

Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

RyanSpencer on July 23, 2019

So this answer would indicate that even if there were micro organisms out there, they were not the cause because the animals that were NOT hunted did not go extinct.

Ravi on July 23, 2019

@RyanSpencer, that's right. With (C), we have information that makes
us doubt that the microorganisms were the cause for the extinctions
because if they were, then why would the extinct animals almost
exclusively be the ones that were hunted? This casts doubt on the
microorganism theory, so it weakens the argument.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any other questions!