Would it be right for the government to abandon efforts to determine at what levels to allow toxic substances in our ...

Naz February 7, 2014

The purpose of the stimulus is to decide whether it would be right for the government to abandon efforts to determine at what levels to allow toxic substances in our food supply? The stimulus tells us that it would be right only if it can reasonably be argued that the only acceptable level of toxic substances in food is zero.

RALTX0 = reasonably argued that the only acceptable level of toxic substances in food is zero

P: R ==> RALTX0
Not RALTX0 ==> Not R

We are then told that "virtually all goods contain perfectly natural substances that are toxic but cause no harm because they do not occur in food in toxic concentrations."This leads us to the sub-conclusion that it cannot be reasonably argued that the only acceptable level of toxic substances in food is zero because they virtually all have some naturally occurring toxic substances.

Further, the stimulus states, "we can never be certain of having reduced the concentration of any substance to zero: all we can ever know is that it has been reduced to below the threshold of detection of current analytical methods." This merely adds further support to the sub-conclusion that it cannot be reasonably argued that the only acceptable level of toxic substances in food is zero because we can never be certain that the concentration has actually been reduced to zero.

So the information in the stimulus has lead us to "Not RALTX0," and we know from the contrapositive of the principle rule in the stimulus that "Not RALTX0" is sufficient to conclude "Not R."

Therefore, the main conclusion of the argument is that it is not right for the government to abandon efforts to determine what levels to allow toxic substances in our food supply, i.e. Answer choice (A) which states "the government should continue trying to determine acceptable levels for toxic substances in our food supply" (i.e. the government should not abandon efforts to determine at what levels to allow toxic substances in our food supply).

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

yaehz November 10, 2015

If there is a question in the short passage, will the correct answer choice be a response to the question?