Logic Breakdown

Passage Summary: Environmentalists are bringing tourists into forests to stop loggers from cutting down butterfly habitats, but the tourists are accidentally killing the bushes that fallen butterflies need to survive.

Conclusion: The tour groups organized to protect the butterflies are actually causing them harm.

Reasoning: Tourists walk through the forest and step on small shrubs that are vital for the survival of butterflies that have fallen from the trees.

Analysis: The argument presents a 'cure is worse than the disease' scenario, but it fails to prove that the 'disease' of woodcutting wouldn't be significantly more destructive. To evaluate this properly, we need to know the scale of the threat posed by the woodcutters compared to the shrubs being trampled by tourists. If the woodcutters would have destroyed the entire forest canopy, the loss of a few shrubs might be a necessary sacrifice. Look for an answer that helps us balance the harm caused by the tours against the total harm they are preventing.

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6.

Which one of the following would it be most useful to know in evaluating the argument?

Correct Answer
E
Knowing what proportion of hibernating monarchs actually fall tells us how many depend on the shrubs the tourists trample, which directly evaluates whether tours “endanger the population.”
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