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 Administrator
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#22974
Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (D)

The biologists in the stimulus argue that since people can safely ingest up to 10 milligrams per day of the hormone, and no-one would eat even a whole deer per day, humans will be in no danger from deer injected with 10 milligrams of the fertility-suppressing hormone.

The biologist's argument seems reasonable. However, you should realize that it is possible that other evidence might hurt his argument, since it is an argument based on evidence.

In this particular case, you should realize that the additional evidence would have to do with ingesting the hormone.

The biologist is assuming that humans would not consume the hormone, except for that from the injections.

Answer choice (A): The biologist is actually implying that people do not need to pay any attention to the hormone, so this choice is wrong. Even if people are not notified, if the hormone is within tolerance, the people should be fine.

Answer choice (B): If the hormone is chemically similar to that in human contraceptives, the biologist's argument might actually be weaker, because that suggests that humans might already be getting as much of the hormone as they can handle. If anything, this choice weakens the argument, and is incorrect.

Answer choice (C): The biologist argues that the hormone is safe, so precautions altering hunting seasons should be unnecessary if he is correct. Also, the biologist does not argue that the hormone is the only method available. This choice, which could respond to the idea that hunting or some other method could be used to reduce population, is doubly incorrect. Furthermore, even if hunting season can't be rescheduled, the hormone could be within tolerance levels, and still helpful for controlling the deer population.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. Applying the negation test, you will see that if the hormone did already exist in the deer, then adding 10 milligrams might actually put the total hormone level in the deed well above human toleration. Therefore, it is necessary to assume that the hormone is not already present.

Answer choice (E): The biologist basically argues that the injected deer are safe for daily consumption, since he is using daily tolerance levels for his basis. This choice, which attempts to make the injected deer safe just because people will eat them infrequently, is not helpful to the argument that the deer can be eaten each day, so this choice is incorrect. Furthermore, if people ate deer frequently, the biologist's argument could still be valid, so this choice fails the negation test and is non-essential.
 tejinder12
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#37801
What is the negation for answer choice E?
 AthenaDalton
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#37837
The negation of answer choice (E) would read as follows: "Most people consider deer meat to be part of their daily diet and eat it frequently."

When (E) is negated, you can see that it would have no impact on the argument. The researcher is saying that if a deer is injected with 10 mg of a hormone, and it's safe for humans to ingest up to 10 mg of this hormone per day, the deer is safe to eat since it's not like anyone could eat an entire deer in a day. This holds true even if people regularly eat deer meat. No matter how frequently people eat deer, there's no way they could eat an entire deer in a day, so the 10 mg dose would be safe. So negating answer choice (E) has no impact on the argument.

I hope this makes sense!

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