“A brief history of humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari that I bumped into a few months ago was a good introductory to this topic.
Interpretation of the argument: Population can be classified into five basic personality types: Optimistic, Pessimistic, Trusting, Envious and the one that is not yet labeled. However, 200,000 years ago, before dividing into these distinct groups, people had a common genetic bottleneck or they had a common ancestor. In other words, 200 millenniums ago we all had the same genes. Then why we are so different? For sure, that’s not due to distinct genes since once we had similar genes or had the same parents. The reason must be culture-based biological evolution.
Similarly, orcas, together with other organisms in the set to which they belong, had the most recent individual from which the organisms from such set are directly descended. Correspondingly, many-many years ago orcas had the same genes like that other similar organisms such as other whales, dolphins, and etc. Then why orcas are so different or are killers? Surely, that’s not for distinct genes. As it happened to another set of organisms such as people, orcas must also have become so different or killer because of culture-based biological evolution.
Why does the author use people as the sample? People are the creatures who have the most varying and distinctive behavior regardless of having had similar genes before. If the reason of our distinctiveness is culture-based biological evolution, then the very evolution must have lead different behaviors in other creatures too.
Question: How did orcas evolve as a killer whale? Why don’t they eat what other whales do?
Conventional biologists: That’s because orcas have distinct genes that dictate them to kill.
Author: A recent research shows that culture-based biological evolution causes distinct genes. In other words, orcas are not inborn killers, but the environment they live in and necessity make them kill. Even individuals who initially had similar genes now behave differently. Conventional biologists must consider that the reason for such different behavior is culture-based biological evolution, not distinct genes.
After detailed analyses we can see that both boldfaces describe evidence that has been used to challenge the position that the argument seeks to oppose (using those evidences, author says that conventional biologists are wrong).
C says the same thing.
A. Both evidences serve to prove what the author says, not to oppose him.
IncorrectB. Both evidences oppose the explanation given by conventional biologists, but not support it.
IncorrectD. The first boldface doesn’t oppose the second, but they both say support the same idea of culture-based biological evolution.
IncorrectE. The second boldface doesn’t oppose the first, but they both say support the same idea of culture-based biological evolution.
IncorrectHence
C _________________