Biotechnology companies say that voluntary guideline for their industr

The right answer is B.

Premise: Biotechnology companies say that voluntary guidelines for their industry are sufficient to ensure that no harm will result when a genetically altered organism is released into the environment.
Counter-premise: It is foolish, however, to rely on assurances from producers of genetically altered organisms that their products will not be harmful.
Conclusion: Therefore, a biotechnology company should be required to apply to an independent regulatory board composed of scientists outside the biotechnology industry for the right to sell newly created organisms.

From the conclusion of the argument above, the author is of the view that a biotechnology company should not play the role of regulators and determine the right to sell their newly created organisms. If it is indeed unwise to rely on the assurances from producers of genetically altered organisms that their products will not be harmful, then the author must have assumed that the biotechnology companies involved in the production of genetically altered organisms may not be completely honest in their assessments, hence the assurances provided might be skewed in their interests.

Our task is to strengthen the argument above.

(A) Voluntary guidelines are sufficient to regulate activities that pose little danger to the environment. No, this does not strengthen the argument above. This is the position of the biotechnology companies involved in the manufacture of the genetically modified organisms and the argument above countered this position.

(B) People who engage in an activity and have a financial stake in that activity should not be the sole regulators of that activity. This is the correct answer as it is in line with the reasoning provided above on the argument.

(C) Methods that result in harm to the environment must sometimes be used in order to avoid even greater harm. This is irrelevant.

(D) A company is obligated to ensure the effectiveness of its products but not their environmental safety. Incorrect. This position is out of scope because the main crust of the argument is whether the biotechnology companies involved in the production of GMOs should be trusted to assess their own products.

(E) Issues of environmental protection are so important that they should not be left to scientific experts. No. This completely out of scope.

Stimulus- The biotech companies state that only voluntary guidelines are sufficient to ensure no harmful organisms will be released in the environment. The author states that the company cannot be trusted and an independent body of scientist need to be appointment to assess this

Strongly supports the claim

IMO D

The companies are obligated about the products and not the environment so to ensure that environment is safe we need to appoint independent body

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Conclusion: there should be a third person to regulate the business not the producers of the product

(B) People who engage in an activity and have a financial stake in that activity should not be the sole regulators of that activity....... clearly supports the conclusion

OA:B

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(B) People who engage in an activity and have a financial stake in that activity should not be the sole regulators of that activity.

=> Need a third party

=> scientists outside the biotechnology industry for the right to sell newly created organisms.

=>> Choice B

Hi chaitralirr, nice observation, I missed option D during my first pass and selected option B, but even after carefull consideration of option D. It is not a strengthner but could rather acts as a slight weakner. The option says that "company is obligated to ensure the effectiveness and not safety of the product", and the argument says "biotech companies should be required to apply independent regulatory board". Now, if it is not company responsibility to ensure safety of the product then why should company even bother to hire an independent authority. So this does not strengthen our conclusion.

One technique that has helped me with strengthen/weaken questions is to personalize the argument i.e. how would I respond to author given the argument, and if I see that responding using a particular option author might get back to me again, then that option is usually not the best of the lot.

With option B the argument becomes much more strong than with option D. B basically says that company has financial incentives in it, so we cannot rely on their results, hence independent body should assert the results.

I hope that helps.

Hi,

I'm a bit confused here, B/D??

According to be both B,D strengthens the argument and helps the author to provide reasons why an independent regulatory board is required.

I thought B has a broader scope compared to D, In B it generalizes to all the people.