rsaahil90 wrote:
Hello
I have a small concern with A => The way the argument is structured, it says:
Premise: Offshore Drill Ops (ODO) are risky but importing oil tankers (IOT) entails an even greater risk per barrel
Conclusion: To be safe without limiting use, we should invest more in ODO vs. IOT
Now if we look at A i.e. "Tankers can easily be redesigned so that their use entails less risk of an oil spill" --> Here, for sure we see that the risk is diminished but since the premise and conclusion both are of the comparative nature, we must have a reason that forces us to believe that with the change in design, the risk will be lower in comparison to ODO. A simply states that the risk is lowered but we are still not sure if the redesign sufficiently helps us resolve the issue at hand (i.e. Risk for IOT<Risk for ODO)
With this, I was quite confused b/w A and D (D involves external context). Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks
asimov wrote:
A
The argument is for curtailing the risk of oil spills. Only A address the risk. E does not address the argument.
Responding to a pm:
Premises:
Offshore ODOs entail an unavoidable risk of an oil spill.
Importing oil on tankers
presently entails an even greater such risk per barrel of oil.
Conclusion:
If we are to reduce the risk of an oil spill without curtailing our use of oil,
we must invest more in ODO and import less oil on tankers.
Note that the premises tell us that oil spill risk is lower in ODOs and higher in tankers. The conclusion (which is a conditional) says that if we are to reduce the risk of oil spill, we should invest more in ODOs.
It seems perfectly reasonable conclusion, right? It says that taking only oil spill risk into account, we should use more ODOs. If I were to prethink on this, I wouldn't know how to weaken it.
But, we can weaken it because the conclusion says "we should invest more in ODOs" and not "use more ODOs". We don't know what effect "investing more" could have on the amount of risk involved in ODO and tankers.
Then we check the options.
(A) Tankers can easily be redesigned so that their use entails less risk of an oil spill.
Now, this does weaken our conclusion. If we invest in tankers, we could easily reduce the risk. Also, now the use of the word "presently" in our premises makes sense. The premises say clearly that presently the risk with tankers is higher. So it all fits in. Yes, we don't know whether with investment, the risk with tankers will go below the risk with ODOs but it clearly raises a question and hence weakens the conclusion.
(B) Oil spills caused by tankers have generally been more serious than those caused by offshore operations.
This, if anything, strengthens our conclusion.
(C) The impact of offshore operations on the environment can be controlled by careful management.
Irrelevant. We are only considering risk of oil spill.
(D) Offshore operations usually damage the ocean floor, but tankers rarely cause such damage.
Doesn't matter what they actually damage - the ocean floor or agricultural land or underground water etc. The risk of oil spill is less with ODOs and that is all we are concerned with.
(E) Importing oil on tankers is currently less expensive than drilling for it offshore.
Irrelevant. We are only considering risk of oil spill, not cost.
Answer (A)