Critical Reasoning

It is proposed to introduce mosquitoes into the wild with genetic alterations that destroy their disease-carrying capacity. In this way, the dangerous wild population could eventually be replaced with a harmless one without leaving room for another disease-transmitting type to flourish. One candidate gene would interfere with the mosquito’s finding mates; another would cause destruction of a disease parasite before the stage at which it could be transmitted; another would disable the mosquito’s own resistance to disease, so that it would die before transmitting the disease.

Which of the following identifies a discrepancy in the proposal above?

A.It is presupposed that the three genes would prove equally easy to isolate and insert into the cells of the mosquitoes.

B.Two of the ways of destroying disease carrying capacity in the wild would jeopardize the goal of the proposal.

C.It does not take into account positive roles that mosquitoes play in the environment, such as serving, in the larval stage, as food for fish.

D. None of the proposed alternatives would ensure that there would be fewer mosquitoes in any given area.

E. Evidence is not presented to show that each alternative method has been successfully tested on a wide scale.


OA B

Source: Veritas Prep