#18 - A high-caloric diet providing adequate fats was a

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Resolve the Paradox. The correct answer choice is (E)

The stimulus contains a fact set. The evolution of the anatomically modern human brain required
a high-calorie diet, and the food resources that could support such a diet were most abundant in
the shore environments. Paradoxically, the human brain’s evolution took place almost exclusively
in savanna and woodland areas. The question asks us to explain why the human brain evolved in
such suboptimal environments, given that a high-calorie diet was both crucial for its evolution and
potentially available elsewhere. The explanation will likely provide additional information to help us
compare the two types of environments more fully.

Note that the correct answer must explain how the situation came into being without contradicting
either side of the apparent paradox. It would be a mistake, for instance, to question whether the shore
environments offered more reliable resources than other environments.

Answer choice (A): At first glance, this may seem like an attractive answer, suggesting that early
humans did not need as many calories as modern humans do. While this might explain why early
humans did not need food resources as abundant as the ones we have today, this is not the issue
we need to resolve. It is pointless to compare early human ancestors to modern humans. Even if
our ancestors were able to expend their fat reserves more efficiently than we can, their brains still
required a high-calorie diet providing adequate fats. Given that the resources that could support
such a diet were most abundant in the shore environments, it is still unclear why the evolution of the
human brain did not take place there.

Answer choice (B): Like incorrect answer choice (A), this one presents a comparison between
human ancestors and modern humans. Such comparisons have no bearing on the issue at stake. First,
we do not know how the relative size of the human brain affects its metabolic intake. Secondly, even
if we assume that early humans did not need the same fat reserves as we do today, this would not
explain why the human brain evolved in nutritionally suboptimal environments, especially given the
availability of a high-calorie diet elsewhere.

Answer choice (C): This answer choice introduces yet another irrelevant comparison. Even if
prehistoric savanna and woodland areas offered more abundant food resources than they do today,
these resources were not as plentiful there as they were along the shores (which, according to the
stimulus, offered the “most abundant” resources). It is still unclear why the human brain did not
evolve in the areas most likely to meet its nutritional requirements.

Answer choice (D): We know that the shore environments offered the most abundant and reliable
food resources, and there is little reason to doubt the reliability of the techniques used to determine
this fact. Further, just because a technique was recently developed does not mean that it is unreliable.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. If gathering food along the shore required
a greater expenditure of calories than it did elsewhere, this might explain why the evolution of
the human brain took place in the savanna. After all, just because a given resource is reliable and
plentiful does not mean that it is easily accessible. If the abundance of food along the shores was
offset by the difficulty of gathering it, then it is entirely possible that the net caloric intake of humans
living on the shore was lower than it was for those living elsewhere. If so, it is not surprising that the
evolution of the human brain, which requires a high-calorie diet, took place almost exclusively in
savanna and woodland areas.

[Tajadas]

My prephrase for this question was "the correct answer will explain both why the human brain's evolution didn't take place on shores and will explain why it did in savannas and woodlands". Was this prephrase too detailed? I ultimately chose the right answer because I thought explaining the shore part is more important, but I spent a long time deciding between that answer and C.

[Adam Tyson]

I think that is a pretty good prephrase, Tajadas, although the correct answer could be a little softer and just focus on why this evolution took place in the savanna and woodlands instead of by the shore. That could be solved by showing some advantage that the savanna and woodlands have over the shore, or a problem at the shore. You don't have to find both an advantage in one place and a problem in the other, just something that tips the scales away from the shore and towards those inland habitats.

[pmuffley]

Hey Adam!

I think I'm close to understanding this one. But I might just need a little more help.

How I understand it, answer E is correct because it address both parts of the paradox without negating either. Do you have to take the info in the stim as 100% true?

I'm confused because the stem says "if true", which I thought made information in the stim suspect.

So the correct answer, taking everything in the stim ad not changing it, would have to be along the lines of "why did early humans, who needed fat in order to develop the brains we have today, not go to the environment that had all of the stuff they needed for their diet?" Then, the answer can't be anything that says they didn't need fat, or didn't need that environment? It has to be an answer that shows that they needed fat and that environment was beneficial...they just didn't use it.

[Adam Tyson]

Perfect, pmuffley! The "if true" in the question stem is referring to the answer choices: "Which of the following, if true..." So yes, we accept everything in the stimulus as true, and we also accept everything in the answer choices as true, and we just look for the one answer that helps explain why the facts in the stimulus are the way they are. The wrong answers won't solve the mystery for us!

[ianngct2]

Pardon me but I am still convinced that answer E is worse than answer C

Premise: high calorie diet w adequate fats is crucial for evolution for human brain
1.) Humans were evolved exclusively in savanna and woodlands
2.) Shores have the highest calories & or fats

Hence, we can first establish that:
- savanna and woodlands have sufficient fats and calories to enable evolution of the human brain

Usually, we can leave it at that, because no where in the stim, nor anything in real life, ever suggests that evolution of the human brain was not permissible unless they are in the location with the absolute maximum amount of fats or calories available, and suggesting that there is an apparent conflict if evolution occurred in anywhere other than the location with maximum of fats and calories were available would just be wrong. (e.g. why were there coal miners in Yorkshire when there was more coal in Germany? Well because the coal miners were in Yorkshire, that's that. They won't be anywhere else unless something drove them away or something killed them)

However, since we are not in business to adjudicate whether the question is wrong, we are choosing between the following:

C.) Savanna and woodland offered more reliable and abundant resources than they do today
- Seems to me that it is neither here nor there, since we already established that savanna and woodlands have sufficient fats/calories as apparently reflected by the fact that humans did evolve there, regardless of whether "resources" were implied to be fats/calories, it still seems to suggests that savanna and woodlands were less austere and more hospitable than the stim made it appear, which just reinforced the idea that it is sufficient (albeit irrelevant, since, again, humans evolved there, so it is only self evident that it was always sufficient to start with)

E.) Suggests that there is a bigger surplus in calories for humans living in savanna or woodlands, which appears to answer a question that wasn't asked:
- the stim talked about caloric intake, and nothing about expenditure or surplus, those are extraneous to the premise unless proven otherwise.
- While it would apparently "resolve" and "conflict", it never lend itself more credential than C because C suggests that "resources" (again, assumed to mean dietary, otherwise it would just be the same kind of moot point as answer E) were more abundant, so C raised the caloric ceiling in savanna, and E raised the caloric overhead at the shores, neither of them appear to have more cred.
- There are many reasons in reality why fats to the brain is not just a game of summation, if there is more surplus then there is more evolution, but that would be besides the point anyway. e.g. harvest cycles/year round abundance/absorption capacity etc. but they aren't the point.

The point is that:
1.) the stim never talked about surplus, it talked about abundance, and C answered the question of abundance with a point about abundance, while E answered the question of abundance with something else, idk, blue sky thinking? Any other random explanation? It will lend itself more cred than say if it starts talking about spaceships influencing fat density of humans when they eat food in the savanna, when compared on on a sliding spectrum of cred, but why put yourself on that spectrum to start with? If the question ask you about abundance, then wouldn't the better answer be about abundance? It is like if a prof asks you if you have started on the project that is due later this month and instead of saying "trust me bro I'm on it", you say that your dog ate your project that isn't even due yet. To me, at least, it sounds more sus than C

2.) Now I am aware that, again, we are not passing prejudice on the question, but the question suggests that there was conflict between the reality of human evolving in somewhere that is sufficient vs human not evolving in the location of maximum possible calories. The thing is that, with E, it seems to indulge in the nonsense that it is a requirement to for humans to evolve in the maximum possible "fatty food place", and reply that with the same logical fallacy by pointing out: "No bro, the reality is that humans are required to evolve in the maximum possible "calorie surplus place"". I know that is a match, but wouldn't a better answer be one that doesn't require you to be exposed to someone potentially pointing out to you later, that your answer is nonsense? If that happens, you can't excuse yourself by pointing your finger at the person who asked the question to start with by saying that the question was nonsense so I replied with BS given that a crappy alternative is available that doesn't require any BS.

Answer C is a very tepid answer, it is neither here nor there, i.e. having "more resources" doesn't mean that it is "more" enough to be sufficient, but since humans did already evolve there, it is already self evident that it is sufficient. Sure, it didn't resolve the "conflict" but spelling out the keyword "sufficient", but in my book at least, it did enough to allude to the fact that calories are sufficient, albeit the overwhelming evidence that calories are obviously sufficient as evidently shown by the fact that humans did indeed evolve in savanna.

[Adam Tyson]

I think you are overlooking the basic flaw in answer C that makes it 100% irrelevant, ianngct2. We must accept the facts given in the stimulus, which include the statement that "Food resources that could support such a diet were most abundant and reliable in the shore environments that were available to early humans." In other words, all other factors being equal during the time in question, the shore was more conducive to the evolution of the human brain. To explain why that evolution instead took place elsewhere, we need an answer that indicates that not all things were equal. There must have been some difference back then between these two environments that outweighed the advantages of the caloric content at the shore. Your analogy of coal miners is a good one - if for some reason people simply didn't live at the shore, that would explain it (the answer would need to explain why people didn't live there).

Answer C tells us nothing about the difference between the shore and the savanna during the relevant timeframe. It cannot do anything to resolve the paradox here, because it adds no new information about the contrast between the early shore and the early savanna environments.

But answer E does tell us about an important difference. You said this answer "appears to answer a question that wasn't asked," but in fact it IS about the question being asked. We are supposed to select the answer that provides new information about the situation being examined that could explain what led to the evolution of the human brain happening mostly in the savanna rather than the shore. Answer E tells us that the two environments were not equal in a crucial way: the shore may have had more calories available for early humans to consume, but it also took a lot more calories to gather those calories for consumption! The caloric cost of getting that food was higher than the comparable cost in the savanna. Thus, people at the shore (if there were any) would have had the benefit of more abundant resources, but the drawback of needing more calories to get those benefits. The shore may have had more calories and fats available, but it may not have provided adequate fats under those particular conditions. "Adequate" may mean something different in the two different locations.

Let me use your coal miner analogy here to illustrate.

Let's say Germany had a lot more coal than Yorkshire, but Germany was a lot colder than Yorkshire, so you need more coal to stay just as warm. What constitutes an adequate amount of coal in Germany is more than the adequate amount for Yorkshire.

Or, what if they have more coal, but the ground is much harder to dig through in Germany? It might make more sense from the perspective of economics and return on effort to dig in Yorkshire and ship it to Germany than to dig it locally in Germany.

In both cases, the resolution to "why aren't we doing most of our coal mining in Germany" is "because there is an important difference that we haven't yet discussed that makes Yorkshire the better option."

Same thing here. There is another consideration that we have not discussed in the stimulus - caloric output - that weighs in favor of the savanna, helping to explain why the savanna was where human brain evolution mostly occurred.

And again, the problem with answer C is that it focuses on the savanna being better back then than it is now, but we need to focus on why the savanna back then was better than the shore back then.

[ianngct2]

So I guess the bottom line would be the following?

- I didn't like answer E because answer E seems to suggest that "sufficient" = "max possible", by suggesting that savanna is the best possible with a hypothesis of savanna having the "best possible" "surplus" instead of "max possible" "caloric quantity" (reframing the stimulus which to make the question fit)

- However, 1. I disliked the answer because of the question, because answer E suggests "sufficient" = "max possible" was just a reflection of the question itself, so this part cannot be held against the answer E itself. If the question alludes to something that is wrong, so be it.

- 2. I disliked the answer E because it seems to suggests something to be slightly wrong about the stim (by suggesting that the focal element in discussion here is the surplus, not the gross count), but it is natural for an answer to "expand on" the stim, even when in doing so, introduces an element that somewhat reframes the focal point and changes the nature of the stim somewhat (so long as it doesn't refutes the stim)

I guess the bottom line is stop fighting the question?

[Adam Tyson]

For sure, do not fight the question, ever! That way lies madness!

Remember that a question like this isn't asking for you to PROVE anything. It's just asking for some piece of information that might help to explain the odd situation in the stimulus. Anything that helps explain it (like a Strengthen question, where the answer helps the author but need not prove them correct) is good.

I think you're making some unwarranted assumptions there about what answer E means. It has nothing to do with the savanna being best, and nothing to do with anything being sufficient. The facts as given are that if you only look at good sources of calories and fats, the shore appears to have the advantage over all other environments when it comes to evolution, but for some odd reason evolution was mainly happening elsewhere. What could explain that? Why wasn't evolution happening where the calories and fat from food were most abundant? Perhaps because that environment also had some disadvantage, something that made it less conducive to evolution that in some other location. Answer E provides a disadvantage at the shore, and that helps explain what happened.