Agronomist: In a controlled trial, strawberry plants treated with a foliar spray containing the bacterium Bacillus amyloliquefaciens exhibited a 70 percent reduction in gray mold infection relative to untreated controls. Because this bacterium synthesizes antifungal lipopeptides that inhibit fungal spore germination, applying this bacterial spray will reliably eliminate the need for synthetic chemical fungicides in commercial strawberry cultivation.
Statement: If true, the discovery that solar ultraviolet radiation in typical open-field commercial farms degrades these lipopeptides within two hours, whereas the trial was conducted inside a greenhouse that filtered out all ultraviolet light, weakens the agronomist's argument.
Answer: Answer
Answer
True
The evaluated statement correctly identifies a fatal flaw in the agronomist's reasoning: the assumption of generalizability from a shielded experimental trial to unshielded commercial fields. Exposing that solar ultraviolet light neutralizes the antifungal lipopeptides in real-world settings directly undermines the prediction that the bacterial spray can replace synthetic fungicides.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Identifying unrepresentative experimental conditions that invalidate practical generalizations in causal and predictive arguments.
Estimated Time:1m 15s