Humans arrived in the Kaliko Islands about 7 000 years ago and within 3 000 years most of the large mammal species that had lived in the forests of the Kaliko Islands had become extinct Yet humans cannot have been a factor in the species extinctions becau

In the argument, the author concludes that climate change is the sole cause of extinction of large mammal species that lived in the forests of the Kaliko Islands. The author’s conclusion is potentially valid, as it stands now, however, it relies on three unwarranted assumptions that diminishes its persuasiveness.

First of all, without justification, the author assumes that there was no human hunting on large mammals as their bones were not found by the archeologists, but this might not be the case. Perhaps the bones of large mammals get disintegrated or withered due to climate hazards in the course of time. It is also possible that the bones – that hunted by humans- might be flooded by rivers to the other places, so that they could not be found be found in that island. If either of these scenario proves true, the argument that climate caused the extinction of large mammals is seriously weakened.
Similarly, the author does not consider other possible factors of extinction of large mammals in the Kaliko Island. It is possible that the large mammals were depleted in their number due to other voracious predators or other fatal diseases that they could not fight against. May be, the mammals were subjected to migration from to other places for searching of food and shelter as the time passes. So, if this cases are true, definitely hampers the credibility of the author’s argument.

Last but not least, there is discrepancy in author’s assumption that human did not have contact with the large animals. However, analyzing the time frame, humans had arrived the island before 7,000 years and the extinction of large mammals occurred on 3,000 years after the arrival of human, tells us that there might be a great possibility for the contact and interaction of those large mammals with humans. What if the humans had no choice other than forcing them to escape from that island as those mammals were a threat to them? Without these justification, the author’s conclusion does not hold water.

To sum up, the author’s conclusion is full of minor fallacies that lowers the persuasiveness of the argument. The author must elaborate aforementioned fallacies with logical and persuasive evidences to buttress his conclusion.