Most of the following selections were taken from letters-to-the-editors columns of newspapers and magazines. Identify any fallacies that may be committed, giving a brief explanation for your answer. Then, if a fallacy is identified, discuss the possible factors that led the arguer to commit the fallacy.

Evolution would have been dealt serious setbacks if environmentalists had been around over the eons trying to save endangered species. Species are endangered because they just do not fit the bigger picture any more as the world changes. That’s not bad. It’s just life. In most cases we have seen the “endangered species” argument is just a ruse; much deeper motives usually exist, and they are almost always selfish and personal.