Assignment task: Determine whether each of the following contains an argument or explanation. Explain your answer.
1. An independent candidate will never win the presidency of the United States. This is because the two-party system of Democrats and Republicans is too powerful to let a third party get any wide base of support among the American voting public.
2. There has been an overall decrease in violence among humans worldwide throughout recorded history. Some biologists claim that this is because the genetic characteristics for nonviolence have been selected over time by the species.
3. "You must understand," said he, "it's not love. I've been in love, but it's not that. It's not my feeling, but a sort of force outside me has taken possession of me. I went away. You see because I made up my mind that it could never be, you understand, as a happiness that does not come on earth; but I've struggled with myself, I see there's no; living without it. And it must be settled." Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina