Q12 - Essayist: People once believed

[tamwaiman]

Can someone help to tell me how to distinguish between (A) and (B)? Is it because the argument is a cause/effect relationship and (A) is a conditional relationship?

Thank you.

[giladedelman]

Thanks for posting!

We're told that people used to believe the Earth was important because they believed it to be at the center of the universe. Because the Earth is not actually at the center of the universe, according to the argument, the belief that it's important is also false.

So, what's wrong with this argument? Well, it assumes that if your reason for believing something is untrue, then your belief itself is untrue. But couldn't you believe something true for the wrong reason? If I believe carrots are healthy, for example, for the false reason that they make you taller, does that mean that my belief in carrots' healthiness is wrong? No!

Answer (B) is correct because it expresses this flaw. The author fails to consider that even if your reason for believing something is no good, the belief itself may still be valid.

Now, to address your specific question, let's look at the difference between (A) and (B).

We can translate (A) like this:

"The author assumes that if a statement has good reasons to be believed, then it's true."

That's no good, because this argument is about a statement being untrue because it has a bad reason to be believed.

(B), on the other hand, translates to:

"The author assumes that if a statement was believed for questionable reasons, then it's not true."

When phrased this way, it's even clearer why this answer is correct.

As for the others:

(C) is incorrect because the argument is not about believing or disbelieving a true statement.

(D) is way out of scope. We don't care if people's views changed over time.

(E) is also out of scope. The argument is about whether a belief is true, not about how that belief varies across cultures.

Was that explanation helpful for you?

[tamwaiman]

Hi giladedelman

I got it! Thank you!

[csunnerberg13]

Kind of a silly question but can someone explain why E is wrong? I'm someone that habitually kicks out answers for being out of scope only to find out it's the answer so I'm trying to fine tune my reading of "out of scope." In this example, I predicted the gap that answer choice B gives but I also thought that another gap could be the person's perspective and values - not everyone might value this discovery about not being the central planet and therefore reject the whole argument about being unimportant. Answer E addressed this second gap to me.

[foralexpark]

Kind of a silly question but can someone explain why E is wrong? I'm someone that habitually kicks out answers for being out of scope only to find out it's the answer so I'm trying to fine tune my reading of "out of scope." In this example, I predicted the gap that answer choice B gives but I also thought that another gap could be the person's perspective and values - not everyone might value this discovery about not being the central planet and therefore reject the whole argument about being unimportant. Answer E addressed this second gap to me.

I hope my response isnt too late!

here's my explanation for this problem:

Here the argument:

Premise
Before: if people believe something -> important

Conclusion
Now: people no longer believe that something -> not important

but just because you deny the sufficient, that doesn't mean the necessary is not true.

don't try to look this as a formal logic question.... this is more like, belief vs. true question, i would say (just because something that was believed is no longer believed, that doesnt mean that whatever the phenomenon that resulted from the belief is not true)

[ohthatpatrick]

The sentiment the previous poster was expressing about (E) is along the lines of saying, "Hey, maybe some people think Earth is important for completely different reasons than believing Earth is at the center of the universe. So maybe hearing that Earth is not at the center would not dissuade them from continuing to believe that Earth and its inhabitants are important."

To clarify - this argument's conclusion is not debating whether people still BELIEVE Earth is important; it's debating whether Earth actually is important.

So nothing in (E) would help us make a counterargument to this guy and say, "Hey, dude, Earth IS important." (E) would only allow us to say that some cultures still believe we are important to varying degrees.

By contrast, (B) is dealing with the actual truth value of the statement "Earth and its inhabitants are important", not people's varying perception of how true that statement seems.

[Dtodaizzle]

Hey what if we introduced a new answer choice:

Overlooks the fact that people's belief on what is important is not predisposed on the accuracy of the said belief.

The conclusion asserts that people's old belief must be false in light of the new evidence that the Earth now evolves around a star. What if that didn't matter? What if all that mattered was whether or not the people at the time believed to be true?

This is what I thought answer D said when I erroneously picked it the first time I did this question. I anticipated that the assumption was addressing a term shift between belief and importance. (IE: if a belief is false, then it is not important.)

Would my new answer choice be a valid one in addressing the flaw in the essayist's argument?

[ohthatpatrick]

Here's how I would tweak what it felt like you were going for to make it accurately apply:
"Overlooks the fact that the ACCURACY of a belief is not predicated on the accuracy of a REASON for a belief."

It feels like you're focused on whether or not people believe something.

The conclusion is focused purely on whether or not Earthlings are important.

The author is investigating this question, "Is it ACCURATE to say that Earthlings are important? i.e. ARE Earthlings important?"

Is claim X true?

People used to believe in claim X for reason Y.
But reason Y turned out to be untrue.
Thus claim X is a false statement.

When you're saying:
"What if that didn't matter? What if all that mattered was whether or not the people at the time believed to be true?"

That's irrelevant to what the actual conclusion is talking about. The author isn't claiming whether people believed or didn't believe anything. He's claiming to have proven that Earthlings are unimportant.

=====
P.S. this flaw is often referred to as Absence of Evidence or Failure to Prove

It can sound like this: "No one has ever proven that cell phones cause cancer. One study claimed to have done so but was later discredited. Clearly, cell phones do not cause cancer."

Flaw: just because no one's proven they DO cause cancer doesn't mean YOU'VE proven then DON'T cause cancer.

A more subtle form is
"People say that X is true. But their argument for X is inadequate. Therefore, X is false."

That's really what's happening in this problem.

[lin_alakkad]

This was my reasoning for this question. Could you please tell me if my reasoning is valid?
The argument assumes that some evidence against a position is taken to prove that the position is false.
Therefore, some evidence against Earth being at the center of the universe is taken to prove that the belief that Earth and its inhabitants are important is false.
Or do you think that this is a purely a Straw Man flaw in the reasoning? Thank you!