Q18 - Consumer advocate: Manufacturers of children's

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Manufacturers should NOT overstate the dangers of children's toys on the packaging.
Evidence: We should only overstate dangers if it reduces injuries, but the manufacturers are doing so merely to protect themselves from lawsuits.

Answer Anticipation:
Any time a Flaw question uses conditional language, we should directly investigate that. Generally, 90% of Flaw questions that use conditional language are testing our understanding of that conditional language.

The author provides us with a conditional rule: "If overstating dangers does not reduce injuries, then we shouldn't overstate dangers" and then she ultimately concludes "manufacturers should not overstate dangers".

Well that's an airtight argument, as long as we establish the trigger of that rule: manufacturer's current practice of overstating dangers is NOT reducing injuries. The author said that manufacturers are not overstating for that purpose, but their overstating might still be having that effect. The simplest objection to this argument is "what if overstating the dangers of products is currently helping to reduce injuries?"

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Tempting, because the flaw relates to a conditional rule. But the flaw is simply that the author never triggered the rule she's trying to use. This answer choice describes the Conditional Logic Flaw, in which the author actively interprets the conditional rule backwards.

(B) Would this weaken? No, because the conclusion is essentially saying "overstating dangers = bad". This answer choice is about "not overstating dangers", which makes it irrelevant. Also, "do not always" is an incredibly weak statement, so this claim has barely any punching power in any context.

(C) There is no sampling flaw here. A sampling flaw takes something that was true of a sample and extrapolates in the conclusion that the same thing would be true of a broader group.

(D) It does not make this extreme assumption. Instead, it explicitly states that "if an overstated warning fails to prevent injuries, it shouldn't exist".

(E) Yes! The flaw of the argument is that the author is trying to apply a rule that gets triggered by learning that "overstated warnings do NOT reduce injuries". The author never established that idea. Instead, the author assumes that since manufacturers provide overstated warnings for a DIFFERENT reason, then the overstated warning is not reducing injuries. The contrapositive here probably rings truer: "If an overstated warning was not performed in order to bring about a reduction of injuries, then the overstated warning does not have the effect of reducing injuries".

Takeaway/Pattern: In order to understand exactly what the correct answer is getting at, it's important that we did two things while reading the argument:
1. Recognized the conditional statement (saw that the argument concluded the consequence and therefore understood that the argument must establish the trigger)
2. Recognized that the author's premise is her attempt to establish the trigger. Saying that "manufacturers only overstate danger for the purpose of protecting themselves from lawsuit" was the author's attempt to establish that "overstating danger does not reduce injuries".

#officialexplanation

[syp]

Can someone explain this question? I was unsure of the flaw for this question and ended up choosing B. Thank you.

[syp]

Thank you so much for the explanation. Can you please tell me if my understanding of the argument is correct based on your explanation?

P: MOS ---> RI

C: ~MOS

The author is assuming that overstating the products' dangers to protect them from lawsuits is NOT reducing injuries. So the assumption is ~RI. The argument looks like this after figuring out the assumption:

P: MOS ---> RI

A: ~RI

C: ~MOS

Also, for B, would you categorize that answer choice as out of scope because it discusses warnings that "do not overstate dangers"?

Final question - I had a hard time finding the flaw for this argument. What flaw questions are similar to this?

The Takeaway/Pattern definitely helped. Thanks again.

[LukeM22]

I'm still 50-50 split between E and D.

I follow the logic above on why E is right... I just don't get why it doesn't apply to D.

I similarly understood the gap to be between (I )"manufacturers overstate their products danger merely for the purpose of protecting themselves"... and " (II) "fails to reduce injuries:-- that is, the assumption we need here is that I is mutually exclusive with II, which causes it to fail the conditions of the principle and thus should not be done.

However, to me, its still up in the air whether or not the purpose or the act of overstatement is what failed to reduce injuries. If any act of overstatement fails to prevent injuries-- answer D-- then, the companies doing so for the purpose of self-protection similarly should not be doing this based on the principle in the stimulus and the conclusion also follows.

[snoopy]

I'm still 50-50 split between E and D.

I follow the logic above on why E is right... I just don't get why it doesn't apply to D.

I similarly understood the gap to be between (I )"manufacturers overstate their products danger merely for the purpose of protecting themselves"... and " (II) "fails to reduce injuries:-- that is, the assumption we need here is that I is mutually exclusive with II, which causes it to fail the conditions of the principle and thus should not be done.

However, to me, its still up in the air whether or not the purpose or the act of overstatement is what failed to reduce injuries. If any act of overstatement fails to prevent injuries-- answer D-- then, the companies doing so for the purpose of self-protection similarly should not be doing this based on the principle in the stimulus and the conclusion also follows.

I would say that D is wrong because D doesn't mention anything about the MOTIVE behind the manufacturer's action (overstating danger). The argument is that "manufacturers should not overstate the dangers" because manufacturers overstate "MERELY for the purpose of protecting themselves from lawsuits." It seems that the author is suggesting to not perform an action (overstate) because of the manufacturer's MOTIVE (protecting themselves).

Immediately, on assumption questions, think of the assumptions that the author is making. Because the argument relies on assuming that the manufacturer has only ONE purpose - to protect themselves - that leaves the argument vulnerable to other possibilities. Maybe the manufacturer overstates the dangers on product labels to produce the effect. That effect is to reduce injuries by preventing them.

This is where you landed. D says the author presumes that "if a warning overstates a danger, then the warning fails to prevent injuries." The "failing to prevent injuries" piece of the argument isn't mentioned in the stimulus at all. So, it's wrong.