Q21 - Farmer: My neighbor claims that my pesticide

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: My pesticides are NOT running off into my neighbor's farm.
Evidence: I only use organic pesticides, which are not harmful. And I'm careful to avoid spraying on my neighbor's land.

Answer Anticipation:
Has the author convinced us that her pesticides aren't spreading to her neighbor's farm via runoff water? Not even close, since she never even discussed runoff water. Whether the pesticides are organic or not, harmful or not, has nothing to do with whether or not the pesticides are spreading in runoff water. And spraying pesticides is also beside the point. We're talking about runoff water: as the water rolls down to the lowest point, it runs off somewhere. Does that somewhere include the neighbor's farm? Our main complaint is simply that the author never once addresses runoff water.

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) No. This is a famous flaw: Unproven vs. Untrue. The author DOES mention a lack of evidence that OP's are harmful, but the author never concludes (or needs to conclude) that OP's are thus harmless.

(B) No. The author doesn't need to make a quantitatively precise assumption like "usually". The author is definitely thinking that in HER case, being careful to avoid spraying on her neighbor's land is resulting in successfully avoiding her neighbor's land. But additionally, the issue of whether the author's spraying is/isn't getting on the neighbor's farm is immaterial. The issue the conclusion takes on is whether runoff water is/isn't spreading pesticides.

(C) Yes. The author never once addresses the claim about runoff water.

(D) No. Who's to say that there ARE pesticides on the neighbor's land? Why would we demand that our author explain something that we don't even know factually exists?

(E) Would this weaken? No. The issue being debated is not whether pesticides have harmful effects, it's whether pesticides are spreading via runoff water.

Takeaway/Pattern: We don't categorize this flaw as one of the Famous Flaws, but you could definitely find many examples in the history of Flaw questions where it really just comes down to, "What the heck does your evidence have to do with what you're trying to prove?"

#officialexplanation

[liu.linda3]

Can someone explain why C is correct? and why choice B is wrong? Thanks!

[lukas.marko]

Conclusion: Pesticides are NOT spreading to my neighbor's farm in runoff water.

Premise: I am careful to avoid spraying on my neighbor's land.

The gap here is that even if the farmer is careful to avoid spraying on the neighbor's land, does this help support the conclusion? No it does not, because it doesn't say anything about whether or not the pesticides are spreading to the neighbor's farm (after the spraying). The 2nd sentence is quite clearly irrelevant to supporting the conclusion, but under closer examination, so is this 3rd sentence.

C captures this perfectly - nothing the farmer says clearly addresses the neighbor's claim nor supports his conclusion.

I think B is wrong because it doesn't get at this conflation of issues that the farmer makes (spraying pesticides vs. pesticide spread in runoff water). Also, when the farmer says he is "careful to avoid spraying on the neighbor's land", he is not using this to support the claim that it will result in the avoidance of spraying (like the answer choice dictates), but rather the avoidance of spreading in runoff water.

[ttunden]

i thought c was wrong because the farmer does address the neighbors claim by saying he avoids spraying on the neighbors land. i do understand that there could be other ways of the pesticide can reach the neighbors land but i thought that since the last sentence did address the claim it made c incorrect since the farmer does meet the bare minimum to the neighbors claim.

I picked b because the farmer does assume that since he does not spray on the neighbors land that it is sufficient to not spread to the neighbors land via runoff water.

[austindyoung]

Pretty much what we have here is a "soft," example of a Straw Man argument. While the Farmer does deny the neighbor's claim, his reasoning (his premises) have nothing to do with what he is trying to prove. They lend support to other ideas, actually.

Also, the Stem asks what the flaw in the argument is. An argument includes Premise----> Conclusion. We need both.

While his conclusion addresses the claim, per what ttunden wrote, his argument does not do so.

This test was balls.

HTH

[maryadkins]

The gap here is that even if the farmer is careful to avoid spraying on the neighbor's land, does this help support the conclusion? No it does not, because it doesn't say anything about whether or not the pesticides are spreading to the neighbor's farm (after the spraying). The 2nd sentence is quite clearly irrelevant to supporting the conclusion, but under closer examination, so is this 3rd sentence.

C captures this perfectly - nothing the farmer says clearly addresses the neighbor's claim nor supports his conclusion.

I think B is wrong because it doesn't get at this conflation of issues that the farmer makes (spraying pesticides vs. pesticide spread in runoff water). Also, when the farmer says he is "careful to avoid spraying on the neighbor's land", he is not using this to support the claim that it will result in the avoidance of spraying (like the answer choice dictates), but rather the avoidance of spreading in runoff water.

Yes! Well put.

It's like if you said to me, "When you jump up and down screaming, you keep me awake," and I said, "But I am not saying mean things as I shout!" It misses the point. So what if her pesticides aren't harmful and she doesn't spray them on her neighbor's land--do they run off, or not?

[kyuya]

Conclusion: my pesticides are not going into my neighbours lawn

Premise 1: I use organic pesticides, they don't harm people / domestic animals
Premise 2: I am careful to avoid spraying on my neighbour's land.

There is a lot wrong with this stimulus. Firstly, neither premise really supports the conclusion. Using organic pesticides sounds like it'd be better for the environment (who knows?) but that doesn't address the claim that your pesticides are going into the neighbour's lawn.

Secondly, being careful to avoid spraying on your neighbour's lawn doesn't mean you didn't get some in her lawn from run off water.

Basically, these are really bad premises to use to support your argument.

(A) There are two things wrong with this:

1.) This isn't where the reasoning flaw is made. As we pointed it, it is the fact that the premises are weak and do not address the claim of the neighbour.

2.) The stimulus does not even do what the answer choice claims it does. The stimulus somehow attempts to use the lack of harm to domestic animals and people as support that it did not go into the neighbours lawn in run off water. It does not use the reasoning flaw that lack of evidence = proof they cannot hurt.

(B) There are two things wrong with this answer choice.

1.) the world USUALLY sticks out to me. I don't think the stimulus suggests that being careful to avoid something usually results in a certain result. It does claim the farmer was careful, but it doesn't make any claims to how effective being careful to avoid something actually is.

2.) It doesn't actually bring up the carefulness of spraying in order to say that it typically results in spraying not getting in the neighbours lawn. Remember, he brings up he was careful not to spray the neighbours lawn to support the fact that his pesticides did not go into the neighbours lawn in runoff water.

(C) This is correct. As mentioned in the discussion at the beginning of this post, there is no real support for the farmers arguments, and as a consequence the neighbours claims are not addressed.

(D) This just isn't the flaw. Although it is true, that is not how the farmer was supporting this argument. The farmer seems to be a horrible job at eliminating alternatives to how he could NOT be responsible for spreading run off pesticides into his neighbours lawn.

(E) This just isn't the reasoning flaw. It attacks a premise, and not how the premise is supporting the conclusion.

[huskybins]

It seems lukas' argument using double standards to pick up the answer, or to judge why B is wrong and why C is correct.

He thinks B is wrong: because the farmer did not address directly the issue whether the spraying is to the neighbor's runoff water even though the farmer claims he has avoided to spray to the neighbor's land. So far we can infer what Lukas deems "runoff water" as a different property from the land in this explanation -- this is why B is wrong as part of reason as he claimed.

However, he picks C as a correct answer. While we know C states the neighbor's claim as "pesticides used by the farmer are spreading onto her land", which means answer choice C conflates runoff water and the land, which Lukas thinks admissible.

Then what on earth should we believe the runoff water is part of farm land or not? If we regard runoff water as part of land, then what farmer claims in the passage does address the issue raised by his neighbor -- if he has tried to avoid to spread on her land as he claimed, it makes sense to his own logic to assume that he did not spread any pesticide into her runoff water. Then C should not be right while B on the contrary gives a correct explanation.

If we think runoff water should be more specifically mentioned to refuse B, then why should we pick C which also does not specifically mention runoff water from the whole land?

Conclusion: Pesticides are NOT spreading to my neighbor's farm in runoff water.

Premise: I am careful to avoid spraying on my neighbor's land.

The gap here is that even if the farmer is careful to avoid spraying on the neighbor's land, does this help support the conclusion? No it does not, because it doesn't say anything about whether or not the pesticides are spreading to the neighbor's farm (after the spraying). The 2nd sentence is quite clearly irrelevant to supporting the conclusion, but under closer examination, so is this 3rd sentence.

C captures this perfectly - nothing the farmer says clearly addresses the neighbor's claim nor supports his conclusion.

I think B is wrong because it doesn't get at this conflation of issues that the farmer makes (spraying pesticides vs. pesticide spread in runoff water). Also, when the farmer says he is "careful to avoid spraying on the neighbor's land", he is not using this to support the claim that it will result in the avoidance of spraying (like the answer choice dictates), but rather the avoidance of spreading in runoff water.

[ohthatpatrick]

I would eliminate (B) with little analysis because
presumes = necessary assumption
and "usually" is too strong.

The author is only speaking for himself, for his spraying, so whether careful spraying USUALLY avoids unintended spray is beyond anything we care about.

In terms of what Lukas was saying about (B), I don't know where you're getting a double standard or confused by what we mean by a property of land.

The farmer said he's careful to avoid spraying on his neighbor's land.
We just don't care at all about whether or not the farmer is spraying on the neighbor's land.

We care about whether water runs off the farmer's land onto the neighbor's land, carrying with it some of the pesticides.

[MichaelC134]

At a high-level is an argument the same as a claim?

Also, this answer frustrated me because my prephrase was correct, but I could not match it to the answer. I pre-phrased “straw man argument” in that the farmer is arguing against the “straw man” of whether the pesticides are affecting the neighbor’s farm though “being sprayed onto the neighbor’s land” rather than the neighbor’s claim through “being spread in runoff water”.

So, I expected to see an answer “it does not address the neighbor’s claim that pesticides used by the farmer are being spread in runoff water” or even “it does not address the neighbor’s claim of how the pesticides used by the farmer are affecting the neighbor’s farm”.
But (C) says “it does not address the neighbor’s claim that pesticides used by the farmer are spreading onto her land” which the farmer does address minimally through saying that the farmer is avoiding spraying on my neighbor’s land.”

Note: I chose (E) by erroneously conflating effect with other ways in which the farmer could dispose things. Would (E) have been correct if written as “It ignores the possibility that pesticides might be affecting the neighbor’s lands in other ways then by spraying on my neighbor’s land.”?

Thanks.

[ohthatpatrick]

Yes, your amended version of (E) would work as an answer.

For (C), "spreading onto her land" is specifically about runoff.
If the neighbor were accusing the farmer of SPRAYING on her land, she wouldn't use a verb like 'spreading'.

Spraying pesticides on the neighbor's land = directly applying to her land
Pesticides running off onto neighbor's land = pesticides are spreading onto her land

Spraying ≠ spreading.

And, no, argument ≠ claim.

An argument is a minimum of 2 claims (the conclusion and at least one supporting claim).

A claim just means "a standalone sentence"