Q21 - The presence of bees is necessary for excellent pollin

[valjohnson948]

I was stuck between Choice B and D, but ended up choosing B. Would someone please explain why Choice B is wrong?

[ohthatpatrick]

It's easy to see why (B) is tempting, because (B) describes the classic "Necessary vs. Sufficient" flaw. Hopefully, you're somewhat already acquainted with this guy.

If not, a Nec/Suff flaw is just when there is a conditional rule in the premise, but the author interprets it backwards to get to the conclusion (he performs either an illegal reversal or an illegal negation).

We have TONS of conditional logic in the premises (necessary, ensures, and only if), so that's definitely what's being tested.

Let's sort them out.

Excellent pollination --> Bees are present

Establishing beehive or two --> Bees are present

Keeping bees economical --> Gardener has use for honey

The reasoning the author gives is then
no use for honey --> tend not to have beehives

Do we accept this? Probably. We do know from the rule that
no use for honey --> keeping bees is not economical

So we're introducing a little language shift assumption that
keeping bees is not economical --> tend not to have beehives

Let's pretend we're cool with that and keep reading. Author says:
no beehives --> no excellent pollination

Okay, this leap is troubling. We have no rule that connects those.

In fact, we have no rule that says
no beehives --> [something happens]

We have a rule that says
beehives --> [something happens] (namely, bees are present)

But we can't just negate that rule and get
no beehives --> bees are not present

And the author seems to want to use this flawed rule, because we DO know that
bees are not present --> no excellent pollination

So where did the author commit the flaw? The 1st conditional, the 2nd, or the 3rd?

The flaw is really happening with the 2nd one. The actual rule says
Beehives present --> bees present

The author is acting like it says
Beehives absent --> bees absent

(B) is talking about the 1st rule. The author didn't scramble up the logic of the 1st rule.

What is necessary for pollination to take place? The presence of bees. Does the author ever act like the presence of bees GUARANTEES that pollination takes place?

No. The author is trying to prove that pollination wouldn't take place. So what (B) is saying doesn't match what the author is trying to prove in his conclusion.

Plus, we know that "pollination" relates to the 1st conditional, but the real backwards reasoning problem was committed with the 2nd conditional.

Finally, we really only have a rule for what is necessary for excellent pollination to take place. That is a specific type of pollination. So technically, we can ignore (B) just on the basis that the argument never gave us a rule for what is necessary for "any ol' pollination" to take place.

=== other answers ===

(A) Does it weaken the author's argument if beehives have advantages OTHER than honey? If I tell the author that beehives have perks OTHER than honey, does it help me dispute his conclusion and argue that these gardens WILL still have excellent pollination? No it doesn't. This answer feels like it's trying to fight the idea that "keeping bees is economical only if you have a use for honey". That's a premise. We're not in the business of fighting premises.

(C) Another conditional logic answer - do we get a rule for what is NECESSARY for abundant fruits and veggies? No. We do hear that excellent pollination is usually conducive to abundant fruits and veggies. Does the author ever act like excellent pollination is NECESSARY to abundant fruits and veggies? No. The conclusion has nothing to do with abundant fruits and veggies. It's about whether or not we'll get excellent pollination.

(D) Would it weaken the argument if bees might be present even in the absence of beehives? [i.e. "beehives" = a particular condition that ensures the presence of bees] Yes! If I say to the author, "even when you don't have beehives, you might still have bees present", does that hurt his conclusion? Yes! His final step of reasoning is "no beehives = no excellent pollination". He's assuming that "no beehives = no bees, and THAT'S why we wouldn't get excellent pollination". But if it's possible to have bees even without a beehive, then you can't make the leap from no beehives to no excellent pollination. This addresses the author's flawed interpretation of the 2nd conditional. The author ACTS like the 2nd conditional reads "no beehives --> no bees", but this answer choice reminds him that the rule does NOT give us that.

(E) Is the flaw in this argument correlation --> causality? No, this is a conditional logic flaw all the way. Conditional relationships can always be thought of as 'causal', in that the flow of the arrow from left to right is that of "meeting the trigger CAUSES the consequence to follow". So the author's causal conclusion is based on causal claims, not mere associations.

Tricky question. They knew that students would see all the conditional logic triggers in the premise and thus they knew that (B) and (C) would be tempting answers, because Nec/Suff language is all about "botching conditional logic". But you don't HAVE to describe a Nec/Suff flaw with Nec/Suff language. You can always create a "takes for granted" or "fails to consider" answer that similarly targets the faulty reasoning of the author.

For example:
All of Jane's friends like bacon.
Paul is not one of Jane's friends. Thus, he doesn't like bacon.

I could describe the flaw here as:
"The argument confuses something that ensures a certain trait as something required for that trait to hold."

Or I could describe the author's faulty
(~Jane's friend -> ~like bacon) reasoning as:
"The argument fails to consider that people who are not friends with Jane might also like bacon"

Hope this helps.

[johnscottwilsonsr]

Ok I have a new problem with answer choice D.

I like everything about D except the phrase, 'that would ensure their presence." Am I misinterpreting this? How/why is there anything to do ensuring the presence of bees?

What about a gardener who would like to use honey but still does not want bees for some reason.

[ohthatpatrick]

I'm not sure I understand your question.

You said:
I like everything about D except the phrase, 'that would ensure their presence." Am I misinterpreting this? How/why is there anything to do ensuring the presence of bees?

The second sentence of the argument says that "establishing a beehive or two in one's garden ensures the presence of bees."

Does that answer your question about how/why there is something to do with ensuring the presence of bees?

When (D) says "a particular condition that would ensure the presence of bees", it's referring to "establishing a beehive or two in one's garden".

You also said:
What about a gardener who would like to use honey but still does not want bees for some reason?

Are you saying this is an objection to the argument or to (D)?

It is not an objection to either, but I was trying to understand how you meant it.

In order to object to an argument, we have to find a way to argue the opposite of the conclusion.

So we need to argue that "gardeners who have no use for honey WILL still have excellent pollination".

Why did the author think that they wouldn't have good pollination?

He thought that since they have no use for honey, they won't have beehives. He's (illicitly) assuming that if you don't have beehives, then you won't have bees. If you don't have bees, you don't get excellent pollination.

To object to this author, we need to make some objection that sounds like, "even without beehives, these gardeners might still have bees present". And that's what (D) does.

[asafezrati]

(A) Does it weaken the author's argument if beehives have advantages OTHER than honey? If I tell the author that beehives have perks OTHER than honey, does it help me dispute his conclusion and argue that these gardens WILL still have excellent pollination? No it doesn't. This answer feels like it's trying to fight the idea that "keeping bees is economical only if you have a use for honey". That's a premise. We're not in the business of fighting premises.

The problem is that the author assumes that if keeping bees isn't economical then people will tend to not actually keep them (so they won't establish a beehive).

Answer choice A is, at the very least, close to show that people might still have a reason to keep beehives. Maybe "advantages" isn't the right word, but there is a gap there.

I chose D since it was more apparent than A, and also closer to the conclusion in terms of the logic chain.

I would still like to know your opinion on A and the related gap.

Thanks

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you're exactly right.

I never noticed the "Thus _____ , so _______ " structure of the final sentence, which WOULD make the first half of that an Intermediate Conclusion and so you COULD question the link you had in mind.

Something more like
(A) The argument takes for granted that a gardener for whom keeping bees is not economical will tend to not do so.

or

(A) fails to consider that certain advantages conferred by beehives more than compensate for economic losses.

No matter what, though, that gap has to stress "tend to" / usually language. The mere exception of SOME gardeners who DO still keep bees, despite having no interest in honey, does nothing to hurt the author's Intermediate Conclusion.

Thanks for the tweak!