by noah Thu Oct 18, 2012 4:48 pm
Thanks for stepping up gplaya. I'm in agreement.
The original argument has two flaws: it's reversed logic and it assumes that there's a proportional relationship between intelligence and nearsightedness, when all we know is that one requires the other.
(D) has the same issues: just because tall people are happy doesn't mean that happy people are tall. And, just because tall people are happy doesn't mean that taller people are happier--nor does it mean that happier people are taller!
(A) is tempting, but we don't see the proportionality flaw. Instead, we are told intel --> near, and it concludes - near --> stupid instead of - near --> - intel. This might be a screw-up of the logic (who says that folks that are not intelligent are stupid? could there be a middle ground?) but there's nothing about "more this means more that."
(B) shows us reverse logic, but it has no "more this means more that."
(C) is just ridiculous! If pig --> 4 legs, where do we learn anything about size? Perhaps we can say there's an issue of "more this more that," but it's not based on a given conditional relationship involving those terms: where is there a statement about legs and size?
(E) is tempting. We learn that genius --> very near, and it concludes that genius --> very near. There's no flaw in this argument!