Q3 - Sheila: Health experts generally agree

[donamhyun]

Flaw question: What's the weakness of Tim's counterargument?

S: Health experts agree that smoking tobacco is very likely to be harmful to smoker's health
T: Smoking has no effect on health. Look at my grandpa!

(A) CORRECT. T uses single counter example("Look at my grandpa!") to refute probabilistic conclusion("very likely")
(B) Is "grandpa's example" unavailable? Not mentioned by T + Not the MP of his argument.
(C) Is "grandpa's example" regarded explicitly discounted as an exception to expert's conclusion? Not mentioned by T + Not the MP of his argument.
(D) Does T presupposes that "longevity and health status are unrelated in the general population"? No, T says "Smoking <-> Health(=Age/longevity)"
(E) How experts arrive in agreement is not the main point of T's argument.

Please correct me, if wrong!


By the way... Is it okay to simply eliminate knowing that the statement/word is not mentioned by the author?

[ohthatpatrick]

Well done! Thanks for adding this one to the forum.

When I'm analyzing Flaw answer choices, I run them through two filters:
1. Is this true about the author?
2. Does it matter (is it a reasoning flaw)?

Any active verb like, "presupposes, challenges, describes, presupposes, assumes" is an accusation about something the author DID.

So these are usually right or wrong based on #1.

However, (B) is probably getting through filter #1.

He challenges the experts on the basis his Grandpa's life of cigar smoking, which is specific information that would probably be unavailable to the experts.

Could the experts really verify that the Grandpa had smoked three cigars a day since age fourteen? No way.

But, is THIS a reasoning problem? Not really.

If someone said "ALL girls like Justin Bieber", and I said "My daughter doesn't", that is a fair counterexample, logically speaking. It doesn't matter whether the first person knows my daughter or has access to her Bieber preferences.

An answer like (B) makes us say, "Yeah, the experts can't verify the Grandpa's smoking habit, but even if they could, that wouldn't change what's crappy about Tim's argument".

(C) is a #1 fail. That's just not true. The Grandpa case is NOT explicitly discounted. Descriptively inaccurate = doomed.

(D) is a #1 fail. He didn't need to assume this broader claim. He only claimed that smoking and health status are unrelated.

(E) is a #1 fail. He didn't need to assume anything about how they arrived at their conclusion.

When answers have passive verbs like "fails to consider / ignores the possibility / neglects the possibility", you're accusing the author of NOT doing something.

Those will almost always pass #1 but fail #2.

(F) fails to consider that mustard is yellow.

You're right, (F). He DID fail to consider that. But does that matter? Would it hurt is argument if he knew that mustard is yellow?

Hope this helps.