Q4 - A recent test of an electric insect device.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great response!

I'll put a complete explanation up, since we don't have one yet for this.

Question type: Weaken

===Argument Core===
Prem:
Of the 300 bugs killed by this device, only 12 were mosquitoes

Conc:
This device won't help much in controlling the mosquito population
================

For any Weaken question, I immediately say the "anti-conclusion", just to remind myself what hat I'm wearing in this debate.

I want an answer that helps me argue, "This device WILL help to control the mosquito population"

(A) The device managed to kill all the mosquitoes in the area! That sounds like it controlled the population alright. What this information tells us in regards to the premise is that even though only 12 out of 300 bugs killed were mosquitoes, 12 out of 12 mosquitoes were killed! Since there are no live mosquitoes around, the device has a 100% success rate in killing them.

(B) This would also be tempting, if I hadn't already seen (A)'s 100% kill rate. This is leading us again to the idea that maybe the reason only 12 of 300 killed were mosquitoes is NOT because the device sucks at killing mosquitoes but instead because there weren't that many mosquitoes around in the first place. The reason this answer fails to weaken as much as (A) is the strength of language. "A very large proportion" is not something we can quantify. It might still mean less than half.

For instance, if you know I'm generally a liberal person and I tell you that "a very large proportion of my friends are Republican", that might mean 30-40%. That is a large proportion. It's still not 'most'. It's definitely not 'nearly all'.

So (B) still presents a muddled picture. What if half the bugs attracted to the device were mosquitoes and the other half were not mosquitoes -- are you impressed by the device's mosquito-killing power? Not me. After all, only 12 mosquitoes were killed while 288 non-mosquitoes were.

(C) this would strengthen the argument, since mosquitoes are 'harmful' insects.

(D) this strengthens the argument, because by killing the mosquitoes natural predators, this device is going to EXACERBATE, not control, the mosquito problem.

(E) This is so weak that it's irrelevant ... we don't really expect the device to kill EVERY SINGLE insect that it attracts. We're just wondering whether it can help to control the mosquito population. Also, this would strengthen the argument, since it's saying the device DOESN'T have a kill-all capacity.

Hope this helps.


#officialexplanation

[Darabi.Shawn]

Weaken question.

Very troubling for me.

I figured out the core to be;

300 insects killed, ---> This device kills many insects
only 12 were mosquitoes but doesn't help control the
mosquito population.

I chose D just for the reason of being in a rush and thinking it was a strengthen question, but then looking back and seeing the answer is A, I just can't seem to string it together. Can someone help me?

[sumukh09]

Core is basically:

only 12 mosquitoes were killed ---> device doesn't help in controlling mosquito population

A) is therefore correct if we want to weaken the argument because if there's no mosquitoes in the area that means there clearly was an effect that the device had in controlling the mosquito population.

So, the device only killed 12, but there weren't any mosquitoes in the area which means the device did in fact help in controlling the mosquito population - and this would hurt the argument.