Q7 - In Debbie's magic act, a volunteer

[carolinemarie.carollo]

I don't understand why D) The skeptic failed to consider the possibility that Debbie used something other than sleight of hand, a trick deck, or a planted "volunteer" to achieve her effect wouldn't be as good of an answer as A, or even better. Could someone explain to me why that is? Thanks!

[giladedelman]

Thanks for the question!

Let's quickly rehash the argument. The skeptic conducts three trials of Debbie's trick. In the first, no sleight of hand is found. In the second, there's no trick deck. And in the third, the volunteer is not planted. From this, the skeptic concludes that Debbie doesn't use any of these three techniques.

But wait! What if the first time, Debbie used a trick deck, and the second time, she used sleight of hand, etc.? Maybe she can achieve the same trick using multiple techniques.

So (A) is correct. The skeptic fails to consider the possibility that Debbie doesn't always use the same method.

Now, as for (D): be careful!!! The conclusion is that Debbie does NOT use sleight of hand, a trick deck, or a planted volunteer. So the skeptic doesn't fail to consider the possibility that she uses something else; his conclusion actually demands it!

(B) is tempting, but doesn't quite let us evaluate whether Debbie used sleight of hand.

(C) is incorrect because if this were true, Debbie would have failed in the first two trials.

(E) is pretty wacky, frankly. The skeptic never suggests that the results are coincidental!

Does that answer your question?

[carolinemarie.carollo]

Ah yes, thank you!! I didn't even see how D actually demands that Debbie used something else. However, I'm sure it's because I read it as the skeptic accepting Debbie's trick as a result of concluding that Debbie didn't use those three methods; so I figured the skeptic then failed to consider that Debbie used another method. But I guess in order to still be called a skeptic he would have had to have considered that Debbie used another method. Anyways, thanks a lot, that really helped!

[contropositive]

E is also wrong because success doesn't matter. the author is trying to say based on these three trials, Debbie never uses sleight of hand, etc. but thats too strong from just 3 trials and thats what we need to expose which is what A does

[Jay11]

How would you characterize this flaw? I'm going to say false choice, but I feel like it's not a perfect fit. I say false choice because the skeptic did not consider the possibility that Debbie was changing up how she did the card trick. What are your thoughts?