Q7 - The cause of the epidemic

[Laura Damone]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Weakener Except. That means the correct answer either strengthens the argument or, more likely, has no impact. It also means that the incorrect answers we deem to weaken the argument may not weaken quite as we would want them to if we were going to pick them as the correct answer on a regular Weaken question. They may be, for lack of a better term, weaker weakeners.

Break down the Stimulus:
The argument opens with a causal claim: we now know the cause of the epidemic! Why? Because there are some correlations between the symptoms experienced then and the symptoms of Ebola. What's more, one of those symptoms, hiccups, isn't a symptom of any other known disease.

Any prephrase?
Causal Weakener questions are prime turf for "could it be something else" thinking. The stimulus has a clear Causation Flaw, in that it mistakes correlation for causation. It also fails to rule out alternate causes. We should expect the 4 incorrect answers to do just that, and the correct answer to do little, if anything. We should also note the comparative nature of this stimulus. We conclude two things must be the same because of similarities. Expect weakener answer choices that raise differences.

Correct answer:
B

Answer choice analysis:
A) Expresses a difference and disrupts the correlation that is the evidence for our conclusion.

B) Correct! Our premise is that "many" victims of the Athenian plague suffered from hiccups. The fact that "not all" ebola victims suffer from hiccups isn't a problem. We don't need them all to for the correlation to stay strong. We just need "many." Thus, B has no impact on the argument and is therefore correct.

C) Is a classic Correlation vs. Causation weakener, in that it states the presumed cause couldn't have happened before the presumed effect because the animal carriers of ebola weren't alive yet. Attacking the temporal sequence of events is a causal weakener to always be on the lookout for.

D) Disrupts the correlation by expressing a difference between ebola and the Athenian plague.

E) Also disrupts the correlation by expressing a difference between ebola and the Athenian plague.

Takeaway/Pattern: Look out for Correlation vs Causation in Causal Weakener questions, and predict weakener answers that raise alternate causes, attack the temporal sequence, reverse the causality, or disrupt the correlation by introducing a difference between the two things that are correlated.

#officialexplanation

[littlebibliophile]

While reviewing PT 63, I wrote out an explanation of 7 to clarify it to myself, so I'm posting here in case anyone finds it useful. Comments/criticism always welcome

The gist of the argument that the correct answer choices will weaken is: During an epidemic, many Athenians were recorded to have the hiccups. The ebola virus is the only disease to cause the hiccups. There were other recorded symptoms in the Athenians, which are also symptoms of ebola. Therefore, we can conclude that the cause of the epidemic was the ebola virus.

(A) says that ebola victims experience many symptoms that were not present in the Athenian epidemic. This casts doubt on whether it could be ebola, because it is uncertain as to if the Athenian people had enough of the classic symptoms to warrant a diagnosis of ebola.
(C) points out that the virus’ host animal did not live in Athens at the time. This opens up the question of how the virus would spread in Athens without an original host, which also weakens.
(D) says that the level of contagiousness between the epidemic sickness and ebola differ. A clear difference between the Athens sickness and ebola weakens the certainty that it was ebola.
(E) does the same thing as (D) by giving another difference between the Athenian epidemic and an epidemic of ebola (namely that ebola epidemics are shorter-lived than what is recorded in Athens).
(B) is correct because it says that not all of the victims of ebola get the hiccups. This doesn’t weaken the argument because the argument already said that "many", not all Athenians got the hiccups. (B) is essentially restating info that we already know from the stimulus, and the fact that "not all" victims get the hiccups doesn't weaken because if some victims getting the hiccups is sufficient to be an indicator of ebola, the stimulus has this.

[maryadkins]

Thanks for this explanation! Nicely done.

And way to note that (B) doesn't strengthen the argument, but it doesn't have to. When we have a weaken EXCEPT question, we're either looking for one that strengthens the argument or is irrelevant. In this case, the right answer is right because it is irrelevant.

[yolacarl]

Regarding answer choice C:

None of the host animals necessarily need to have lived in Athens for there to have been an outbreak of the virus in Athens?

For example, the Ebola virus could have been contracted elsewhere, the infected person traveled to Athens and infected an Athenian, spreading the disease.

Is this not a valid inference to make from the wording in C?

[DominicE471]

Regarding answer choice C:

None of the host animals necessarily need to have lived in Athens for there to have been an outbreak of the virus in Athens?

For example, the Ebola virus could have been contracted elsewhere, the infected person traveled to Athens and infected an Athenian, spreading the disease.

Is this not a valid inference to make from the wording in C?

The thing with C is that, compared to choice B, it's just not as good of an answer. You're correct that someone could have migrated to Athens with the disease and THEN spread it, but you're still having to make a few assumptions for that answer choice. At face value, if the host animal didn't live in Athens, it makes it a bit harder (what we're being asked to not select!) to see how the Ebola virus could have caused the Athenian epidemic. Hope this helps!