Q8 - Doctor: In three separate studies, researchers

[hwangbo.edu]

Here is my thoughts.
E) "several" is too weak. Also this study was based on children who were OLDER THAN THOSE IN ANY OF THE FIRST THREE STUDIES. Moving away from the argument. Irrelevant.

If Answer E is incorrect, then it's not for the reasons you stated. First, for any Weaken answer the degree of weakness is completely irrelevant - all, most, some, several, few, even just one - as long as the answer weakens the argument to a degree greater than zero.

Second, using older children doesn't move away from the argument. To prove this point, let's use an extreme example: Rather than older children, let's say the fourth study found nearsighted elders who had used nightlights as infants. Doesn't their greater age cast doubt on the argument that nearsightedness disappears with age?

In contrast, what really eliminates Answer E is the availability of much better Answer D - which undermines the already weak conclusion. Answer E simply doesn't go far enough to conclusively establish a correlation (which, in turn, could strengthen, weaken, or have no effect) or otherwise trigger the argument's applicability (their nearsightedness was originally, in fact, caused by nightlights). Therefore, during initial POE, it would be risky to eliminate Answer E because, within these range of options, it still could potentially weaken. We simply don't know - unlike Answer D which unambiguously attacks the conclusion's conditional hypothesis.

[hwangbo.edu]

So back to answer E...
From how I interpreted it, this new information could actually be consistent with (and hence strengthen) the conclusion .

Lets say we have :
Study 1: 56% (purported cause results in a 56% chance of effect)
Study 2: ruled out 4 improper method
Study 3: ruled out for improper method
Study 4: 34%

So even if we have these 2 points (from study 1 and study 4), it could still support the conclusion that effect disappears with age. Therefore, E doesn't weaken.

Would appreciate any feed back on the reasoning

Your reasoning ("[the argument] could still support the conclusion...therefore, E doesn't weaken") fails to eliminate a Weaken answer. Remember: An acceptable Weaken answer, rather than prevent a conclusion, must only cast doubt to some degree greater than zero.

Also, be careful: Your example is incongruent with what's presented in the stimulus. Your characterization of Study 2 and 3 ("ruled out for improper method") does not fit the argument's ("later studies found no correlation"). In other words, a study that finds no correlation can still be useful (e.g., as a control group or null hypothesis) and, of itself, doesn't rule out its methodology (e.g., a proper methodology could establish there is no correlation and, likewise, an improper methodology could [falsely] find a correlation). In fact, in this stimulus the specific lack of correlation in the two later studies is actually used to help form the conclusion - in order to reconcile why the three studies presented different results.

Note how Answer D elaborates to actually eliminate the usefulness of Study 2 and 3 - which is what you may be thinking about!

[andrewgong01]

The part about the credited response, "D", that I disagree with is that it says the two quoted studies had some flaws that prevent us from forming "conclusions regarding a causal relationship" ; however, the stimulus never said the two studies concluded there was no causal relationship; the two studies just said there were no correlations; not no causations. Because of that I did not like "D" and liked "E" more even though "E" uses the word several that, as discussed previously above, is weak. "E" also does not provide any attacks on the causal relationship - did night lights cause myopia? However, "E" does not say anything that contradicts with what happened in the passage whereas "D" seems to say the two studies made a causal conclusion when the two studies only made a correlation- based conclusion. Also, although the argument does not commit to the fact that there is no relationship ; rather it assumes if such a relationship does exist (night light causes myopia) then it is an effect that dissipates with age

Were we suppose to assume the the two studies when they said no correlation implies a no causation conclusion?

[Jayh507]

(Test question spoiler alert)- In PT 72.2 Q#2, the correct answer to a weakening question starts with "many farmers use techniques..." which has left me open to considering AC's with weak qualifiers such as some, many, and several as in AC E (usually there is a better answer choice than ones with weak qualifiers but not always as question 72.2.2 shows.) Is it fair to say that AC E does weaken the argument but it comes down to a judgement call of which weakens most AC D or AC E?

Additionally, I agree with other posters that typically in conditional conclusions "if A then B", it doesn't help to try to discredit the trigger but instead you are to focus on the outcome. "If it rains, I will wear boots". Saying the weatherperson calls for clear sunny skies doesn't weaken my argument because it's just an attempt to discredit the trigger statement. But if I said "It's gray and cloudy outside. This suggests that if it rains, I will wear boots". Because the conclusion began with "this suggests that..." I took the entire conditional statement "this suggests that if A then B" as the conclusion and at which it is fair game to try to discredit any part of the conclusion including the trigger statement which AC D does.

Is this a correct thought process?

[ohthatpatrick]

Your reasoning made sense. And you're correct that we can strengthen / weaken a causal argument with more data. The data doesn't have to declare anything about causality explicitly. It just strengthens or weakens the argument by means of offering corroborating / undermining data points.

I get rid of (E) just by seeing "several".

I don't care about a raw number of nearsighted nightlight kids. I care about the relative likelihood of nearsightedness between nightlight kids and non-lightkids.

1st study: nightlight kids were MORE LIKELY to be nearsighted.
(f.e. maybe 17% of nightlight kids had nearsightedness, while only 5% of non-nightlight kids did)

For a new study to help us gauge whether the correlation was becoming less pronounced over time, we'd need to know from this fourth study how the PERCENT of nightlight kids who were nearsighted compared to that of non-nightlight kids.

[MichaelC134]

As someone who chose (A) am I oversimplifying i I look at this way?

Diagram
X
Y
X -> Y

(A) is wrong because it is a premise-weakener (i.e. of X) which in the conditional conclusion weakens the probability of the sufficient condition X being true when the argument is stating if X is true so (A) does not weaken the conditional conclusion.
(D) is right because although it is also a premise weakener (i.e. of Y), it is weakening the probability of the necessary condition being true which does weaken the conditional conclusion.

So, if (A) were re-worded to "A fourth study comparing children of similar age to the study with the oldest children found similar correlation between nightlights and nearsightedness as the first study." that would weaken the argument because it would be attacking the premise that is in the necessary condition, not the sufficient condition. Is this correct? Thanks.

[ohthatpatrick]

That is correct.

You can't weaken a conditional conclusion by saying that the sufficient condition is improbable (or even untrue).

When I say, "If humans ever live on the Moon, they would definitely go camping in the Sea of Tranquility."

the only way to argue with me is to say "in a hypothetical world where we live on the Moon, we would NOT go camping in the Sea of Tranquility."

Saying "We probably won't ever live on the Moon" or even "We will never live on the Moon" doesn't weaken my claim at all. When someone says "IF this were to occur", they aren't committing themselves to believing that "this will occur" with any probability.

So (A) cannot weaken, because it would only be addressing the "if" part of the conclusion, which the author is not hanging her hat on.
And your amended (A) sounds good.

[JoeyY14]

Can anyone explain why B is incorrect here? My understanding is that if B is true, then those older children who are not nearsighted might be nearsighted in a younger age, but then because they slept without or with less night-lights on than other children who were not nearsighted, they became not nearsighted. In this way, if night-lights really cause nearsightedness, the effect doesn’t disappear with age. It’s just that those nearsighted children chose to sleep with less night-lights after they were nearsighted! I noted there’s a problem about whether nearsightedness is reversible (I know it might be irreversible but it didn’t say that in the argument so we couldn’t assume that it’s true) plz help!!