Q9 - Consumer advocate: Last year's worldwide alarm

[cyt5015]

Can someone give a concrete and sufficient reason to eliminate answer B?

Additionally, I saw answer D "using inflammatory language" as the wrong answer in multiple questions, and start to wonder in what situation it can be a correct answer. Can someone give an example using inflammatory language in an argument?

Thanks in advance!

[judaydaday]

I believe (B) is incorrect because "other viruses" is out of scope.

The argument core is:

only about a thousand cases of damage were reported
+
companies were able to sell a lot of antivirus programs
----

the companies' warning about the virus was only an effort to stimulate sales and a fraud.

Notice that the argument is focused about the company's warning about the virus and not about the antivirus programs or their abilities to protect or the kinds of viruses.

[ohthatpatrick]

Nice response (and thanks for indirectly alerting us to the fact that we don't have a complete explanation up).

Question Type: Flaw

Argument Core:

C: The warning about the computer virus was a fraud; it was only an effort to stimulate sales of antivirus software

why?

P: Only about a thousand cases of damage were reported (though many more copies of antivirus programs were sold)

==== evaluating the argument ===

Missing logical links? Potential Objections? How could we argue the Anti-Conc, that the warning was NOT a fraud, there really WAS a sincere attempt to help people protect against a legitimate threat.

We don't have to predict a specific answer, but several come to my mind:

1: If there were a 1000 cases of damage, then wasn't there a legitimate threat? (apparently the author assumes that a "real" threat would have involved much more damage)

2: There were 1000 cases of damage REPORTED, but maybe there were many more cases unreported. (the author assumes that the number of cases reported is fairly representative of the actual number of cases that occurred)

3: Maybe the software just worked? If millions of people bought and used the antivirus software, which was supposed to protect them from the virus, then none of those people would have experienced damage from the virus. So the small handful of a thousand cases of damage might just be from all the people who DIDN'T use the software.

==== answer choices ====

(A) This language means "Circular Reasoning", which is almost NEVER the correct answer. (Other identical phrasings: "assumes what it sets out to prove" / "presupposes what it seeks to establish")

There IS a reason offered: only 1000 cases of damage.

(B) Would it hurt the author to consider that these programs might hurt again OTHER viruses? Maybe. Was the author's conclusion something broad like "These programs are a waste of money?"

No. The conclusion is specifically about "last year's worldwide alarm" being a fraud. So an answer can only help us weaken the author's argument if it can help us argue that THE PARTICULAR VIRUS DESCRIBED was a legitimate threat.

(C) This describes a variation of the classic Correlation -> Causality flaw. According to (C), the author said "X happened. Then Y happened. Therefore, X caused Y."

Is this a match for our argument? No. We don't have a causal conclusion. In order to interpret our conclusion causally, you'd have to say "WANTING TO STIMULATE SALES caused THE COMPANIES' WARNING."

But do we have two premises that say
1st, wanting to stimulate sales happened.
Then, the companies' warning happened.
Therefore, the 1st thing caused the 2nd thing.

(D) "inflammatory language" is never going to be a correct answer. And there IS evidence provided: only 1000 cases of damage.

(E) Does it weaken the argument if we say "maybe the software did the job it was supposed to do and therefore extinguished the threat for most people"? Sure. Now we're able to argue that there really WAS a threat, and the software cured it.

Hope this helps.