by ohthatpatrick Tue May 15, 2018 1:53 pm
You're making it seem like (B) says, "the author assumes that campaign contributions occurred and the author assumes that pro-developer voting occurred".
(B) doesn't say anything like that.
If you've never seen Necessary vs. Sufficient wording on Flaw before, it might be hard to judge what this is saying. In our books/classes, we label it the Conditional Logic flaw.
When you have a conditional statement,
A --> B
the left side is called the Sufficient condition and the right side is called the Necessary condition.
If I make an argument that says,
"You can only get into Harvard if you score above a 155 on the LSAT. Betty scored above a 155 on the LSAT, so she will clearly get into Harvard."
then I have committed the flaw in (B).
I had a conditional statement that reads
Get into Harvard --> 155+ on LSAT
Then my Premise -> Conclusion move looks like
Betty: 155+ on LSAT ---> Betty: Get into Harvard
Author botched Conditional Logic = Author committed the Nec vs. Suff flaw.
Apparently, in reasoning BACKWARDS through that conditional, I confused the right side with the left side (confused the necessary with the sufficient).
In order to commit the Nec vs. Suff flaw (aka "The Conditional Logic Flaw"), there must be conditional logic in the premises. So the easiest way to disqualify these answers quickly is to just ask yourself, "Are there any conditional statements in the premises?"
Nope. Both premises are quantitative comparisons.
If we don't know the quick "Nec vs. Suff --> Conditional Logic Flaw --> WAS there conditional logic?" process, then we're just reading the answer and asking ourselves if it's an accurate description of the argument.
When you read (B), just pause after the first bit and ask yourself, in this argument did the author ever identify "one thing's being necessary for another to occur"?
Does any claim the author made sound anything like "In order for X to occur, Y is necessary"?
No, so we don't even have to keep reading. This answer can't be right if it's mis-describing the argument.