Logical Reasoning

PT106 · S1 · Q2 If the government increases its

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If the government increases its funding for civilian scientific research, private patrons and industries will believe that such research has become primarily the government’s responsibility.

Conclusion (Therefore)

In order to keep from depressing the overall level of funding for civilian scientific research, the government should not increase its own funding.

Evidence

If the government increases its funding for civilian scientific research, private patrons and industries will believe that such research has become primarily the government's responsibility.

If they believe that research is no longer primarily their responsibility, private patrons and industries will decrease their contributions toward research.

Evaluate

Since the two premises are both conditionals (if / when) and have an overlapping term, we should think about whether they chain together. They do, to form this chain:

Govt increases → Private ppl think → Private ppl own funding CS research not will decrease for CS research primarily their contributions responsibility to that research

A valid contrapositive conclusion to draw at this point would be,

The actual pseudo-contrapositive conclusion was,

Goal

Thus, the author is assuming this Missing Link:

.

The author is failing to consider that the increase in government funding might more than offset the decrease in private funding. The net effect could be equal or greater overall funding for CS research.

2.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument relies?

  1. Governments should bear the majority

    Weakens, if anything

    The author's conclusion is saying that governments should not increase their funding. So how could we say he is assuming that governments should bear the majority of the financial burden of funding this research?

    3% picked this

  2. Correct

    Any increase in government funding

    Why this is right

    This gets at the Net Gain / Loss aspect of this conversation. The author is establishing that if the government increases its funding, private sources will decrease their funding. Does that end up being a net gain or loss in terms of funding? We don't know, because we know whether the government's increase will be bigger than / smaller than / equal to the private sector's decrease. Since the author is concluding that the overall level of funding would go down, he thinks that the government's increase would be smaller than the private sector's decrease. Or, as this answer puts it, he thinks that the private funding "displaced" by the increase in government funding will be larger than the uptick in government funding. If we negated this, it would be saying that "any increase in government funding would not displace more private funding than what it provides". In other words, if the government increased its funding by $1 million, then it would not cause more than $1 million of private funding to disappear. Thus, the overall level of funding would be the same or higher than before, which of course badly, badly weakens the argument.

    Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    86% picked this

  3. Private donations toward research are

    Out of Scope: no longer welcomed

    If you're running a research lab, you will be happy if the government increases its funding and sad if you lose some private funding. You want all the funding you can get! The author wasn't saying that private funding would decrease because the research labs would say, "Your dollars are no longer welcome here, private donors!" The author was saying that private funding would decrease because the private donors would think, "That research lab will survive without our donation. The government's propping them up. Let's send our money elsewhere."

    4% picked this

  4. Civilian scientific research cannot be

    Too Strong: can't be efficient

    This is similar to (C). The author wasn't saying that private funding would decrease because the research labs would say, "Hey, we're gonna have to turn down your donation. We're getting money from the government now, and we can't conduct research efficiently with more than one source of funding". The author was saying that private funding would decrease because the private donors would think, "That research lab will survive without our donation. The government's propping them up. Let's send our money elsewhere." Also, the government is seemingly already donating to these research labs. They already have multiple sources of funding. The argument is only talking about increasing funding.

    5% picked this

  5. Funding for civilian scientific research

    Too Strong: highest possible

    There's no reason the author has to believe such an extreme claim like, "funding is at the highest possible level". He's only concluding that overall funding will decrease. There's no intimation that it's currently at the highest possible level (what would that even mean? they currently are funded with infinity dollars?)

    2% picked this

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