For any given ticket in a 1000-ticket

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct85% picked this

   It is reasonable to believe for any randomly drawn playing card that it will not be an ace, so it is reasonable to believe

   Why this is right

   We can make a similar objection like: "Sure, each individual entry is unlikely to be X, but for sure one of the entries will be X". We can say, "Sure each individual card is unlikely to be an ace, but for sure some card drawn will be an ace". (Annoyingly, this answer does not specify that we're talking about a complete deck of cards and assumes some outside knowledge that there is at least one ace in every deck)

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

   85%
2. B

   Bad Conclusion/Evidence Match Word-Bait7% picked this

   When the chances of a certain horse winning the race are 999 out of 1000, it is reasonable to believe that that horse will

   If one horse has a 99.9% chance of winning, then it's absolutely reasonable to believe that no one other than that horse will win. It's another thing to say that no one other than that horse can win. But that's a different flaw. That's just pointing out a technicality of language. We'd be saying, "Even though it's virtually certain that Horse X will win, it's not 100% certain, so you can't say that other horses can't win." The fact that something is EXTREMELY unlikely doesn't make it impossible. This answer is saying that "only one thing can be the winner" whereas the original conclusion was saying "zero things can be the winner". And in this argument, one horse has a huge advantage over all the other horses in the race. In the original, no lottery ticket had any advantage over all the other tickets in the lottery. This answer is trying to make people enticed for shallow, superficial reasons. It regurgitates the number 1000.

   7%
3. C

   Pretty Valid Logic Word-Bait5% picked this

   It is unreasonable to believe that 1000 consecutive coin flips will turn up heads, so it is reasonable to

   There's nothing really flawed with this argument. If it's "unreasonable to believe that Pam is at the soccer game", then it's "reasonable to believe that Pam is not at the soccer game". That's just a legal inversion of "Unreasonable that X is true = reasonable that X is false". If you interpret the premise to be saying "it's unreasonable to believe that 1000 consecutive coin flips will ever turn up heads", then it's fine to conclude "it's reasonable to think 1000 flips will never all be heads". It's not impossible, because the probability of it happening (1/2 to the 1000th power) is nonzero. But that probability is so infinitesimally small, that you'd have to be flipping coins for WAY longer than the lifespan of this universe to ever see it come true. So it's reasonable to believe it'll never come true. Saying "it's reasonable to believe X will never happen" is not the same as saying "X is impossible". This answer is trying to make people enticed by the superficial similarity of the number 1000.

   5%
4. D

   Bad Premise Match Word-Bait1% picked this

   It is reasonable to believe that if the most recent flip of a given coin was tails, the next flip will be heads. So

   This argument has an internally flawed premise, which the original didn't. It is not reasonable to believe that if the most recent flip was tails that the next flip will be heads. That is flawed logic we refer to as Gambler's Fallacy. The conclusion is also internally wacky. If the last 1000 flips were tails, then you've got yourself a trick coin / a weighted coin / a coin with tails on both sides. You have no reason to think the next flip would be heads. This answer is trying to make people enticed by the superficial similarity of the number 1000.

   1%
5. E

   Different Flaw2% picked this

   For any given group of five-year-old children, the average height is one meter, so it is reasonable to believe that if Pat is five

   This is interpreting the concept of average too literally. When we say the average height of 5-year-olds is 1 m, that doesn't mean that any five year old is exactly 1m tall. It might be that the average salary at your company is $67,000 a year, even though no one makes that actual amount.

   2%