Logical Reasoning

PT107 · S3 · Q25 A recent survey showed that 50

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A recent survey showed that 50 percent of people polled believe that elected officials should resign if indicted for a crime, whereas 35 percent believe that elected officials should resign only if they are convicted of a crime.

Conclusion

More people say "if indicted, you should resign" than say "if convicted, you should resign"

Evidence

50% of people say, "if indicted, should resign".

35% of people say, "resign only if convicted".

Evaluate

This is just testing our knowledge of the difference between "if" (left side / sufficient trigger) and "only if" (right side / necessary trigger).

50% of ppl: indicted → resign 35% of ppl: resign → convicted

The author's conclusion is acting like we heard that

50% of ppl: indicted → resign 35% of ppl: convicted → resign

Since the author is messing up the direction of a conditional statement, we could say she's committing the famous Necessary vs. Sufficient error.

We have no idea what % of people would say "if they're convicted, they should resign".

35% say that conviction is the only reason you should ever resign, and the other 65% are saying there could be other conditions besides conviction under which you should resign.

Goal

Look for an answer pointing out the conditional error or otherwise saying that we don't have the polling data for "if convicted, should resign?"

25.

The reasoning above is flawed because it

  1. draws a conclusion about the

    Wrong Flaw

    This describes the famous Sampling Flaw, in which an author moves from specific data points to a conclusion that assumes the same thing will be true for a larger set of data points. But the evidence in this argument was not small, specific. It said that a survey demonstrates

    30% picked this

  2. Correct

    confuses a sufficient condition with

    Why this is right

    This describes what's happening when an author messes up a conditional logic statement and sees the direction of the arrow going the wrong way. In the conclusion, the author is acting like 35% of people said "if convicted, then resign", but in reality 35% said "only if convicted, resign". So the author has acted like "convicted" was a sufficient condition for resignation, when it was really a necessary condition.

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

    36% picked this

  3. is based on an ambiguity

    Wrong Flaw

    This is getting in the neighborhood of the famous Equivocation flaw (the same word/concept is used in two very different ways). But there aren't any ambiguous terms here.

    2% picked this

  4. draws a conclusion about a

    Bad Conclusion Match

    Does the author draw a conclusion about a specific belief? No, she draws a conclusion about a quantitative comparison between people who have specific belief A and people who have specific belief B. We could stop reading the answer, once we see this mismatch.

    29% picked this

  5. contains premises that cannot all

    Wrong Flaw

    This describes the famous Internal Contradiction flaw, which is almost never the right answer. The premises in this argument certainly don't contradict.

    2% picked this

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