Logical Reasoning

PT107 · S3 · Q4 Most small children are flat-footed

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Most small children are flat-footed.

Plan

Flat-footed children wear special shoes that give extra support.

Goal

Get their feet to develop the natural arch ppl usually get as they grow.

Evaluate

This isn't an argument, so we're not breaking it down as such. It's about a treatment, which is essentially a Plan and a Goal.

They want us to Weaken the plan, so we can think through common issues like Feasibility, Cooperation, Backfire, Root Cause.

Can proving extra support to a foot actually cause an arch to develop?

Will children be willing to wear these special shoes or are they uncomfortable?

Could wearing these shoes actually mess with the natural development of an arch?

Does the root issue of not developing an arch have to do with insufficient support to the foot?

Goal

Let's try to find a way to argue that this Plan of special shoes with extra support doesn't achieve its Goal of creating a natural arch.

Which one of the following, if true, most calls into question the efficacy of the traditional treatment described above?

Many small children who have
No Impact
The fact that non-flat-footed children also wear the special shoes tells us nothing about whether the shoes help flat-footed children develop arches. It would be too speculative to think, "If normal-footed kids are wearing these, then it must not help your foot develop an arch." They might be wearing these special shoes for their own reasons, unrelated to wanting an arch.
3% picked this
Studies of flat-footed adults show
No Impact
This is about adults. We need to hear about the kids who are wearing these special shoes!
3% picked this
Although most children’s flat-footedness is
No Impact
Please talk about the shoes, (C). We're here to figure out whether the shoes help you develop an arch. You're talking about what proportion of kids in general end up having an arched foot vs. a flat foot. We need to know if the shoes helped get any kids to having an arched foot.
4% picked this
Correct
Flat-footed children who do not
Why this is right
This basically makes it seem like the shoes do nothing. If kids who wear the shoes are just as likely to develop natural arches as those who don't wear the shoes then it doesn't seem like the shoes make any difference. If I said, "People who sing to their boiling water have to wait just as long for it to boil as do people who don't sing to their boiling water", you'd think, "Right -- because singing to your water doesn't make any difference in terms of how fast the water will boil". This answer supplies a control group of kids who don't wear special shoes and they perform just as well as the shoe group, which makes the shoe no more effective than a placebo (i.e. the shoe does nothing).
Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
89% picked this
Some children who are not
No Impact
We're here to figure out whether these special shoes help flat-footed kids develop an arch. This doesn't talk about the shoes or about flat-footed kids.
1% picked this

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