Logical Reasoning

PT108 · S2 · Q6 News item: The result of a

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News item: The result of a recent public survey has been called into question because one of the pollsters admitted to falsifying data.

Conclusion

Most people do not favor more investment in information technologies.

Evidence

There was a survey that said "most people favor investment in information technologies", but the pollster admitted to falsifying data and including it in the survey.

Evaluate

This is the famous Unproven vs. Proven False flaw. Because there is weak support for X, flawed support for X, or no support for X, an author concludes that X is false.

The correct conclusion we should be drawing is that,

We can't conclude that "most people don't favor more investment" unless we have our own evidence supporting that.

Goal

If this were Flaw, we'd be looking for something saying

But since this is Weaken, because the question stem is pre-loading "overlooks the possibility" in front of every answer choice, we need a way to that

6.

The news item's argument is vulnerable to criticism because it fails to consider the possibility that

  1. Correct

    the conclusion of the survey

    Why this is right

    Would it weaken this argument to say, "If we subtracted the falsified data from the survey, the conclusion that most people favor investing more money would be verified"? Sure! If that's true, it basically refutes the author's conclusion, which says the polar opposite. If it's hard to conceptualize what this answer means, picture it this way --- had the survey only used real data, the result would have shown that 60% of people favor more investment. When the pollster added in his fake data, it now shows that 80% of people favor more investment. Well, even if you exclude the fake data, the survey still shows that most people do favor investing more money.

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

    81% picked this

  2. the conclusion of the survey

    Out of Scope: accepted by public

    Does it hurt the author to say that the survey data will still be accepted? No, because the author isn't concluding what people will or won't believe based on the survey; she's concluding about whether the survey's result is / isn't factually true.

    9% picked this

  3. other pollsters in other surveys

    Irrelevant: other surveys

    Does it weaken the author's argument to say, "Sure this pollster falsified data, but c'monnnnn, everybody's doing it!" Of course not. The author is only concerned about the truth / falsity of this survey's result. How other pollsters in other surveys behave has no bearing on whether or not most people favor more investment in info tech.

    2% picked this

  4. some people who responded to

    Too Weak / Unclear Impact

    "Some" just means "at least one", so answers with this language are almost always wrong on Strengthen, Weaken, or Paradox. Does it hurt the author's conclusion to say "at least one person who responded to the survey was lying"? Not really. We don't know if this one data point went in favor of the author's conclusion or against it. We don't know if the pollster's falsified data changed this response or not.

    4% picked this

  5. people's opinions about investing in

    Too Weak / Unclear Impact

    This answer is also very weak -- it's saying "it's possible for someone's opinion on how much to invest in information technology will change over time". Cool. That doesn't really say anything. We only care about what their opinions are right now, in this survey. And we have no idea whether their opinions would be changing in favor of more investment or against.

    4% picked this

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