Announcement for a television program:

Answer choices

1. A

   Not Our Main Objection2% picked this

   Physicians are in general unwilling to describe the treatment style of

   It is true that in this show, a male physician may be asked to describe the treatment style of other male physicians vs. female physicians (as treatment style pertains to sensitivity to needs). But whichever physicians have agreed to be on this TV show probably know that they are going to be talking about male vs. female physicians, so even if most physicians are unwilling, the physicians we have slotted for this show are presumably among the population of physicians that are willing to discuss.

   2%
2. B

   Not an Objection3% picked this

   There still are fewer women than men who are physicians, so a patient might not have the opportunity to choose

   The topic being addressed has nothing to do with whether there are more / fewer physician of either sex. It's only about assessing who's better / worse at being sensitive to female patients' needs. We're only judging the show's methodology based on whether or not we think they will be capable of giving a good answer to that question. This answer seems worried about what people will do with that answer once they've heard it and need to schedule their next doctor's appointment.

   3%
3. C

   Correct93% picked this

   Those who are best able to provide answers to the question are patients,

   Why this is right

   Which would we trust more: 1. the data we get from female patients who have to rate their male/female physician in terms of how well the physician addressed their needs? or 2. the data we get from physicians appraising their own abilities to meet the needs of the patients? If we're having a contest to see who can bake the best cupcake, do we care more about hearing the ratings of the judges who tried the cupcake (the patients) or more about hearing the self-ratings of the chefs who baked the cupcakes (the physicians)? The metric in question, "how well were the patient's needs met", is something that the patient should be telling us, not the physician.

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

   93%
4. D

   Irrelevant Distinction1% picked this

   Since medical research is often performed on men, not all results are fully applicable to

   No part of this TV show is dealing with medical research, so this fact has nothing to do with our objection. We're not worried about whether all research results are fully applicable to women. We're worried about whether female patients feels like their physician is more sensitive to their needs when it's a male vs. a female physician.

   1%
5. E

   Irrelevant Distinction0% picked this

   Women as patients are now beginning to take a more active role in managing their care and making sure that

   This doesn't sound like any sort of objection to the plan for tomorrow's TV show.

   0%