Logical Reasoning

PT118 · S3 · Q5 Cigarette companies claim that manufacturing

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Cigarette companies claim that manufacturing both low-and high-nicotine cigarettes allows smokers to choose how much nicotine they want.

Given that ...

Some smokers are having a pack of low-nicotine cigarettes, and others are having a pack of high-nicotine cigarettes.

How can it be that ...

All of these people had the same level of nicotine in their blood at the end of the day.

Evaluate

If I smoke a pack of low-nicotine cigs and you smoke a pack of high-nicotine cigs, how can it be that we have the same nicotine in our blood at the end of the day?

There are three possibilities that might come to mind:

1. Low and high nicotine cigarettes actually have the same amount of nicotine in them

2. I am more sensitive to nicotine than you, so when I smoke low-nicotine, my blood ends up having as much nicotine in it as when you smoke high-nicotine.

3. The body can only absorb so much nicotine in the blood before the rest is just excreted. Maybe a pack of low-nicotine cigarettes already maxes out the body's capacity to retain nicotine, and so anything extra that high-nicotine cigarettes provides would be excreted. (This is true with Vitamin C ... once you've consumed a certain amount, your body doesn't absorb any more)

Goal

Find a way to explain how someone smoking a pack of low-nicotine cigs has as much nicotine in their blood as someone smoking a pack of high-nicotine cigs.

5.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the finding of the nicotine study?

  1. Correct

    Blood cannot absorb more nicotine

    Why this is right

    If blood can only absorb, say, 10mg of nicotine, and a pack of low-nicotine cigarettes provides at least that much, then it doesn't matter whether a pack of high-nicotine cigarettes has 25mg of nicotine in it. A person who smokes a pack of either type will still only have 10mg of nicotine in their blood.

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

    72% picked this

  2. Smokers of the lowest-nicotine cigarettes

    Unrelated to Goal

    This paradox is comparing people who smoke one pack of low-nicotine to people who smoke one pack of high-nicotine. The typical consumption amount of low-nicotine smokers vs. high-nicotine smokers is irrelevant. This paradox is constructed on a comparison between people smoking the same amount of cigarettes.

    20% picked this

  3. Most nicotine is absorbed into

    No Impact

    This lets us know that when you smoke low-nicotine cigarettes, your blood absorbs most of the nicotine. So if a pack of low nicotine cigs contains 10mg and a pack of high nicotine cigs contains 25mg, we know that the person smoking the low-nicotine will absorb at least 6mg in their blood. But wouldn't the person smoking high nicotine absorb much more than that? This answer provides no way of explaining why both smokers end up with the same level of nicotine in their blood.

    7% picked this

  4. The level of tar in

    Unrelated to Goal

    We're only concerned with how much nicotine is in each type of smoker's blood. The level of tar doesn't have any clear connection to this conversation.

    1% picked this

  5. When taking in nicotine by

    Unrelated to Goal

    This is telling us that once you stop smoking, the level of nicotine in your blood will recede. But that has nothing to do with our paradox about someone smoking a pack of low-nicotine vs. someone smoking a pack of high-nicotine.

    1% picked this

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