Logical Reasoning

PT118 · S4 · Q24 Bardis: Extensive research shows that

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Bardis: Extensive research shows that television advertisements affect the buying habits of consumers.

Conclusion (hence / conclude)

Violent TV imagery does not cause violence.

Evidence

Although TV ads affect buying habits, that could be a result of those ads being specifically designed to alter buying habits.

Meanwhile, TV violence is not designed to cause violent behavior.

Evaluate

If we wanted to counter-argue that "violent TV imagery does sometimes cause violence", how could we respond to this author's evidence?

She said .

We might say,

She said,

We might say,

Goal

Let's look for something like either of our objections - the author assumes that

- the author assumes that .

24.

The reasoning in Bardis's argument is flawed because that argument

relies on an illegitimate inference
Bad Conclusion Match
This answer choice says that the argument went from a Premise saying "TV ads can change behavior" to a conclusion saying "TV ads can cause violent behavior". Our actual conclusion was "Violent TV imagery does not cause violence", which is miles away from that supposed conclusion.
9% picked this
fails to distinguish a type
Doesn't Fail to Distinguish
The argument seems to explicitly distinguish a type of behavior (violent behavior) from a type of stimulus (violent TV imagery) that may or may not affect behavior. The author clearly thinks of them distinctly since she ends up saying that you can have one (violent TV imagery) without the other (violent behavior).
13% picked this
undermines its own position by
Wrong Flaw: not Self-Contradiction
This describes the famous Internal Contradiction flaw, in which the author says something early in the paragraph that undermines something she says later (or vice versa). This author never questioned the persuasive power of TV ads. She fully acknowledges their power. She attributes their power to the fact that they were intentionally designed to persuade, and since violent TV is not designed to influence behavior, she assumes the effect of violent TV will be not to persuade behavioral changes.
5% picked this
Correct
concludes that a claim is
Why this is right
This describes the famous Unproven vs. Proven False flaw, in which an author takes apart someone's attempt to prove X and then erroneously thinks that their failure to prove X is somehow proof that X is false. Some people have tried to argue that "violent TV causes violence" based on the fact that TV ads are effective at altering the behavior of the audience. The author shoots down this reasoning by pointing out a salient difference between ads and violent TV (the former is designed to alter behavior, the latter is not). Having exposed the weakness in her opponent's argument (its one purported fault), the author then does the illegal thing and overconfidently concludes the polar opposite of her opponent's conclusion. To be logically fair, she is only allowed at this point to conclude something like, "Thus, this argument fails to be persuasive / Hence, they are premature to draw this conclusion / Therefore, unless we have more evidence, we should not assume that violent TV causes violence." But she's not allowed to conclude with certainty that violent TV doesn't cause violence, especially given that she's produced no evidence to convince us of such a strong claim.
Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
65% picked this
fails to consider the possibility
Not Our Objection
The argument the author is disputing is definitely not a separate issue. The argument the author disputes concludes that "violent TV sometimes causes violent behavior", and our author ends up concluding "violent TV does not cause violence". So our objection isn't that the author is fighting the wrong issue from what his opponent was talking about.
7% picked this

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