Logical Reasoning

PT120 · S3 · Q23 Television network executive: Some scientists

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Television network executive: Some scientists have expressed concern about the numerous highly popular television programs that emphasize paranormal incidents, warning that these programs will encourage superstition and thereby impede the public’s scientific understanding.

Conclusion

The popular ghost TV shows are not going to encourage superstition and thereby impede the public's scientific understanding.

Evidence

Throughout history there have been ghost stories, and yet scientific understanding has steadily progressed.

Evaluate

Part of our analysis of this argument should be it's Past = Present Comparison form. Are those really fair to compare? Are ghost stories told my dramatists throughout recorded history really fair to compare with ghost TV shows that have spooky sound effects and special computer generated ghosts?

Even though past ghost stories allowed scientific understanding to steadily advance, maybe present ghost TV shows are meaningfully different in a way where they will actually impede the public's scientific understanding.

If we wanted to try arguing the Anti-Conclusion, then we would probably be thinking:

Maybe we could say that, .

For example, can you prove that the bathroom tile spray i use on my moldy tiles does nothing, simply by saying "the mold has steadily advanced"?

No, because I could say,

Goal

Look for an answer dealing with the Past ≠ Present objection, or one dealing with the "steadily advancing ≠ having no effect" objection.

23.

The television network executive's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on which one of the following grounds?

Correct
It fails to consider that
Why this is right
Would it be an objection to this argument to say that "X can steadily advance, even when it is being impeded by Y"? Yes. The premise is talking about scientific understanding steadily advancing, despite there having always been ghost stories. The conclusion is saying that therefore scientific understanding is not being impeded. This objection points out that you can steadily advance, even if you're being impeded. To impede the flow of traffic ? to STOP the flow of traffic. We say "there's a fender bender in the middle lane that's impeding the flow of traffic." Cars are still able to steadily advance past the accident, but they have to slow down a bunch to switch out of the middle lane, so the overall traffic flow is impeded. Similarly, we could say to this author that scientific understanding has still advanced, but it has advanced much more slowly than it would otherwise without the headwinds of superstition and paranormal beliefs.
Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
60% picked this
It takes for granted that
Wrong Flaw
This describes the famous Causal Flaw, but the author is not positing a causal conclusion. She's actually saying something anti-causal in her conclusion. She doesn't think that ghost TV shows are causing any inhibition of scientific understanding.
3% picked this
It fails to consider that
Bad Conclusion Match
Can we object to this argument by saying that "the occurrence of X can indirectly affect the pervasiveness of Y, even if X does not impede Y." No, this would be objecting to an argument that is saying, "Betty's frequent exposure to the sun does not impede the growth of freckles on her face. Thus her exposure to the sun has no effect on the pervasiveness of freckles on her face." It's resisting a move from "didn't impede" to "has no effect on prevalence". For the author's argument, we need an objection resisting the move from "X has always advanced, despite the presence of Y" to "Y is not impeding X".
12% picked this
It fails to consider that
Bad Premise Match
Any answer structured fails to consider that just because X is true, Y doesn't have to be true should have X match the evidence and Y match the conclusion. Do we have evidence that "one phenomenon is known to affect another"? Nope. We can stop reading there.
2% picked this
It takes for granted that
Bad Premise Match
This is tricky. Pause after the first part of the answer to match up the abstract wording with the specifics of the argument. Are we ever saying that "the contention that X causes Y is baseless"? Yeah, basically, in our conclusion, we're saying "the contention that ghost TV shows causes impeded scientific understanding is baseless". So now we plug those ideas into the second half: the latter phenomenon (impeded scientific understanding) has persisted despite steady increases in the pervasiveness of the former (ghost TV shows). Did the author say that there had been steady increases in the pervasiveness of ghost TV shows (or ghost stories, if we're being charitable)? No, there are numerous highly popular ghost TV shows, but the author hasn't said that ghost stories are a steadily increasing phenomenon. She said that scientific understanding was. So already we've seen a broken idea that would let us disqualify the answer. We could ALSO complain about this answer that the author never said that impeded scientific understanding has persisted. The author is saying the opposite, that (unimpeded) scientific understanding has persisted / advanced. There's no way to match up the concept from the argument to the first half without making the second half of the answer nonsensical, or vice versa.
23% picked this

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