Hospital executive: At a recent conference

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Evidence Match16% picked this

   The argument confuses the causes of a problem with the appropriate solutions

   Since this is structured confuses X with Y, we would want half of it to sound like the evidence and half to sound like the conclusion. The only "problem" discussed is that of unauthorized access to confidential data. But at no point are we ever discussing the causes of such a problem.

   16%
2. B

   Correct49% picked this

   The argument relies on the testimony of experts whose expertise is not shown to be sufficiently broad to

   Why this is right

   This correctly identifies a flaw in the argument. This would be the Famous Flaw known as "Inappropriate Appeals", which has subflavors like Appealing to Emotion / Appealing to Opinion / Appealing to a Dubious Expert. This would be that last type. Who's to say that computer experts know what the biggest threat to hospitals is? They probably know mainly about computers in hospitals, not about running a hospital overall. Maybe debt financing is way more important. Maybe training and retaining good nurses and doctors is way more important. Maybe making sure that patients don't receive the wrong medication or surgery is more important. What would these computer experts know about all that?

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

   49%
3. C

   Famous Flaw Bait10% picked this

   The argument assumes that a correlation between two phenomena is evidence that one is the

   Famous Flaw Bait: causal flaw Bad Evidence / Conclusion Match Although this is one of the 10 famous flaws, it's not what's happening here. The conclusion is not even Causal. It's a recommendation that we make protecting confidentiality the highest priority. And the evidence doesn't present a correlation between two phenomena.

   10%
4. D

   Famous Flaw Bait13% picked this

   The argument draws a general conclusion about a group based on data about an unrepresentative

   Famous Flaw Bait: sampling flaw Bad Evidence Match Although this is one of the 10 famous flaws, it's not what's happening here. The conclusion is not a general conclusion about a group, unless we want to stretch and say the "group" is this hospital. That would mean that the evidence was about an unrepresentative sample of this hospital, but the evidence is about computer experts at a recent conference. This answer would match an argument saying, "The computer staff at this hospital are most concerned with protecting the confidentiality of patients' data. Therefore, the highest priority of all staff is protecting the confidentiality of patients' data."

   13%
5. E

   Bad Conclusion Match12% picked this

   The argument infers that a property belonging to large institutions belongs

   Since this is structured, infers that X is Y we would want to see that X matches the evidence and Y matches the conclusion (or assumption that takes us to the conclusion). The evidence did kinda present a property belonging to large institutions: supposedly the most significant threat is unauthorized access to confidential data. According to this answer, the argument went on to conclude that "The biggest threat affecting ALL institutions is unauthorized access to confidential data", but that doesn't match the conclusion at all.

   12%