Logical Reasoning

PT125 · S2 · Q19 The coach of the Eagles

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The coach of the Eagles used a computer analysis to determine the best combinations of players for games.

Premises

The coach of the Eagles used a computer analysis to determine the best combinations of players for games.

The analysis revealed that the team has lost only when Jennifer was not playing.

Conclusion

This sort of information confirms that Jennifer's presence in the game will ensure that the Eagles will win.

Evaluate

We could/should definitely worry about an illegal reversal / negation when we see that conditional premise ("only when").

That rule is saying Team Lost --> Jen didn't play

So an illegal reversal would sound like,

An illegal negation would sound like,

But the conditional is about the past tense. So an illegal negation or reversal would still take place in the past tense.

Instead, the conclusion is a future-looking conditional Jen plays --> Team Will Win

A past-tense conditional would have been logically valid: Jen played --> Team didn't lose

The reason the conclusion isn't valid is because it's future looking. The argument establishes that if Jennifer was playing, the Eagles won. But does that mean that if Jennifer plays in the next game that her team will win? Not necessarily, there could be something different about the next game compared with previous games. Maybe the next team is better, maybe the next game will the first one Jennifer has ever played indoors.

19.

The argument above is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

  1. infers from the fact that

    Not a Flaw

    This describes the contrapositive form of a conditional relationship. However a contrapositive is not flawed reasoning.

    34% picked this

  2. presumes, without providing justification, that

    Wrong Flaw

    The analysis revealed that the team has lost only when Jennifer was not playing, it did not try to further quantify her contribution.

    3% picked this

  3. draws conclusions about applications of

    Wrong Flaw

    This describes flawed reasoning that generalizes from a single example. However, this argument does not generalize from a single case but rather predicts a future case based on all previous cases.

    1% picked this

  4. Correct

    presumes, without providing justification, that

    Why this is right

    This correctly describes a temporal fallacy. The present or the future simply may not look like the past.

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

    53% picked this

  5. draws a conclusion about the

    Contradiction

    The argument does not draw a conclusion about the value of computer analyses.

    9% picked this

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