Logical Reasoning

PT141 · S4 · Q1 In an experiment, ten people

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In an experiment, ten people were asked to taste samples of coffee and rank them.

Conclusion (Clearly then)

Chocolate interferes with one's ability to taste coffee.

Evidence

Five of the ten people in the experiment were given chocolate with their coffee, and this group reported that all the coffee samples tasted pretty much the same as one another.

The other five tasted coffee only, and they were able to detect differences.

Evaluate

Since this author is looking at a Curious Comparison from a study and then arriving at a causal conclusion (X interferes with Y), we can use our Explain Curious Fact mindset.

Curious Fact ... how come the people who had chocolate didn't taste differences, whereas the people who didn't have chocolate did taste differences?

Author's Explanation ... eating the chocolate interfered with people's taste buds so that all the different coffee samples they tasted seemed pretty much the same to them.

Goal

Since we're doing a Weaken question, our answer could come in two flavors:

1. suggest an Alternate Explanation for the curious fact (what could be a different reason the coffee groups didn't find the coffee samples to taste different? Maybe they already had messed up taste buds. Maybe they were all stuffed up or had long covid, so their sense of taste was impaired. Maybe they never drink coffee, so all the coffee just tasted like awful dark liquid to them.

2. undermine the plausibility of the author's explanation (try to make it seem unrealistic to think that chocolate interferes with ability to taste coffee)

1.

Which one of the following, if true, most undermines the conclusion drawn above?

  1. The ten people were randomly

    Mildly Strengthens

    If these people were randomly assigned, it makes the data a little bit more credible. Random assignment helps to rule out certain alternate explanations that result from self-selecting.

    4% picked this

  2. Similar results were achieved when

    Strengthens

    This corroborates the results of the study, which strengthens the evidence, which strengthens the argument.

    1% picked this

  3. Chocolate is normally consumed as

    No Impact

    How each substance is typically consumed has no bearing on solving the causal mystery of why the chocolate group thought all the coffees tasted similar while the no-chocolate group was able to detect differences.

    2% picked this

  4. Correct

    The five people who were

    Why this is right

    This attacks the plausibility of the author's interpretation of this experiment. He thinks that the five people in the chocolate group were unable to taste differences between the different coffees because they ate chocolate right beforehand, which interfered with their ability to taste coffee. If that were true, then we would think that if they came back a week later and didn't have chocolate, they would be able to tell the difference. Since these people, even when they had no chocolate, could not differentiate the coffee samples, then clearly chocolate wasn't the causal difference-maker preventing them from tasting differences. We still don't know what the real reason is for why they can't taste the difference, but it clearly wasn't chocolate's doing.

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

    87% picked this

  5. Some subjects who tasted just

    No Impact

    This is trying to weaken by blurring the lines a little between the chocolate group (they all taste pretty much the same) and the non-chocolate group (they could detect differences). Learning that there was variation within the group that noticed differences (some noticed small, some noticed big) doesn't do anything for this argument. It doesn't provide an alternate explanation for why the chocolate group tasted no differences, and it doesn't attack the plausibility that chocolate interfered with that group's taste buds.

    6% picked this

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