Logical Reasoning

PT143 · S3 · Q14 Branson: Most of the air pollution

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Branson: Most of the air pollution in this country comes from our largest cities.

Conclusion (So)

If many people in our largest cities were to move to rural areas, air pollution in the country as a whole would be reduced.

Evidence

Most of the air pollution in this country comes from our largest cities. These large cities would pollute less if they were less populated.

Evaluate

Wouldn't the small cities pollute more if these people from large cities move there?

The author seems to think that by reducing the problem of pollution in the largest cities, we will have decreased air pollution in the country as a whole. But if we send a bunch of people to small cities, then those smaller cities will start to have more air pollution than they used to.

It's almost like if I said,

That's crazy talk! If I borrowed another $200k from my mortgage to pay off $200k of student loan, I've just moved my debt from a student loan account to a mortgage account.

Similarly, if people move from the biggest cities to smaller cities, then they will move their pollution with them. The pollution in the large city account will go down, but the pollution in the small city account will go up, and the country's overall pollution will probably be the same.

Goal

Let's look for something where an author is moving a problem from one place to another, and concluding that the overall incidence of the problem is therefore reduced.

14.

Which one of the following demonstrates most effectively by parallel reasoning that Branson's argument is flawed?

Similarly, we could conclude that
Bad Conclusion Match
The original conclusion was a conditional that had an outcome that sounds like it's reducing a problem. This conclusion is just a factual statement about where Monique spends most of her salary. It would be a good move to bail on this, simply from the bad conclusion, and only return to read the rest if no other answer pans out.
6% picked this
Similarly, we could conclude that
Bad Evidence Match
The conclusion could potentially match: If they move from an apartment to a single-family home, they will have more living space. Does the premise make it seem like making this move would just re-allocate the "not having enough space" problem so that now there's less of it in the apartment and more of it in the single family home? No, partly because the family wouldn't own both homes. It's not like one of their accounts goes down while another goes up. More importantly, it's because single family homes actually have more space! Going from an apartment to a single-family home usually means you do have more space than before, so it might be a genuine solution to the problem, as opposed to the flawed solution that just re-allocates the problem into a different place.
7% picked this
Similarly, we could conclude that
Bad Conclusion Match
The original conclusion was a conditional that had an outcome that sounds like it's reducing a problem. This conclusion is just a factual statement about what most of Ward's farm consists of. It would be a good move to bail on this, simply from the bad conclusion, and only return to read the rest if no other answer pans out.
4% picked this
Correct
Similarly, we could conclude that
Why this is right
The conclusion could potentially match: If he moved a portion of his breakfast, lunch, and dinner into snacks, he would consume fewer calories. Does the premise make it seem like making this move would just re-allocate the problem rather than solve it? Yes! If you save half your breakfast, half your lunch, and half your dinner and then eat those portions as snacks, then you haven't reduced total calories at all. You've just re-allocated where those calories are found. In the original argument, we didn't reduce air pollution by moving some people from big cities to smaller cities ("Snack" cities, if you will). We just re-allocated that overall amount of pollution into different areas. This answer also contains a similar premise to "Most air pollution comes from largest cities", because it has "Most calories come from breakfast / lunch / dinner".
Skill tested: Parallel Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
72% picked this
Similarly, we could conclude that
Bad Evidence Match Topic Trap
The conclusion could potentially match: If we built a public transportation system, we could reduce the problem of air pollution. Air pollution? Wasn't that the topic of the original argument? Trap Alert! Trap Alert! Does the premise suggest that by building a public transportation system we would just be re-allocating a problem from one place to another? No, the evidence sounds like the solution would actually work. Switching cars for public transportation should actually cut down on pollution.
11% picked this

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