Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S1 · Q16 Fremont: Simpson is not a viable candidate

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Fremont: Simpson is not a viable candidate for chief executive of Pod Oil because he has no background in the oil industry.

Conclusion

I disagree (the fact that Simpson has no background in the oil industry doesn't prove he's not a viable CEO of Pod Oil).

In other words, someone with no background in the oil industry could still be a viable candidate for CEO of Pod Oil.

Evidence

An oil background is no guarantee of success; for example, the last CEO had an oil background and was terrible.

Evaluate

Galindo's first comment seems to imply that Fremont was thinking that . But Fremont certainly never argued that.

Fremont is probably thinking "an oil background" is a minimum requirement, not a sufficient guarantee of success.

Goal

Look for an answer pointing out that Galindo implicitly accuses F of a position that F never espoused (this is called Straw Man), or an answer that says "even if people with backgrounds in oil can still be crappy CEO's, it might still be true that people without backgrounds in oil can't be successful CEO's).

16.

Galindo’s argument is flawed in that it

  1. fails to justify its presumption

    Out of Scope: personal bias

    Nothing in this conversation hints at the idea that Galindo is assuming that Fremont is arguing based on personal bias.

    0% picked this

  2. fails to distinguish between relevant

    Opposite

    The conversation is definitely distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant experience, because both speakers are weighing the value of having relevant experience (oil background).

    1% picked this

  3. Correct

    rests on a confusion between

    Why this is right

    Fremont argued, "b/c no oil experience, not viable". ~oil experience → ~viable candidate Then Galindo turns around and says, "Hey, I don't agree that oil experience guarantees success", which would look like this, oil experience → viable candidate So the response is confusing whether we're saying that the attribute of oil experience is a requirement of a successful CEO or whether oil experience is supposed to guarantee having a successful CEO. Galindo presents a counterexample to the latter claim, but F was arguing the former claim.

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

    58% picked this

  4. bases a conclusion that an

    Bad Conclusion Match

    Does Galindo's conclusion say that "oil background" is always irrelevant to success? Nope, it says that "oil background is not a guarantee of success". So we can eliminate this answer at this point and stop reading. If I saw "having an LSAT tutor is not a guarantee of success", I'm not saying that "having an LSAT tutor is irrelevant to success".

    12% picked this

  5. presents only one instance of

    Wrong Flaw

    This refers to the famous flaw Sampling. It is true that Galindo presents only one instance, however, his conclusion is trying to invalidate a universal claim. If you're trying to shoot down a universal, like "All men like football", you only need one instance to do so. So since Galindo's conclusion is trying to invalidate a universal, it's not a logical problem that he's only presenting one instance. The logical problem is that Galindo is trying to invalidate the wrong universal. Fremont was arguing that "oil background is necessary to viable CEO", so Galindo would have disagreed by providing an example of a CEO that had no oil experience but was still successful.

    28% picked this

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