Logical Reasoning

PT151 · S4 · Q11 A new treatment for muscle

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A new treatment for muscle pain that looked very promising was tested in three separate studies.

Conclusion (So)

The treatment is probably not actually effective.

Evidence

All three studies showing the new treatment looked promising had critical methodological flaws.

Evaluate

Parallel Flaw usually tests illegal moves with conditionals/quantifiers, or it tests one of the top 6 famous flaws: - Necessary vs. Sufficient (illegal conditional moves) - overconfident Causal conclusions - Part vs. Whole - Sampling - Ad Hominem - Unproven vs. Proven False

Here, it's doing that last one. The fact that these studies had methodological flaws means they're not super trustworthy as evidence. We shouldn't lean on them as support for the idea that this new treatment is effective.

The correct conclusion would be, .

The author, meanwhile, is incorrectly volunteering some pessimism about the effectiveness of the treatment. Where is the author getting any evidence that the treatments aren't effective?

The fact that these studies aren't good evidence in favor of X does not suddenly mean that they are good evidence against X. They just aren't good evidence.

Goal

Look for an answer that does something similar Unproven vs. Proven False move. There is an effort to prove X that is flawed or unsuccessful in some way. And the author concludes from this that X is probably wrong / false.

11.

The flawed nature of the argument above can most effectively be demonstrated by noting that, by parallel reasoning, we could conclude that

  1. Correct

    since the judges in a

    Why this is right

    This replicates the idea of a certain experiment / study / trial having some sketchy methodology -- there's no uniform criteria for selecting a winner? So how do the judges know how to score these cakes against each other? And it replicates the conclusion that assumes the results of the experiment / study / trial are probably the opposite of what was found. The three studies found that the treatment looked very effective, so the author concludes the treatment probably isn't effective. The judges found that cake X was the best cake, so the author concludes that cake X was probably not the best. This feels less like Unproven vs. Proven False and more like "shady methodology doesn't mean incorrect results". The latter is still a version of the former, but it would probably be easier to like this answer if we were searching for the latter rather than the former.

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

    85% picked this

  2. since some people who fish

    Different Flaw

    This is testing one of the semi-famous flaws: Intent vs. Result It's assuming that because the people who fish ended up with the result of not catching fish, that their intent must not have been to catch fish.

    1% picked this

  3. since some foods have very

    Different Flaw

    This seems to commit the famous flaw of Part vs. Whole It's assuming that because part of some people's diet (certain foods) have a trait (little nourishing value), that their overall diet has that same trait (little nourishing value).

    7% picked this

  4. since all scarves are at

    Different Flaw

    This is sort of committing the Intent vs. Result flaw. Somehow we've ended up in a world (result) with all scarves being at least somewhat decorative. The author is assuming that the intent of scarves must therefore have been purely decorative. It's also making a move from "All A's are at least somewhat X" to "the first A's were purely X". There's not really a name for that flaw, but it doesn't resemble the original argument's move from "The thing that found X to be true had a flawed methodology" to "X is probably not true".

    1% picked this

  5. since all members of the

    Different Flaw

    This is testing one of the famous flaws: Ad Hominem It's acting like anyone with a biased interest in something will be motivated purely by that interest, not by legitimate, substantive things.

    7% picked this

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