Logical Reasoning

PT154 · S4 · Q19 Store owner: My customers are

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Store owner: My customers are not worried about crime in this neighborhood; every day I talk to people who shop at my store, and they tell me that they are not worried.

Conclusion

Crime is not adversely affecting by business by reducing the number of people willing to shop there.

Evidence

Every day I talk to people who shop at my store and they tell me they're not worried about crime.

Evaluate

This sounds like something we could rewrite for modern COVID times by saying,

We would object --

One of the ten famous flaws is Sampling, when an author relies on a sample that may be too small, self-selecting, or unrepresentative.

The store owner here seems to be relying on a self-selecting sample.

Goal

Look for an answer pointing out the sampling bias of asking people who came to the store , or for an answer pointing out the objection that .

19.

The reasoning in the store owner's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

  1. infers that something is not

    Bad Premise Match

    Any time an answer is structured like infers that X on the grounds that Y X should be the conclusion and Y should be the evidence. Did we conclude that "something is not the case"? Yes, we concluded that "it is not the case that people's fear of crime has reduced the number of customers". Was the evidence saying "there is only a small amount of evidence that people's fear of crime has reduced the number of customers"? No, the evidence says "I interview customers every day, and they all serve as counterevidence to this phenomenon". This answer choice is pretty close to describing another famous flaw, Unproven vs. Proven False.

    4% picked this

  2. appeals to personal opinion to

    Wrong Flaw

    This refers to the famous Inappropriate Appeal (to Opinion) flaw. Does the author appeal to personal opinion? Yes, he appeals to the opinions of his customers "they are not worried". Is he trying to establish a factual claim? Yes, but it's about opinion. He's assessing whether people's opinion about crime is making them unwilling to shop at the store. So we wouldn't blame him for citing opinion in the evidence, since those opinions are related to assessing the anti-causal conclusion. We would blame him for not considering the opinions of the people who aren't any longer coming to the store.

    5% picked this

  3. generalizes about the whole neighborhood

    Bad Conclusion Match

    Any time an answer is structured like does X based on Y X should match the Conclusion and Y should match the Evidence. Does our Conclusion "generalize about the whole neighborhood"? Nope. It's just talking about his store. We can stop considering this answer at this point.

    10% picked this

  4. Correct

    draws a conclusion on the

    Why this is right

    The people who are still coming to the store, by definition, are willing to shop at the store, so they are a biased sample. If the store owner wanted to assess whether fear of crime was keeping people from visiting his store, he would need to interview people who aren't at his store and find out why they aren't coming (is it the crime wave, or is it they just don't like store owners who commit Famous Flaws)? This argument also would have a biased sample: "People aren't excited about the Biden campaign. Every day I talk to other people at the call center where we volunteer for the Trump campaign, and they tell me that they are not exited about the Biden campaign's ideas."

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

    73% picked this

  5. fails to consider that crime

    Not an Objection

    Would it weaken this argument so say, "hey, author, even though crime isn't affecting businesses negatively, it might still be affecting the neighborhood negatively"? No. That would only weaken a conclusion that sounded like, "Thus, we have no reason to worry about crime." This conclusion was only about whether or not crime was affecting his store. Anything beyond that is inadmissible to the issue this argument is adjudicating.

    8% picked this

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