Logical Reasoning

PT154 · S4 · Q22 Educator: Environmental factors clearly have

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Educator: Environmental factors clearly have little effect on whether a teenager will participate in sports.

Conclusion

Environmental factors clearly have little effect on whether a teenager will participate in sports.

Evidence

The strongest environmental factor is probably family life, yet it's common for one teenager in a family to participate in sports while others in the same family don't like sports.

Also, school programs designed to get inactive teens to play sports are generally ineffective.

Evaluate

We have an Anti-Causal conclusion, so we'll be trying to argue that .

We can weaken the argument by "making excuses" for the author's premises or by introducing new evidence that helps us say "environmental factors do have a lot of effect".

Given That Within a family, some teens play sports and others don't How Could We Argue That family life is operating as an environmental factor?

We would say a number of things: - who says that the family is trying to influence all its kids in the same direction? (maybe you have an old-school Dad who tries to move his son towards sports but moves his daughters away from sports). - what if the younger siblings want to differentiate themselves from the older sibling that got into sports?

Given That School programs that try to get inactive teens into playing sports usually don't work, How Could We Argue That environmental factors do influence whether teens play sports?

Maybe we could say that these cheesy assemblies exert influence, just in an opposite, backfiring direction. Maybe teens are being convinced out of getting into high school sports based on who unappealing these school programs are.

Or we could just say that these programs are poorly designed and that if properly designed they would be able to exert some environmental influence.

Goal

Look for an answer "explaining away" either of the two premises in a way that protects the idea that environmental factors are playing a role, or for any answer that helps us argue that environmental factors are playing a role.

22.

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the educator's argument?

Athletic ability varies, even among
No Impact or Strengthens
Athletic ability is not an environmental trait, it's an innate one. Environmental factors can certainly lead someone to augment or diminish their abilities, but this answer is explaining the variation within families in a way that seems closer to Innate factors than Environmental factors. The tall / fast / strong kid is more likely to play sports than the short / slow / weak kid. That's not environmental factors having effect; that's innate physiological factors.
29% picked this
Some teenagers, even those in
Too Weak
The word "some" is wrong 98% of the time you see it in Strengthen, Weaken, and Paradox. Can we really weaken this argument by saying, "Oh, author, did you know that at least one teenager exists who likes sports more than their parents?" It isn't even really worth figuring out whether that data point agrees or disagrees, when it's just one measly data point that can't sway this conversation much.
11% picked this
Adults’ enthusiasm for participating in
Out of Scope: adults' enthusiasm
This seems to suggest that environmental factors (did you play sports growing up) can have a big effect on whether an adult will participate in sports. But it's not doing much to assess how that adult got into spots as teenager in the first place (Environmental or Innate factors?)
10% picked this
Correct
The proportion of teenagers who
Why this is right
This is a legendarily horrid correct answer. It's in my top 20. It has nothing to do with either Premise, which is why it's easy to dismiss on a first pass. But, it allows us to push back against the author's conclusion. There aren't that many types of factors in the world: Environmental, Innate, and maybe that's it (random factors?) Given that the proportion of teens who plays sports varies greatly across societies and decades, the author (who thinks Environmental factors have little effect) would have to say that Innate factors are the reason? Even if you grant the author the suspect idea that Innate factors vary greatly across societies, nobody's gonna say that Innate factors vary greatly from decade to decade. Since these data points are not compatible with a "Innate factors determine whether teens participate in sports" hypothesis, they suggest instead that Environmental factors must be at play here.
Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
43% picked this
School programs designed to encourage
No Impact / Strengthens
We already knew that these school programs are generally ineffective (51% or more of them). But that premise left plenty of room for the idea that some of them are effective, even highly successful. Since this fact is fully absorbed within the negative space of the 2nd premise, it doesn't change the conversation. And since the conclusion isn't totally absolute, just "Environmental factors clearly have little effect", the author is willing to tolerate some tiny exceptions to his broad generalization. To the extent that this answer says, "Hey ... we've tried tons of different approaches, and only a few have worked", it actually beats back one of our anticipated objections (what if your school programs are just lame, and a well-designed one would actually work?) This answer suggests that we've tried a wide spectrum of approaches, and the fact that the vast majority of them failed starts to help the author's case.
6% picked this

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