Logical Reasoning

PT16 · S2 · Q1 The city’s center for disease control

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The city’s center for disease control reports that the rabies epidemic is more serious now than it was two years ago: 2 years ago less than 25 percent of the local raccoon population was infected, whereas today the infection has spread to more than 50 percent of the raccoon population.

Given that ...

Previously, only 25% of raccoons were infected with rabies but now, 50% of raccoons are infected.

How can it be that ...

Previously, we had 32 cases over a year but now, we've only had 18 cases over a year

Evaluate

We might think that with such a high percent of the raccoon population infected (50%!) that we would have beaten our record of 32 cases of rabies over the course of a year.

It's possible that even though there are way more rabid raccoons nowadays, it's harder for us to find confirmed cases. Maybe there's been some shift over the past couple years where rabid raccoons are increasingly in hard to access parts of the city, so we haven't see them / confirmed them.

It's also possible to resolve this with % vs. # trickery.

Just because a higher percent of raccoons have rabies these days doesn't mean that a higher number of raccoons have rabies these days.

Maybe two years ago, 25% of the 100 local raccoons had rabies, which was 25 rabid raccoons.

Maybe the local raccoon population now is only 40, so even though 50% of them have rabies, there are only 20 rabid raccoons.

if there are fewer raccoons in total these days, then 50% of the raccoon population NOW doesn't mean more rabid raccoons then 25% of the bigger raccoon population two years ago.

Goal

Look for an answer giving us a way to say that, .

Or look for an answer saying the raccoon population has gone down, so that we can say,

1.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy between the two reports?

  1. The number of cases of

    Irrelevant Comparison / Opposite (if anything)

    What's happening with rabies among other animals has nothing to do with solving the surprise of why we have fewer confirmed cases of raccoon rabies these days. If anything, the fact that other animals have more cases of rabies could lead to there being more cases of raccoon rabies, and we're trying to explain the opposite.

    12% picked this

  2. Correct

    A significant proportion of the

    Why this is right

    This gives us the "fewer raccoons overall nowadays" solution we predicted. "Succumbed to rabies" = "died from rabies" If a bunch of the local raccoons died off, then even though there's a higher rate of rabies these days (50% vs. 25%), that doesn't mean there will be more rabid raccoons. We're taking 50% of a much smaller number vs. 25% of a much bigger number. So this allows us to say that there are just fewer rabid raccoons nowadays compared to two years ago, and that's why the yearly count of rabid raccoons went from 32 to 18.

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

    72% picked this

  3. The symptoms of distemper, another

    Unclear Impact

    We're trying to explain why the count of confirmed rabies cases is lower than expected. The fact that rabies could be easily misdiagnosed as distemper (and vice versa), means that we might be undercounting rabies (if raccoons with rabies are mistakenly diagnosed as having distemper), or we might be overcounting rabies (if raccoons with distemper are mistakenly diagnosed as having rabies). If we're undercounting rabies, that would actually work as an answer. But if we're overcounting rabies, then that would be the opposite of what our answer chould do. Since we don't know whether we're overcounting or undercounting, this has unclear impact.

    13% picked this

  4. Since the outbreak of the

    Opposite

    One of the stories we thought we could tell to resolve the paradox was one in which there are more rabid raccoons nowadays, but we just don't find as many of them to confirm their case. However, this answer is saying we'd be more likely to find raccoons these days, since they're more visible during daytime.

    3% picked this

  5. The number of confirmed cases

    Restates Paradox

    This essentially restates / corroborates our surprising fact (number of confirmed cases is down), but it does nothing to explain how that could be happening, given that a much higher proportion of raccoons are infected.

    1% picked this

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