Logical Reasoning

PT9 · S2 · Q25 Medical research findings are customarily

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Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review.

Conclusion

Waiting until a medical journal has published research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research.

Evidence

Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts (“peer review”).

However, prepublication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous, potentially harmful information from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims independently.

Evaluate

This conclusion is very strongly worded: .

So we could object to this argument by saying, . Instead of waiting for a medical journal to publish research findings, we could do ... X.

It's hard to guess what that alternative method would be, but the author seems to think that prepublication peer review is the only way to protect the public from potentially harmful / erroneous information. Maybe there's a way we could stop there from being harmful / erroneous information in the first place?

Goal

Look for an answer providing a linking assumption like , or look for a Defender assumption ruling out some other way of protecting the public.

25.

The argument assumes that

Correct
unless medical research findings are
Why this is right
Since this is conditional, we can ask ourselves whether the author made this reasoning move. Was she thinking, "if medical research findings aren't brought to peer review by a medical journal, then peer review will not occur"? Or by contrapositive, "Having peer review requires having findings brought to peer review by a medical journal"? Yes! Her evidence establishes that we have to do peer review before we publish medical findings. And then her conclusion says, "so that means we have to wait until a medical journal has published the research findings". So she seems to think that peer review requires medical journals. If we negated this and said, "Hey author, it's possible to do the peer review without actually bringing those findings to a medical journal and dealing with their publication timeline" it would badly weaken the argument, because it would make it seem like we don't HAVE to wait until a medical journal publishes findings.
Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
50% picked this
anyone who does not serve
Too Strong
The argument only states that the public at large is not equipped to evaluate medical claims. It doesn’t state that absolutely no one outside a review panel can do so. This is broader and stricter than needed.
30% picked this
the general public does not
Irrelevant Quality: no public access
It didn't seem like the author was ever saying that the public doesn't have access to medical journals. The author was only saying that the public doesn't have the expertise to judge published medical findings on their own. The medical journal acts as a quality control filter and only shows people the well-vetted findings.
9% picked this
all medical research findings are
Too Strong
The argument never states that this applies to absolutely all research findings. In fact even the very first claim says that "customarily" findings aren't public until published in a medical journal. But that doesn't mean ALWAYS.
10% picked this
peer review panels are sometimes
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: political and professional pressures Opposite (if anything) This out of scope possibility would weaken confidence in peer review, rather than being an assumption that supports waiting for peer review. Since it raises a potential problem with peer review, it would be the Opposite, if anything, of what the author is assuming.
1% picked this

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