Galindo: I disagree. An oil industry background is no guarantee of success. Look no further than Pod Oil’s last chief executive, who had decades of oil industry experience but steered the company to the brink of bankruptcy.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
Galindo argues that Simpson’s lack of experience in the oil industry doesn’t disqualify him as a chief executive candidate. He offers two premises:
(1) Having a background in the oil industry doesn’t guarantee success.
(2) The last chief executive was unsuccessful despite their background in the oil industry.
(1) Having a background in the oil industry doesn’t guarantee success.
(2) The last chief executive was unsuccessful despite their background in the oil industry.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the flaw of mistaking sufficiency for necessity. Fremont argues that having oil industry experience is a necessary condition for being a successful chief executive. Instead of arguing against this claim, Galindo argues that having an oil industry background isn’t a sufficient condition for a chief executive to be successful. Fremont never claimed that an oil background was sufficient, though—he just said it was necessary. Galindo doesn’t address Fremont’s actual argument, so his disagreement with Fremont is unsupported.
A
fails to justify its presumption that Fremont’s objection is based on personal bias
Galindo does not presume that Fremont’s objection is based on personal bias, so no such justification would be necessary.
B
fails to distinguish between relevant experience and irrelevant experience
It isn’t necessary for Galindo to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant experience, because both Fremont and Galindo limit their arguments to discussions of relevant experience (a background in the oil industry).
C
rests on a confusion between whether an attribute is necessary for success and whether that attribute is sufficient for success
This is the cookie-cutter flaw in Galindo’s argument. Fremont argues that an oil industry background is necessary for success; Galindo counters that such a background is not sufficient to ensure success. Galindo mistakes Fremont’s necessary condition for a sufficient condition.
D
bases a conclusion that an attribute is always irrelevant to success on evidence that it is sometimes irrelevant to success
Galindo does not conclude that an oil industry background is always irrelevant to success. He states that such a background does not necessarily guarantee success, but he doesn’t suggest that oil industry experience is always irrelevant to success.
E
presents only one instance of a phenomenon as the basis for a broad generalization about that phenomenon
Galindo’s example successfully proves that an oil industry background doesn’t guarantee success, so the efficacy of his example or the fact that he only offers one isn’t a flaw. Rather, the flaw is that the claim his example proves does not actually respond to Fremont’s argument.
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The legislator hypothesizes that voters don’t like the highway bill. She bases this on a correlation: the majority party both supported the bill’s passage and is predicted to lose more than a dozen seats in the upcoming election.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is a “correlation doesn’t imply causation” flaw, where the legislator sees a correlation and concludes that one thing causes the other without ruling out alternative hypotheses. Specifically, she overlooks two key alternatives:
(1) The causal relationship could be reversed—maybe the majority party’s unpopularity caused them to support the highway bill. Maybe the party supported the popular highway bill as a result of their poor poll performance!
(2) Some other factor could be causing the correlation—maybe the majority party is unpopular for other reasons and they also happen to support the highway bill!
(1) The causal relationship could be reversed—maybe the majority party’s unpopularity caused them to support the highway bill. Maybe the party supported the popular highway bill as a result of their poor poll performance!
(2) Some other factor could be causing the correlation—maybe the majority party is unpopular for other reasons and they also happen to support the highway bill!
A
gives no reason to think that the predicted election outcome would be different if the majority party had not supported the bill
This describes the legislator’s cookie-cutter “correlation proves causation” error. The legislator fails to establish that the majority party’s support of the bill is what caused the predicted election outcome. What if the party is unpopular for entirely unrelated reasons?
B
focuses on the popularity of the bill to the exclusion of its merit
The bill’s merit is not relevant to the legislator’s argument. She is focused on the bill’s popularity, not its actual content.
C
infers that the bill is unpopular from a claim that presupposes its unpopularity
The legislator does not presuppose the bill’s unpopularity; rather, she attempts to demonstrate it by introducing the information that a party that supported the bill is itself unpopular. (C) describes a “circular reasoning” flaw, which is not the error the legislator commits.
D
takes for granted that the bill is unpopular just because the legislator wishes it to be unpopular
The legislator gives no indication that she wishes the bill to be unpopular. For all we know, she could be a member of the majority party and a supporter of the bill!
E
bases its conclusion on the views of voters without establishing their relevant expertise on the issues involved
The legislator’s conclusion is entirely about voters’ views, regardless of the merits of these views or the voters’ qualifications to hold them. Her argument doesn’t rely at all on establishing the voters’ relevant expertise, so it doesn’t matter that she does not do this.
Warrington: Although the study of classical works is essential to the liberal arts, a classics department isn’t, since other departments often engage in that study.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
Lopez concludes that our university is not committed to liberal arts. He bases this on the fact that the university closed the classics department. To Lopez, studying classics is necessary for studying liberal arts.
Warrington agrees that studying classics is necessary for liberal arts, but points out that other departments besides the classics department involve studying classics. (The implication is that Lopez’s argument isn’t convincing, because the closing of the classics department does not show that the university isn’t committed to liberal arts.)
Warrington agrees that studying classics is necessary for liberal arts, but points out that other departments besides the classics department involve studying classics. (The implication is that Lopez’s argument isn’t convincing, because the closing of the classics department does not show that the university isn’t committed to liberal arts.)
Describe Method of Reasoning
Warrington points out that an assumption Lopez made (that the classics department is the only department that studies classics) is wrong.
A
offering additional reasons in favor of the conclusion of Lopez’s argument
Warrington undermines an assumption in Lopez’s argument. He doesn’t support Lopez’s conclusion.
B
claiming that the reasoning in Lopez’s argument rests on an illicit appeal to tradition
Warrington does not claim that Lopez’s argument rests on an appeal to tradition. (Appeal to tradition involves arguing that we should do something because it’s always been done that way.)
C
mounting a direct challenge to the conclusion of Lopez’s argument
There’s no direct challenge to Lopez’s conclusion. His point is that the closing of the classic department isn’t enough to prove Lopez’s conclusion. This isn’t a direct challenge, which would require him to argue that our university IS committed to liberal arts.
D
responding to a possible objection to the reasoning in Lopez’s argument
Warrington criticizes Lopez’s argument. He does not defend Lopez’s argument from a criticism.
E
presenting a consideration in order to undermine the reasoning in Lopez’s argument
Warrington presents a consideration (that other departments study classics) to show that Lopez’s premises (the classics department was closed, and classics is crucial to liberal arts) does not prove his conclusion (that the university doesn’t care about liberal arts).
Summarize Argument
The modern historians disagree with the view that Calgigula was a cruel and insane tyrant. This is based on the fact that only a little documentation of Caligula’s alleged cruelty or outrageous behavior survives. In addition, the documentation that survives was written by his enemies.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that if Caligula were a cruel and insane tyrant, more documentation would have survived, and that documentation would not have only been written by his enemies. The author also assumes that the fact reports of his cruelty and outrageous behavior were written by his enemies suggests that those reports are not accurate.
A
There is less documentation of any sort from Caligula’s reign than from the reigns of most other Roman emperors of Caligula’s era.
If anything, this weakens the argument by suggesting that the little documentation concerning Caligula’s cruelty isn’t particularly significant. If there’s less documentation overall from his time, that could explain why there’s not much documentation of his cruelty.
B
People who have lived under someone regarded as a cruel tyrant are more likely to view that person unfavorably than favorably.
This doesn’t help suggest that Caligula wasn’t cruel. We don’t know whether Caligula was regarded favorably or unfavorably.
C
The specific outrageous acts attributed to Caligula in Roman documentation are very similar to acts attributed in earlier writings to other rulers alleged to be cruel tyrants.
This strengthens by suggesting that the descriptions written by Caligula’s enemies concerning Caligula’s outrageous acts may have been copied from earlier writings about other rulers. It provides evidence suggesting that those accounts about Caligula may not be reliable.
D
The little documentation that survives from Caligula’s reign indicates that the Roman people believed Caligula to be crueler than other emperors who were widely thought to be tyrants.
How Caligula’s reported cruelty ranks compared to others doesn’t affect whether Caligula was in fact as cruel as reported.
E
There is ample documentation of modern tyrants being responsible for outrageous acts worse than those attributed to Caligula.
This suggests that there have been modern tyrants who did things that were more cruel than what was attributed to Caligula. But this doesn’t suggest that Caligula wasn’t cruel. He might not have been as cruel as others, but this doesn’t mean his cruelty has been exaggerated.
Summary
Atoms naturally repel each other. But they can fuse together if they collide with enough energy to overcome this repelling force. If atoms collide with too much energy, however, then after the atoms fuse together, the excess energy will make the new fused atom hot. The hotter a fused atom, the greater the chance it will immediately split apart again.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
In order to fuse two atoms together, but also keep the fused atom from splitting apart again, there’s a certain range of energy that’s required for the collision. (In other words, there’s a certain “Goldilocks” range. The energy can’t be too low, or else the atoms won’t fuse. The energy can’t be too high, or else the atoms will split apart after fusing.)
A
When physicists create new kinds of atoms by fusing together two existing atoms, the new atoms usually split apart again immediately.
Unsupported, because we don’t know the typical level of energy produced when physicists try to fuse atoms together. We have no evidence that the physicists aren’t creating collisions with the right amount of energy to avoid splitting.
B
If a new atom produced by the collision of two other atoms immediately splits apart again, then the collision did not produce enough energy to overcome the electromagnetic force by which atoms repel each other.
This is anti-supported, because in order to fuse together in the first place, the energy of the collision needed to overcome the repelling force.
C
The stronger the electromagnetic force by which two atoms repel each other, the hotter any new atom will be that is created by the fusion of those two atoms.
Unsupported, because we don’t know about the relationship between the repelling force and heat. We know that if the collision produces a lot of energy, that create heat. But we don’t know what happens if the repelling force is greater or lower.
D
Whenever two existing atoms are made to collide and fuse together into a new atom, little energy is produced in the collision unless the new atom immediately splits apart.
Unsupported, because we know there’s a range of energy in which two atoms can fuse and not immediately split apart. This level of energy needs to be enough to overcome the repelling force, and this could be a high level. We don’t have evidence that this is a low amount of energy.
E
If two atoms collide with considerably more energy than is needed for fusion to take place, the new atom will be likely to immediately split apart again.
Supported, because we know that if the energy produced by a collision greatly exceeds the minimum required to fuse, the fused atom will be very hot. The hotter an atom, the more likely it will split. I don’t like the word “likely” here, but it’s the most supported answer.