#14 - Currently, no satellite orbiting Earth is at

[Overthinker99]

I can see a strong argument that the sentence in question is, in fact, a sub-premise: "more satellites crashing in the future" supports the effect of "a lot of space debris" in as much as "a lot of space debris" supports "more satellites crashing in the future." They are both part of a spiraling, vicious cycle that the passage itself alludes to. What am I missing here?

[Robert Carroll]

Overthinker99,

The author doesn't engage in circular reasoning. The author is not saying that the risk of collisions has to be high for the collisions to happen in the first place. Even the first sentence admits that there could be some risk, just not yet a significant risk. The author is claiming that, even if the risk is currently low, once that low-risk thing happens, it will lead to a series of events that will increase the risk in the future, to the point that it will increase dramatically. Every sentence after the first is part of an attempt to show that the risk will increase in the future.

I think it's also helpful to consider what other answer besides answer choice (D) you can pick here anyway. You accept that the first sentence has support, so answer choices (A) and (B) can't work. Answer choice (E) is also a non-starter, because, as you say, the first sentence is definitely an important part of the structure of the argument, and not inessential. To pick answer choice (C), you'd have to ask what the first sentence is supporting. In other words, it should make sense to finish this sentence: "Because the risk will increase dramatically in the future, therefore ___________".

There may be a feedback loop of events in the stimulus (a crash produces debris which increases the risk of a crash which produces debris...), but there's not a loop of premise and conclusion (X proves Y which proves X).

Robert Carroll

[Overthinker99]

Hi Robert.

Thank you for your informative and thorough response. I understand how the argument is not inherently circular in a fallacious sense, however, the feedback loop still makes me confused as to how confusion and premise/major conclusion cannot therefore be interchangeable as well.

For example, let’s entertain for a moment that the intermediate conclusion—“There will be a lot of debris in space”—was, in fact, the conclusion. The premise would be: “a crash will inevitably happen, this will create debris;” sub-conclusion/major premise: “this will increase the risk of more crashes,” therefore, conclusion: “There will be a lot of debris in space.”

Answer choice C.

(Aka: Because the risk will increase dramatically in the future, therefore there will be a lot of debris in space).

[Robert Carroll]

Overthinker99,

You're misstating how the author claims the crash will happen in the first place which gets the feedback loop started. There simply does not have to be a high risk of a crash for a crash to happen. Once the low-risk crash does eventually happen, then the debris it produces increases the risk of crashes, until that risk becomes high (the actual conclusion of the argument). You're saying that the risk's being high would increase the risk of a crash that would create debris. That's true, but that's not the structure of the argument. Again, you're misunderstanding that the relation of events in the stimulus is not the same as the relation of premise to conclusion. It's true that crashes lead to increased risk which leads to crashes which....etc. But the author didn't feel the need to spell all that out in the argument, because it's actually rather obvious. Once the initial crash happens, there's a feedback loop such that there's nothing more to prove. What the author needed to explain in the argument was how the risk could increase. The author chose to get there by saying an initial crash would happen, setting off a feedback loop. Once the feedback loop happens, the risk is now high. The author doesn't now need to show that the high risk leads to more crashes - that's obvious. It's not part of the argument.

Robert Carroll