#11 - People who browse the web for medical information

[danielacvazq]

Part of my confusion with this question is that I thought searching medical information online for the purpose of diagnosis was the new element introduce in the conclusion, so I chose A. Should I have not assumed that and diagnosis is covered under the umbrella "browsing the web for medical information"?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi danielacvazq!

You're right to identify diagnosis as a new element that appears for the first time in the stimulus. The problem with (A) is that it doesn't then connect this to the distinction made between scientifically valid information and quackery. Answer choice (B) does this, however, which is why it is able to bridge a connection between the premises and the new element in the conclusion.

[DaveFromSpace]

I removed a lot of qualifiers to really simplify and focus on the crucial parts of the argument:

P: People who surf the web can't tell real from nonsense

C: People who rely on the web are likely to harm themselves

The necessary assumption (B) tells us:

People are likely to harm themselves unless they rely 100% on real.

This doesn't seem like a necessary assumption and feels closer to a sufficient one. What happens if the threshold is 99%? It seems like the argument still works.

It feels like the necessary assumption should be:

People are likely to harm themselves unless they rely on at least some (1-100%) real.

To reword this back into the actual language of the test:

Unless you rely on at least some scientifically valid information, you're likely to do yourself more harm than good.

This is obviously insufficient, but it seems necessary. But saying you need 100% scientifically valid information seems too extreme to be necessary, and indeed, it's nearly sufficient to necessitate the conclusion.

This question is making my head spin, I'd love if someone can chime in here.

[Adam Tyson]

I like your simplification here, DaveFromSpace, although I think you may be misunderstanding the answer. Try looking at it this way, the contrapositive of your paraphrase:

If you rely on any of that nonsense (if not 100% real), you're probably going to hurt yourself.

Isn't that what the author is assuming? Most of it is quackery, so you'll probably hurt yourself. They must assume that quackery is harmful nonsense!

Now consider a negation of that answer, something like:

"Nah, you'll probably be okay if you rely on some amount of nonsense."

That ruins the argument, proving it is a necessary assumption.