- PowerScore Staff
- Posts: 651
- Joined: Oct 19, 2022
- Wed Oct 16, 2024 7:17 pm
#109954
Hi nicizle,
Before looking at this argument, let's take a look at a similar argument that may be easier to follow.
Imagine I argue:
Premise: Eating ice cream for every meal is bad for you.
Conclusion: Therefore, you should never eat ice cream.
Hopefully, you notice that this is a flawed argument. Just because eating ice cream for every meal is bad for you doesn't necessarily mean that you should never eat ice cream. What this argument ignores is a third possibility, such as eating ice cream occasionally, that may be perfectly fine. So what the argument is assuming is that this third option isn't possible or wouldn't work.
In this question, we get a very similar argument.
Premise: Deep tillage is really bad.
Conclusion: Therefore farmers should never till in any way, shape, or form, which is what the conclusion means by no-till methods. (In other words, the conclusion isn't just saying to avoid deep tilling, but any type of tilling.)
The problem in the argument is similar to the ice-cream argument, just because deep tilling is bad doesn't mean shallow tilling is bad.
The argument is assuming that deep tilling is the only kind of tilling that would work, which is why the argument goes from the fact that deep tilling is bad to concluding that farmers should switch to a method that doesn't use tilling at all.
If, of course, some type of tilling other than deep tilling (such as shallow tilling) would work, then there would be no need to switch to a no-till method. This is why the negation of Answer C does attack the argument, because the conclusion of the argument that the farmers should "incorporate a no-till method" would be unnecessary.
Before looking at this argument, let's take a look at a similar argument that may be easier to follow.
Imagine I argue:
Premise: Eating ice cream for every meal is bad for you.
Conclusion: Therefore, you should never eat ice cream.
Hopefully, you notice that this is a flawed argument. Just because eating ice cream for every meal is bad for you doesn't necessarily mean that you should never eat ice cream. What this argument ignores is a third possibility, such as eating ice cream occasionally, that may be perfectly fine. So what the argument is assuming is that this third option isn't possible or wouldn't work.
In this question, we get a very similar argument.
Premise: Deep tillage is really bad.
Conclusion: Therefore farmers should never till in any way, shape, or form, which is what the conclusion means by no-till methods. (In other words, the conclusion isn't just saying to avoid deep tilling, but any type of tilling.)
The problem in the argument is similar to the ice-cream argument, just because deep tilling is bad doesn't mean shallow tilling is bad.
The argument is assuming that deep tilling is the only kind of tilling that would work, which is why the argument goes from the fact that deep tilling is bad to concluding that farmers should switch to a method that doesn't use tilling at all.
If, of course, some type of tilling other than deep tilling (such as shallow tilling) would work, then there would be no need to switch to a no-till method. This is why the negation of Answer C does attack the argument, because the conclusion of the argument that the farmers should "incorporate a no-till method" would be unnecessary.