#26 - Sasha: Handwriting analysis should be banned in court

[SammyWu11201]

I can kind of see why D is wrong, but Answer Choice D is saying assuming that someone who claims something is actually doing it. Just because the handwriting analysts claim that handwriting provides reliable evidence of a person's character does not mean they are actually doing it, and therefore there are still analysts out there who do not claim this so does not satisfy the sufficient condition and the necessary condition of being irresponsible does not kick in.

[Robert Carroll]

Sammy,

I think I'm misreading your post a bit, because answer choice (D) is actually the right answer.

I also don't think that your analysis of answer choice (D) shows that there's any problem with it. As you point out, answer choice (D) is basically a conditional: if a handwriting analyst claims that handwriting analysis is reliable, that person is irresponsible. I think you're pointing out that no handwriting analysts necessarily have to even claim reliability, so none have to be irresponsible. That's true; the sufficient condition may be true of no one. But that's terrible for the argument! If no handwriting analysts claim that handwriting analysis is reliable, then why should anyone regard it as reliable?

Answer choice (D) breaks handwriting analysts into two categories: those who do not claim it's reliable, and those who are irresponsible. So, if I wanted, as I should, to limit myself to responsible people, when gaining their opinions, I would find no analysts saying that handwriting analysis is reliable! If I wanted to find anyone who called it reliable, I'd have to talk only to irresponsible ones! So every good source on analysis is hesitating to claim reliability. How can I make a case for its reliability, then? This is why answer choice (D) weakens the argument.

Robert Carroll

[SammyWu11201]

Sammy,

I think I'm misreading your post a bit, because answer choice (D) is actually the right answer.

I also don't think that your analysis of answer choice (D) shows that there's any problem with it. As you point out, answer choice (D) is basically a conditional: if a handwriting analyst claims that handwriting analysis is reliable, that person is irresponsible. I think you're pointing out that no handwriting analysts necessarily have to even claim reliability, so none have to be irresponsible. That's true; the sufficient condition may be true of no one. But that's terrible for the argument! If no handwriting analysts claim that handwriting analysis is reliable, then why should anyone regard it as reliable?

Answer choice (D) breaks handwriting analysts into two categories: those who do not claim it's reliable, and those who are irresponsible. So, if I wanted, as I should, to limit myself to responsible people, when gaining their opinions, I would find no analysts saying that handwriting analysis is reliable! If I wanted to find anyone who called it reliable, I'd have to talk only to irresponsible ones! So every good source on analysis is hesitating to claim reliability. How can I make a case for its reliability, then? This is why answer choice (D) weakens the argument.

Robert Carroll

Thanks, Robert! I think my issue with D is that just because someone claims that it is reliable doesn't mean it actually is reliable. They can be lying when they are claiming something.

[CJ12345:]

Hello,
I am still a little bit confused about answer choice D. More specifically, I did not choose D because of the sentence "who claims that handwriting provides reliable evidence of a person's character." Sure, maybe someone "who claims that handwriting provides reliable evidence of a person's character" is irresponsible, but there might be other analysts who are responsible. Thus, we cannot conclude that there are no responsible analysts in the first place being evaluated by the board or that the analysts on the board are suspected.

Also, the test maker not mentioned "board" or "standard" in D purposefully to make it hard. Do you have any suggestions in terms of how to deal with this kind of harder answer choice? For me, I immediately eliminate D since I did not see "board" or "standard" being mentioned.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi CJ,

This is a complicated stimulus! I do have a question for you though---why did you think the correct answer choice needed to mention the board or standards? Gregory says that licensed handwriting practitioners would be able to provide a legitimate way to give evidence of character from the handwriting analysis.

Wow. That's quite a conclusion that Gregory draws there. What would make the board able to license analysts who can show that character evidence can come from handwriting analysis? That's a pretty strong power they'd have. I didn't know that was a thing that handwriting could do. It sounds like it might be part of the exaggeration that Sasha was worried about in the first place! We'd want to connect those ideas as one possible way to weaken. The board would not be able to license those types of analysts because that analysis isn't reliable yet.

Answer choice (D) does that for us. It connects the idea of the handwriting analysts' beliefs on the reliability of handwriting analysis as character evidence to the idea of irresponsible analysts. Gregory says the board wouldn't license irresponsible analysts. So if the analysts that would claim handwriting analysis can show a person's character are all irresponsible, the board wouldn't be able to find any responsible analysts who would claim their analysis is valid character evidence. It's inherent in the claim they are trying to make.

Hope that helps!