#20 - Politician: Our government’s Ministry of the

[Dana D]

Hey AnaSol,

The stimulus implies that the Ministry of Health will be subject to political pressures the exact same way the Ministry of Environment is. Therefore, if we assumed answer (D) was true, we still wouldn't be able to say that the Ministry of Health should not issue scientific assessments because we don't know for sure whether they have resisted political pressures to modify the contents of those assessments. Furthermore, the politician's argument is that the MOH should not issue assessments, so this principle which discusses when a ministry should issue an assessment is not helpful.

[AnaSol]

Hey AnaSol,

The stimulus implies that the Ministry of Health will be subject to political pressures the exact same way the Ministry of Environment is. Therefore, if we assumed answer (D) was true, we still wouldn't be able to say that the Ministry of Health should not issue scientific assessments because we don't know for sure whether they have resisted political pressures to modify the contents of those assessments. Furthermore, the politician's argument is that the MOH should not issue assessments, so this principle which discusses when a ministry should issue an assessment is not helpful.

Thanks for the explanation, Dana.

So, if the stimulus said something to the effect that the Minister of Health have resisted political pressures to modify the contents of other type of assessments, would that meet the sufficient condition that was referenced by other instructors earlier? Or is that (other type of assessment) still too vague? I just want to get an idea of what the sufficient condition being met would look like.

Thank you.

[Dana D]

Hey Ana,

We're trying to strengthen the politician's argument here, so we're still looking for an answer choice which helps explain why the politician thinks the MOH should not issue scientific statements. Even if we reworded the stimulus, and showed that the MOH can successfully resist political pressures, answer choice (D) tells us when a ministry should issue a statement, and we need an answer choice that justifies the politician's argument about why the ministry should not issue a statement.

If we added context into the stimulus that the MOH can resist all types of pressures for any type of assessment, that would only serve to weaken the politician's argument that the MOH should not issue a statement, while this question wants us to help strengthen the argument, so again answer (D) would not be the correct answer in this case.

Does that answer your question?

[nicizle]

gfrank,

The stimulus establishes that political pressure leads to inaccurate assessments. Then, the stimulus concludes that the new Ministry should not issue assessments. You need to bridge the gap from inaccurate assessments to not publishing the assessments.

Stimulus

Premise: P -A
Conclusion P -P

Needs: -A -I

Answer choice B provides I A, and the contrapositive is -A -I, which is what you need to bridge the gap.

Your diagram is going towards that approach, so you are on the right track.

Can someone define the variables used in this diagram? I am really struggling to follow what this is referencing with regard to the stimulus.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi nicizle!

While simplifying variables to a single letter or a few letters can often make the conditional reasoning easier to see and is a quicker method, I can definitely understand that sometimes they can appear confusing. As I understand the variables used in Brook's diagrams, they stand for the following:

P = political pressure
-A = not accurate
-I = should not be issued by government ministries

I believe the -P in the conclusion of those diagrams should actually be a -I.