#10 - Tires may be either underinflated, overinflated, or

[akalsi]

Hi,

For this question I was able to eliminate answers A, C, and E fairly quickly, however I was stuck between answers B and D. I eventually did choose the right answer (D), but I was just curious if someone could explain to me what B is saying. I didn't quite understand what that answer choice was referring to, and that's probably why i didn't choose it.

Thanks in advance
-Anoop

[Jon Denning]

Hey anoop,

Thanks for the question!

The wording in B is a bit weird, so let me see if I can clarify it. Basically what it means when it says something is not in principle susceptible to proof is that something could exist in such a state/way that you cannot by definition apply factual evidence to it. For instance, what if I told you that there's a creature that can't be detected by any possible means of measurement or determination--it's invisible, odorless, weightless, and has no type of detectable interaction with the world around it--and it's the reason we yawn. Now, given what I've told you about it it would exist in principle without susceptibility to proof: there's absolutely no way you could know whether that thing was real or not.

So to take it the rest of the way with B, given that that creature cannot be "proven," B suggests it would then be a mistake to claim it isn't real (it's false). That's the "might be false" bit. Reworded entirely, B says: overlooks the idea that just because you cannot know something with certainty then it might not be true. Or, "the argument is wrong because it assumes something that cannot be known one way or the other must be true."

Of course, that's not the error here, so it wasn't the correct choice, but I hope that helps to clarify what it's saying!

[nusheenaparvizi]

Hi,

I understand your explanation of answer choice B, but I do not understand how D is the correct answer: it says that the argument REJECTS the possibility that what has not been proven is nevertheless true... but isn't the argument doing exactly that? The way I understood it is that the argument is saying even though we lack the proof/no one has been able to prove otherwise, then the conclusion is true. So how does the argument reject the possibility if it is doing exactly that?

I hope my question makes sense, I am running in circles trying to make sense of D!

Thanks,
Nusheena

[Adam Tyson]

They certainly tried to send us in circles here, Nusheena! The argument is a classic "lack of evidence flaw" - just because something has not been proven to be false does not mean that it is true. It could still be false. But the answer is convoluted enough to make us pause and do a double-take. Let's look it over!

The author is arguing that because nobody has proven over- or under-inflation is NOT harmful, that it therefore must BE harmful. They have not shown it is NOT, so it IS. What this author fails to consider is that maybe they are NOT harmful, despite a lack of proof to that effect. In other words, even though someone hasn't proven that it is not harmful, it might be true that it is not harmful.

And just to take one more run at it from another angle, look at it this way:

1. "Over-inflation and under-inflation do not cause harm" is a claim that has not been proven to be true.

2. Because it has not been proven to be true, the author claims it must be false. (Those things DO cause harm)

3. But it still could be true that those things do not cause harm. The lack of proof doesn't matter, because a lack of proof doesn't prove anything.

Don't let this one tie you in knots! You can do it!

[sbose]

Hi!

I was also confused by how answer choice D was phrased. When I read the stimulus, I realized it was a "lack of evidence" flaw but didn't feel like any of the answer choices fit that and ended up guessing on the question.

Is D correct because it's saying that the author rejected this claim: the lack of evidence showing that underinflation or overinflation of tires does not harm tires means that under or overinflation indeed does not harm tires?

So essentially the author rejected the above "lack of evidence" claim in favor of another "lack of evidence" claim (that over or underinflation does harm tires)?

Thank you in advance for your help!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi sbose,

Answer choice (D) is tricky. Before we jump in there, let's think about what we would prephase as the flaw here. What's the mistake that the author makes? The author jumps from "no one has shown over/under inflation does not harm tread" to "we can assume over/under inflation DOES harm tread." No one has proved that it doesn't do X, so we can prove it does. What's that similar to? "No one has proved that Neptune isn't covered by aliens made of glitter and methane, so we can be safe to assume that it's crawling with those suckers."

Does that sound right? I hope not. It's structurally the same as the authors claim here. The lack of evidence against a claim isn't evidence in favor of it. So good job picking up that it was a lack of evidence. But you want to be more specific. Lack of evidence AGAINST a claim isn't evidence for the claim. The author's claim rejects the idea that what has not been proven (over/under inflation does not harm tread) is still true. The author won't consider the idea that over/under inflation could not harm tread. We have no idea about the proof (or lack thereof) regarding the harm over/under inflation causes to tire tread.

It's easy to get turned around. I hope that helps!

[seanjae]

Hello Powerscore,

I was wondering if my line of thinking is okay with this question.

I was quite surprised how answer (C) was so easily dismissed on this thread. When I was taking the test, I honestly didn't get the meaning of (D), and I eliminated the others so I guessed the answer was (C). I wasn't purely guessing though, because I thought (C) had some validity, and still do. I think (D) is the answer because it does a better job in accurately describing the flaw than (C).

To explain a bit, answer (C) says that "the argument fails to specify how it is that underinflation and overinflation harms tire tread." I thought the argument did indeed fail to specify the reasons behind conclusion, because it does not give any evidence (this is a lack of evidence question after all). Even when you count "no one has been able to show that these do not harm tire tread" as a specification, I think it still "fails" because it is only giving a flawed reason. So I think answer (C) does point out some problems of the argument.

However, answer (D) gives a more precise description, since it illustrates how the argument does not give any justifications as to why the possibility of under or overinflated tires not causing any harm should be ruled out.

Would there be some point I didn't get that would make (C) completely invalid? Or will it be safe to think things the way I do now?

Thanks

[atierney]

Yes, C is definitely wrong. Let's parse this out a bit. One of the key points in flaw in the reasoning questions is that you want to look out the argument's and find a flaw in the reasoning itself. In other words, a flaw in the reasoning question consists of identifying the conclusion, finding the premises, and determining how the argument gets from its premises to its conclusion.

Here, the conclusion is indeed that under or overinflation harm tires, but notice that premise the argument relies is that no one has proven otherwise. In other words, this is lack of evidence to the contrary is taken to prove the argument correct flaw (don't quote me on the wording). So, the answer choice that would be correct would be one that identifies this flaw in particular. And to the extent that the answer choice is one that says, "well you simply didn't prove your argument," that would be incorrect because that is actually a different flaw.

Hopefully, this makes sense, and I would definitely invite you to look over the PowerScore materials for further explanation on the two distinct flaw types or ask any clarifying questions here.