#15 - Armstrong: For the treatment of a particular disease,

[mokkyukkyu]

Hi,

So I was not sure between C and D...and B is close too.
For D...I was not sure whether the conclusion is criticizing the motivation...the conclusion is "we should not use...in treating the disease" right?
I thought Flaw question is ask about how a flaw occurs between premise and conclusion.
For D it sounds it just attack the premise...is it allowable just attacking premise instead of the relationship between premise and conclusion?

[Adam Tyson]

The issue in this Flaw question is how the conclusion (don't use supplements) is supported, or not, by the premises. Where does that conclusion come from? Why not use them? The premises tell us nothing about whether or not they work, but only about who suggests them. This is a classic Source Argument, aka ad hominem attack. Answer D hits that one on the head by pointing out that Armstrong focused solely on the Doctor's motives and not at all on the substance of the argument. His motives should be irrelevant if we focus solely on the validity of the claims being presented, but our author failed to do that.

Answer B is wrong because Armstrong did not appeal to any authority. If he had relied on the good Doctor simply because he was a doctor, that would be an appeal to authority, but in this case he is arguing against trusting that authority rather than relying on it.

Answer C is wrong because there was no appeal to anyone's emotions. That would look like this: "You shouldn't use supplements because we don't know much about them, and that's scary!"

Whenever an author goes after the person making the argument, rather than going after the argument itself, that's a Source Argument, and you will want to look for answers that talk about going after the person, or their characteristics, or their motives, rather than the substance of their argument.

I hope that helped!