Implied Conclusions

[gretch3n]

Hi there,

I was wondering what is a good strategy for identifying 'Implied Conclusions.' I think I may need to revise conditional statements for this:

EXAMPLE
"Bacteria that benefit human beings when they are present in the body are called commensals. The bacterium Helicobacter pylori plays a primary role in the development of stomach ulcers. But since stomach ulcers occur in less than 10 percent of those harboring H. pylori, and since it allegedly strengthens immune response, many scientists now consider it a commensal. But this is surely misguided. Only about 10 percent of the people who harbor Mycobacter tuberculosis—a bacterium that can cause tuberculosis—get sick from it, yet no one would call M. tuberculosis a commensal."

So what the arguer's EVIDENCE is: because there is a similar statisfic to HP in another type of Bacteria (MT) CONCLUSION: yet MT is not a commensal, means that HP is not a commensal either

That's kinda hard to deduce from just reading it, but there's no THUS or THEREFORE or any SINCE/BECAUSE.

How can I improve identifying these really sneaky conclusions??

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi gretch3n,

These can be tricky. You seem to have a few different concepts mixing around.

First there are situations where there's a conclusion of the argument, but there aren't clear indicators to help guide you to it.
Generally speaking, conclusion indicators are helpful, but you need to always think about the structure of the argument. In this case, I'd say the conclusion is actually expressly stated. "Surely this is misguided." We would want to clarify this by referring to what would be misguided. I'd consider the conclusion "Surely it is misguided to consider stomach ulcers a commensal." With no indicators, you can always look to how something is functioning in the argument. The final conclusion will be one that is supported by the argument, but does not itself support any other part of the argument.

If there's no stated conclusion, you are looking at a fact set, not an argument. Sometimes these will imply a conclusion, sometimes not. That's a different situation.

Finally there are conditional statements. Conditional statements can be part of a premise, conclusion, or fact set. They are statements that mean if one condition occurs (the sufficient), you know the necessary condition occurs as well.

I hope that clarifies things for you.

Rachael