#8 - A leading critic of space exploration contends that

[srcline@noctrl.edu]

Hello,

So I read over the previous explanations and my biggest issue with this question is the language in the stimulus. So the explanations did help in seeing why B was incorrect because the author never concludes that something cannot occur just that it is unlikely . So basically the author's conclusion is that the explorers are likely to survive the trip.

The next part is where I am getting confused, the support that is used (2 premises), uses words like "would be" "unlikely" and "if", to me this is language that requires assuming all these things exist to support the author's conclusion that the explorers are likely to survive the trip. For A then how do we know that this is "true" of each of the parts?

Thankyou
Sarah

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Sarah,

The fact that the premises are worded as a hypothetical does not matter: the author's conclusion is predicated upon a hypothetical situation. Something could be true "in theory", even if it's not true "in fact." There is no discrepancy between the wording of the correct answer choice and the language used in the stimulus: there is still an Error of Division, even if the situation described has not materialized and is merely a hypothetical conjecture.

Thanks!

[deck1134]

Hi PowerScore Staff,

I hope you are doing well.

I got this right, but going back through the stimulus I was tripped up by the language of "whole" when the author just says "A fatal catastrophe is quite unlikely at any given stage." Do we know that this means the whole for sure? Does A + B+ C+D+E_... equal the whole alphabet?

Thanks!

[Alex Bodaken]

deck1134,

Thanks for the question! The answer to your question is basically yes...but it is in the author's argument that he/she makes the flaw of conflating parts with the whole. When he/she says "that exaggerates the risk," he/she is responding to "a leading critic," who is making an argument about the whole trip; therefore, the author's argument is necessarily making a counterargument about the whole trip - despite the fact that her premises only talk about component parts. That disconnect is where the flaw in the argument comes from (conflating parts with a whole).

Hope that helps!
Alex

[LSAT2018]

So answers (B), (C), and (D) refer roughly to the same thing, that whether something is possible/certain is the flaw of the argument? Because the conclusion is 'But that exaggerates the risk' there is no indication of what cannot/must/will be the case, because it is not 100 percent certain?

[altheaD]

i have a language question. Both answers b and d use the word "merely" and that's what i registered as basis for wrong answers -- e.g., i paraphrased b "infers that something cannot occur merely from the fact that it is unlikely to occur" as saying that the author infers the conclusion based on no other reason than (="merely") "the fact that it is unlikely to occur"

Given that the author DID provide a reason for his conclusion (though as flawed as it may be), this would not be correct.

Am I reading into it too much? is this particular wording not a significant hint in the way that I interpreted?

Thank you!

[Malila Robinson]

Hi AltheaD,
Your reasoning seems to be correct, I usually use 'only' when I see 'merely'. But the answer for this question was A not B. So B was incorrect for the reason that you gave, which was that the author was assuming that if each part (back-up statge) would likely be safe then the whole (entire trip) would be safe. That leads to Answer A being correct.
Hope that helps!
-Malila

[EmmasMama]

I'm having a hard time seeing why question B is incorrect. The author states that a fatal catastrophe is unlikely and B states that 'something cannot occur merely from the fact that is unlikely to occur" .. is that not the same thing?

[Paul Marsh]

Hi EmmasMama!

For a Flaw question like this, the correct answer choice has to accurately describe something that the argument is actually doing. Here, answer choice (B) says that the argument incorrectly "infers that something cannot occur merely from the fact that it is unlikely to occur". However, the author of the argument never makes that inference - she never says that that a fatal catastrophe cannot occur; she only argues that the fatal catastrophe is unlikely to occur. So the author never does what (B) is describing.

Hope that helps!

[blade21cn]

I pre-phrased the flaw as "what if the backup system fails?" and got tripped up by the nuances of language used by (B), (C), and (D). Previous posts eliminated (B)/(C)/(D) on the grounds that the author did not infer that something cannot happen/something is certain/something will work, i.e., with certainty, but that something (a fatal catastrophe) would be quite unlikely. But isn't the sentence "A fatal catastrophe is quite unlikely at any given stage, if such a backup system is in place" a premise of the argument, rather than its conclusion? The conclusion actually is: The contention of the leading critic of space exploration exaggerates the risk. When borrowed language is inserted, the conclusion can be paraphrased as: the Mars explorers would survive the trip. So the reasons given so far do not sound convincing to me.

I didn't see the flaw as a part to whole, as I comprehended "stage" as a time concept. Isn't the trip made up of all the individual stages? If every single stage is safe, why would not the trip turn out OK? I thought part to whole flaw does not apply to cumulative effects. For example, Box A and Box B contain the same number of marbles. Each marble in Box A is heavier than any marble in Box B. Therefore, Box A is heavier than Box B.

Adam used the analogy of getting a flat in a cross-country drive and equaled each stage as every 100 miles and said the longer you drive the more likely it is to get a flat. But the stimulus clearly states that "there would be a well-engineered backup system at every stage of the long and complicated journey," i.e., there would be a well-engineered back up system for the 1st 100 miles, 2nd 100 miles, 3rd 100 miles, etc. Apparently, the cumulative damage to the tires has already been taken into consideration.

So what is wrong with my line of reasoning on this question? Thanks!