Essayist: Some researchers criticize British governmental security agencies for not releasing enough information about sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) made by these military and intelligence agencies. ████████ ███ ███████████ ██ ████████ ███████████ ███ ███████ ██████ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███████ ████ █████ ████ ████ ██████████ ███████ ████ █████ ████ ███ ████████████████ ██ ███████
Although the distilled argument is quite simple in structure, the conclusion’s precise wording is critical in choosing between (B) and (C):
Premise: The government is denying us information about UFOs.
________
Conclusion: The UFOs are alien spacecraft (in particular).
This conclusion is highly specific – it’s not just saying “something is fishy,” but instead pointing directly to the very narrow concept of “spacecraft sighted near Earth that are extraterrestrial in origin.”
To strengthen this reasoning, we’d love a similarly specific link assumption:
If the government is hiding information, that must mean the UFOs are alien spacecraft.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ █████████
The British government ██ █████████ ███ ███████████ ████ ██████ ████████████
Broadly speaking, the argument’s flaw is in assuming our lack of information means something in particular. The government isn’t telling us about X, so X must be [this particular kind of thing].
If anything, (A) weakens that assumption by replacing it with “the government isn’t telling us about X, so X could really be anything.”
Answers that, if they have any effect, do the opposite of what we want (weaken when we're trying to strengthen, or strengthen when we're trying to weaken).
The British government █████ ████████ ███████████ ██████████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ███████████ ████ ████ ████ ████ █████ ████████
(B) strengthens the argument more than (C), and is correct for that reason. (Which yeah, sometimes that happens in WSE questions – they’re inherently comparative.)
Because the government is withholding information about UFOs, (B) establishes that those UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin, handing us the argument’s exact conclusion on a silver platter. I’d go so far as to say (B) meets the sufficient assumption standard.
Weaken: Introduce or suggest an alternate explanation for the target phenomenon.
Strengthen: Helps to eliminate an alternate explanation for the target phenomenon.
The British government █████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ ███████████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██████████ ███ █████████ ██ █████
(C) strengthens the argument less than (B), and is wrong for that reason. (Which yeah, sometimes that happens in WSE questions – they’re inherently comparative.)
Establishing that the government has “something to hide” does in fact strengthen the argument. But “something” is a broad category – there’s lots of stuff the government could be hiding aside from alien spacecraft. Perhaps the UFOs are actually prototype military planes they’re trying to keep secret, for example.
So (C) establishes that the UFOs are something fishy, while (B) establishes that the UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin. Both help, but (B) helps much more.
The British government ██ ████ ████████ ██ ████████ ███████████ ████ ██ ██ ██ ████████ ████████████
This is clearly true according to the stimulus, but this is a Strengthen question, not an MSS one. We need information about why the government is less trusting of civilian researchers, or rather, what the government is less trusting about (i.e. alien spacecraft).
The British government ███ ██████ █████████ ██ ████ ███ █████████ ██ █████
This unnecessarily reinforces the premise that the government is withholding information about UFOs by saying “it’s always been this way.” But the problem with the argument lies in the inference we draw from that lack of information. We need a principle that helps us say “the government’s denial is evidence that there really are UFOs and those UFOs are alien spacecraft.”
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