So essentially, we don't know what else life needs to evolve, we just know that liquid water is in the superset of what life needs to evolve? And we don't necessarily know that because liquid water (one of the necessary conditions for life to evolve) is present, life has evolved or will evolve? Is this framing correct?
Can I interpret the answer choice (B) as: if there are other conditions necessary for [evolved life -> presence of liquid water] (premise), then the argument that [presence of liquid water -> evolved primitive life] (the flawed conclusion) collapses? But still, I'm confused with how this explanation equivalent to [mistaking necessity for sufficiency]? Can anyone explain to me please?
@Louiii77 I'm having a hard time with this too. I understand why it is correct but it doesn't really address the fact that the argument is taking the necessary condition to be sufficient.
@HayleeHarris Hi Haylee, thanks for the reply. I think there are just at least two correct answers, one as AC B - overlooks other necessary conditions; another is mistaking necessity for sufficiency. But since the second choice is not present in the answer choices, the first is the correct one.
@Louiii77 thinking about it like this helped for me: for example water is a necessary thing for human life, but so is air. the journalist is basically saying "since water exists, so must human life." but it doesn't take into account that other things may also be necessary for humans to exist, such as air and food. yes water IS necessary, but its not the ONLY thing that absolutely necessary for it to exist.
Its interesting to me that I find this section the easiest while others find this the hardest. Vice versa I find NA questions the most difficult while some find it incredibly easy.
@Rfpryan Funny... I find this one somewhat difficult, I keep narrowing it down to two answers and picking the wrong one because of some slight grammatical nuance. Whereas for NA I couldn't really figure out 100% why something was right, I just had a feeling it was.
to me, it's more so that the initial conditional setup was inaccurate.
The stim gave us:
If life exists → there is water
We have water.
Therefore, there is life.
This initial setup is where we go wrong - life probably also needs food, habitats, prey, etc. aka there are more factors that are necessary for life to exist. Sooo drawing the conclusion that simply because there is water, we know for sure that there is life ignores the fact that other necessary conditions may need to exist for this conclusion to be true.
Not sure if that makes sense but hope this helps lol
i find myself getting confused by all the ways we can describe the sufficient/necessity flaw, and so I was really confused by the answer choices in this question even though I thought I anticipated correctly :( so I thought of another way to try and remember the relationship for this type of question (forgive me if someone has already said something similar in a previous lesson and I missed it!): Think of the sufficient like a brownie, and water as the necessary. The water is just one ingredient amongst several that work together to create the big picture (the brownie/sufficient condition). So if you have a brownie, you know for a fact that there is water there, but you CANNOT say that if you have water then that means I must be eating a brownie. Because there are other ingredients that could be important for putting together the brownie.
So for these questions, when I find myself anticipating "oh they just switched the conditions, but the answer choices are confusing me in how they describe it!" then it can be helpful to think "ok switching the conditions means they aren't considering how there could be other things (ingredients) NECESSARY for bringing about the same outcome" i.e. a brownie is NOT necessary for the presence of water
I hope this helps, and please correct me if I'm doing something wrong!
WAIT i think this isn't totally accurate of an analogy because in later questions, it seems like a better way of looking at it is if brownies are the sufficient and water is the necessary, then you can't make water the sufficient since there could be other things that require water.
i'm starting to overthink this so if anyone has additional thoughts please lmk lol...
I got this one right as well. The argument is vulnerable because the premise states life can only evolve in the presence of water. The argument fails to consider the possibilities of other things that can evolve life.
Every time there is a flaw in the statement by someone, no matter scientist or journalist, he would assume this is a female and use "she" directly without saying "he" or "she". This is really disrespectful.
I've noticed that, but my reasoning was different. I thought, oh how kind, these jobs that were traditionally held by men - are also held by women and he recognizes that! I thought of it as inclusive. Haven't heard him use non-binary terms yet, maybe that comes later!
I agree Kelly! I love the fact that he uses "she" in all the examples, I am so used to hearing "him" and "his" for examples within academia so it was a nice change.
I think the answer presumes that you realize there is a mistake and it rectifies the mistake by presenting the idea that there are other conditions that would be sufficient to suggest there is life on the planet since Liquid waters necessity doesn't = necessity of life.
I got the answer right, but I feel as though the author does address the criticism by saying "life as we know it could evolve only in the presence of liquid water". Am I missing something?
that's a good question. but if we are simply taking the author at their word, then they are only stating one necessary condition for life existing. It like if I said, life as we know it can only occur if there is a sun that provides exactly the right amount of energy to the planet. This is more or less true of the moon, yet there is no life on it. Because it is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.
peeps, i took a break from the CC and went to a live class..............reinstated my confidence!!! not sure if y'all are attending the live classes but i am going to be adding them into my study plan. they really do help solidify concepts.
Been flopping this entire lesson, flaw questions have always been a weakness for me but I finally locked in with the sufficiency/necessity logic, any tips for the future?
Obviously sufficiency/necessity confusion is an issue here but I still do not understand how answer choice B has the same meaning as the classic sufficiency/necessity confusion. Seems to be a different flaw entirely.
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67 comments
i've been looking forward to reading all of the comments after every question. y'all are hilarious.
hey so what the fuck
im still struggling to wrap my head around "takes for granted", any tips?
@rjon27 i just read a reddit comment that translated it as 'assumes without warrant...' and that helped me.
ok that was pretty hard... slightly challenging???
So essentially, we don't know what else life needs to evolve, we just know that liquid water is in the superset of what life needs to evolve? And we don't necessarily know that because liquid water (one of the necessary conditions for life to evolve) is present, life has evolved or will evolve? Is this framing correct?
Can I interpret the answer choice (B) as: if there are other conditions necessary for [evolved life -> presence of liquid water] (premise), then the argument that [presence of liquid water -> evolved primitive life] (the flawed conclusion) collapses? But still, I'm confused with how this explanation equivalent to [mistaking necessity for sufficiency]? Can anyone explain to me please?
@Louiii77 I'm having a hard time with this too. I understand why it is correct but it doesn't really address the fact that the argument is taking the necessary condition to be sufficient.
@HayleeHarris Hi Haylee, thanks for the reply. I think there are just at least two correct answers, one as AC B - overlooks other necessary conditions; another is mistaking necessity for sufficiency. But since the second choice is not present in the answer choices, the first is the correct one.
@Louiii77 thinking about it like this helped for me: for example water is a necessary thing for human life, but so is air. the journalist is basically saying "since water exists, so must human life." but it doesn't take into account that other things may also be necessary for humans to exist, such as air and food. yes water IS necessary, but its not the ONLY thing that absolutely necessary for it to exist.
me when i read an answer choice wrong so i get the question wrong
@MPFerrari me always
Its interesting to me that I find this section the easiest while others find this the hardest. Vice versa I find NA questions the most difficult while some find it incredibly easy.
@Rfpryan Funny... I find this one somewhat difficult, I keep narrowing it down to two answers and picking the wrong one because of some slight grammatical nuance. Whereas for NA I couldn't really figure out 100% why something was right, I just had a feeling it was.
Wow this science journalists needs to be fired immediately. Even Mr. Fat Cat wouldn't make a mistake like this.
#Feedback how do I do blind review? This whole new system is confusing and why isn't it showing me the time?
@RickSosa I had a similar question and 7sage support said that because the You Try questions are untimed they do not have the blind review :/
MEATBALL
Do not understand how B is mistaking sufficiency for necessity when its just asking to consider other necessary conditions?
not sure how helpful it is but I responded to someone else's thread with my take on this!
#help So, the ‘Confusing necessary and sufficient conditions’ flaw is the same thing as the ‘fails to consider other necessary conditions’ flaw?
to me, it's more so that the initial conditional setup was inaccurate.
The stim gave us:
If life exists → there is water
We have water.
Therefore, there is life.
This initial setup is where we go wrong - life probably also needs food, habitats, prey, etc. aka there are more factors that are necessary for life to exist. Sooo drawing the conclusion that simply because there is water, we know for sure that there is life ignores the fact that other necessary conditions may need to exist for this conclusion to be true.
Not sure if that makes sense but hope this helps lol
@nicolesteinberg133 I was having a hard time understanding how B was wrong; this was perfectly worded. Thank you.
Honestly I was so between A and B but chose B timed then in BL I felt like A was pretty reasonable.
i find myself getting confused by all the ways we can describe the sufficient/necessity flaw, and so I was really confused by the answer choices in this question even though I thought I anticipated correctly :( so I thought of another way to try and remember the relationship for this type of question (forgive me if someone has already said something similar in a previous lesson and I missed it!): Think of the sufficient like a brownie, and water as the necessary. The water is just one ingredient amongst several that work together to create the big picture (the brownie/sufficient condition). So if you have a brownie, you know for a fact that there is water there, but you CANNOT say that if you have water then that means I must be eating a brownie. Because there are other ingredients that could be important for putting together the brownie.
So for these questions, when I find myself anticipating "oh they just switched the conditions, but the answer choices are confusing me in how they describe it!" then it can be helpful to think "ok switching the conditions means they aren't considering how there could be other things (ingredients) NECESSARY for bringing about the same outcome" i.e. a brownie is NOT necessary for the presence of water
I hope this helps, and please correct me if I'm doing something wrong!
ya,
Water is necessary if we have lemonade. But lemonade is not necessary if we have water.
If we have lemonade, then we have water. If we don't have water then we don't have lemonade.
WAIT i think this isn't totally accurate of an analogy because in later questions, it seems like a better way of looking at it is if brownies are the sufficient and water is the necessary, then you can't make water the sufficient since there could be other things that require water.
i'm starting to overthink this so if anyone has additional thoughts please lmk lol...
I got this one right as well. The argument is vulnerable because the premise states life can only evolve in the presence of water. The argument fails to consider the possibilities of other things that can evolve life.
Every time there is a flaw in the statement by someone, no matter scientist or journalist, he would assume this is a female and use "she" directly without saying "he" or "she". This is really disrespectful.
he's been doing that in question types that aren't flaw questions too tho
lol
I've noticed that, but my reasoning was different. I thought, oh how kind, these jobs that were traditionally held by men - are also held by women and he recognizes that! I thought of it as inclusive. Haven't heard him use non-binary terms yet, maybe that comes later!
I agree Kelly! I love the fact that he uses "she" in all the examples, I am so used to hearing "him" and "his" for examples within academia so it was a nice change.
Could someone pls articulate further how the specific phrasing of B indicates the sufficiency-necessity confusion committed in the stimulus?
I think the answer presumes that you realize there is a mistake and it rectifies the mistake by presenting the idea that there are other conditions that would be sufficient to suggest there is life on the planet since Liquid waters necessity doesn't = necessity of life.
I got the answer right, but I feel as though the author does address the criticism by saying "life as we know it could evolve only in the presence of liquid water". Am I missing something?
that's a good question. but if we are simply taking the author at their word, then they are only stating one necessary condition for life existing. It like if I said, life as we know it can only occur if there is a sun that provides exactly the right amount of energy to the planet. This is more or less true of the moon, yet there is no life on it. Because it is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.
Finally got one right. I definitely hate these questions. Hopefully we can turn it around.
After getting the last three wrong, I needed this win. AND I got it 11 seconds faster than target lol I'll take it.
If you are struggling I would recommend to focus on accuracy first then timing later
peeps, i took a break from the CC and went to a live class..............reinstated my confidence!!! not sure if y'all are attending the live classes but i am going to be adding them into my study plan. they really do help solidify concepts.
Haven’t made it there yet but really glad to hear!
Been flopping this entire lesson, flaw questions have always been a weakness for me but I finally locked in with the sufficiency/necessity logic, any tips for the future?
Obviously sufficiency/necessity confusion is an issue here but I still do not understand how answer choice B has the same meaning as the classic sufficiency/necessity confusion. Seems to be a different flaw entirely.
sufficiency vs necessity.