Self-study
A club wanted to determine whether it could increase attendance by changing its weekly meetings from Tuesday to another day. ██ ███ ███████ ████████ ███ ██████ █████████ ████ █ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ████████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ██ ██████████ █████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ████ ██████ ███████ ███ ██████ █████████ █████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███████ ███ ███ ███ █████████ ██ ████████ ██████████
Summarize Argument
The president concludes that schedule conflicts aren’t the main reason for the club’s attendance problem. He bases this on a survey of members present at a Tuesday meeting; 95% of them said that they had no issue with meeting on Tuesdays.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of using an unrepresentative sample, where the author draws a conclusion about a group based on a sample that’s likely different from that group. The president says scheduling isn’t the main reason for low attendance, but he only asked people who showed up on a Tuesday. Of course Tuesday works for them—they were there! But this group probably doesn’t represent the whole club. If many other members can’t come on Tuesdays, it’s possible that schedule conflicts are the main reason for the attendance problem.
4.
A questionable technique used in ███ ████ ███████████ █████████ ██
a
drawing a conclusion ██ ███ █████ ██ ████████ █████████
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of circular reasoning, where the conclusion is simply a restatement of one of the premises. The president doesn’t make this mistake. His premises don’t support his conclusion well, but they are distinct from each other.
b
making a generalization ██ ███ █████ ██ █ ██████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ████████████████
The president draws a general conclusion about the whole club based on a sample— those members present at a Tuesday meeting. This group probably doesn’t represent the scheduling preferences of the whole club. Maybe many members can’t come on Tuesdays.
c
treating a generalization ████ ███████ ██ ████ █████ ██ ██ ██ ███████ ███████ █████████
We don’t actually know that the members who attended on Tuesday represent “most” of the club, so we don’t know that the scheduling generalization applies to most cases. And the president never claims that it applies to all cases without exception.
d
drawing a conclusion ██ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ████ ██████████ ███ ███████
The president doesn’t make this mistake. His premises don’t support his conclusion well, but they don’t contradict one another. Instead, he draws a conclusion based on a sample that’s probably not representative of the whole group.
e
inferring, solely from ███ █████ ████ █ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ █ ████████ ████ ██ ██ ███ █████████ ██████
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. The president doesn’t make this mistake. His argument relies on an unrepresentative sample, not on conditional reasoning.