Self-study
Official: Support Six months ago, the fines for parking violations on the city's streets were raised to help pay for the parking garage that had just opened. █████ █████ ███████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███████ ██ ██ ████████ ██████ ██ ██ ████ █████ ██ ██ ████ █████ ███████ ███████████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████
Summarize Argument
The official concludes that the city should raise fines for parking violations again if they want to further decrease violations. As support, he says that the fines were raised six months ago to pay for the newly opened parking garage, and violations have dropped by half since then.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of assuming that correlation proves causation. The official points out a correlation between higher fines and reduced violations and then jumps to the conclusion that higher fines caused a reduction in parking violations. He ignores any other possible explanations— like the newly opened parking garage— that might account for the reduction.
23.
The reasoning in the official's ████████ ██ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ████████
a
takes a possible ██████ ██ █ █████████ ██ ██ █ ████████ █████ ██ ████ █████████
The official doesn’t confuse an effect of reduced violations with a cause of reduced violations. Instead, he takes a possible cause of reduced violations— higher fines— to be the definite cause of reduced violations.
b
takes for granted ████ ███████ █████ █ ██████ ████ ████ ██████ ███████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ██ ██ ███ ███ █████ ████
The official never assumes that raising fines again will reduce parking violations by another 50%. He just thinks it will further reduce violations. Also, (B) fails to address the fact that the official assumes that raising fines actually caused the reduction the first time.
c
fails to take ████ ███████ ███ █████████ ████████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ██████████
The official doesn’t address the financial benefits of higher parking fines, but he doesn’t need to. His argument is about an assumed causal connection between higher fines and reduced violations, not about the city’s financial benefits.
d
takes for granted ████ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ████ █████████ █████ ██████ ██ ████ ███████
The official might assume that people with parking violations would rather park legally, but this doesn’t describe the flaw in his argument. His argument is flawed because he assumes that higher fines caused a reduction in parking violations, based only on a correlation.
e
fails to establish ████ ███ ███████ ████████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ███ ███ ███ ██ ███ ████████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ██████
The official assumes that higher fines caused the reduction in parking violations based only on a correlation. He fails to consider other possible explanations— like the newly opened parking garage— that might account for the reduction.