Self-study
Salespeople always steer customers toward products from which they make their highest commissions, and all salespeople in major health stores work on commission. Hence, when you buy vitamin supplements in a major health store, you can be sure that the claims the salespeople make about the quality of the products are inaccurate.
Obviously this is an ad hominem. I know that. But we are taught to apply a two step test: descriptively accurate and does it describe the flaw.
the right answer choice?
infers that some claims are inaccurate solely on the basis of the source of those claims
translation: 1-99 of claims are inaccurate, solely on the basis of the source of those claims.
how is this descriptively accurate? the argument assumes because sales people have specific incentives, salespeople are not telling the full truth.
the argument never says SOME claims are inaccurate, instead it says THE CLAIMS ARE INACCURATE. how the hell am I supposed to see the invisible some? Also the argument never says they are liars because they are sales people, it says it's because they work on commission.
someone tell me how I am wrong. I feel like im getting punished for being detail oriented.
0
8 comments
Could you help me understand what you mean by this:
"the argument never says SOME claims are inaccurate, instead it says THE CLAIMS ARE INACCURATE."
As I understand it, if the author thinks the salespeople's claims are inaccurate, isn't it true that the author thinks "some" claims are inaccurate" Remember, some means at least one. So the author is asserting that at least one claim is inaccurate (in particular, at least the claims made by salespeople concerning teh quality of the products).
@Kevin_Lin got it thanks
@Kevin_Lin can you chime in in why "inaccurate solely on the basis of the source of those claims" is correct. Again from my understanding, the claims are inaccurate because they work on comission. I do not understand how it is implied, that the claims are inaccurate solely because they are salespeople. Am I looking at this incorrectly?
@ashehata The author states that salespeople always steer people toward products on which they earn commission. This conveys that salespeople have an incentive to steer people to certain products. The author thinks the fact salespeople at a major health store have this incentive proves that their claims are inaccurate.
Here, the author infers that certain claims are inaccurate (claims by the salespeople about quality of products) solely on the basis of the source (salespeople, who have an incentive to get people to buy the products).
Would it help if instead of interpreting "source of the claims" as "salespeople," you interpreted it as "people with an incentive to say good things about the product"?
I think you're treating "The claims are made by salespeople" and "The salespeople have an incentive to say good stuff about the products because of their commission" as two separate lines of reasoning. But they're not. "Based on the source" doesn't mean only the literal identity of the source of the claims, divorced from the other things the author said about those people -- it also encompasses what the author believes must be true about those people because of their identity. That's why I think you might find "people who have an incentive to say good stuff about the products" a better way to understand the "source" in this case.
@Kevin_Lin Ok this was helpful, im trying to be as literal as possible. I am not sure why it turns out that way in my brain. Thank you again.
It describes the flaw, but no way in hell is that descriptively accurate.
@ashehata Hey OP, I understand where you're coming from, but think about it this way: the author specifies "some" claims when they say "the claims the salespeople make about the quality of the products." They don't suggest that anything a salesperson might make a claim about is inaccurate, say, climate change, just the claims that they make about the quality of the products. Does that clarify why "some" is appropriate here?
@EricBroner Yes thank you