Help exemplify a Flaw answer choice

Rev_Lefe

Hi,

To learn all the lsat tricks, I wanna discuss a flaw sentence. This is from PT30-S4-Q14 (E): "it fails to distinguish between a true claim that has mistakenly been believed to be false and a false claim that has mistakenly been believed to be true."

It basically means a guy confuses a contended true statement with a contended false statement. But, how is it even possible to frame an argument which commits such a fallacy? Say:
"Tom told me that the Sun is not the center of our universe, but there are numerous evidence disprove his assertion, thus what Tom says is true."

Does my example sentence manifest the fallacy? If not, could someone help provide an example sentence?

Thank you for the help.

kingfish743-1

Yeah, I just spent some time trying to figure this out after seeing your post. I have not noticed a flaw described in this way on nearly any other test that I can think of, and I've been through a few of them. I believe your characterization of the flaw may be a little off. The flaw in reasoning doesn't lie in the fact that the guy is "confusing" a contended true statement with a contended false statement, but rather, by failing to distinguish one from the other, he commits the exact same reasoning flaw his opposition had just committed.

My conceptualization of the flaw being described in (E) would be something along the lines of: Person A argues that a lack of evidence for a position is proof that the position is false. Person B would then argue that some evidence to support a position would prove the position true. The arguments are of equal strength(weak) and by B responding to A in such a way, he didn't "distinguish between a true claim mistakenly believed to be false from a false claim mistakenly believed to be true"; there's no difference, or distinction, between the arguments.

This could be off as I didn't quite address the claim, but this is all I could come up with for the flaw described in (E). Let me know what you think because I'm stuck on this as well.

Rev_Lefe

kingfish743-1, I agree with your exemplification. Your mentioning the difference between "fails to distinguish" and "confuse" is precise on point.

In addition, as I try to think deeper about "confuse A and B", I wonder does this phrase mean the arguer actually need to literally address A and B. "Confuse" can happen mentally and verbally, so I would still agree with your example even though the above question were to use "confuse."

To further our discussion a little, so when a certain flaw text uses "mistake A for B", "obscure A and B", or "treats A as if B", how would you analyze each of them? My thought is that because the first two are quite similar to "confuse". However, the third gives me some trouble due to its usage "as if" so I am not sure whether the arguer literally need to address A and B. I would love to know what's your thoughts!