Self-study
Support The probability of avoiding heart disease is increased if one avoids fat in one's diet. ████████████ ███ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ██████ █████ ██████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████████ ████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██ ████████ █████ ██████
Summarize Argument
The argument concludes that avoiding dairy foods will increase the probability of maintaining good health. This is supported by two premises: if you avoid eating dairy you're less likely to eat fat, and avoiding eating fat reduces the risk of heart disease.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The argument claims that avoiding dairy is good for health overall, just based on claims about heart disease. This overlooks the possibility that avoiding dairy could also have negative impacts on health. For example, dairy may provide some critical nutrient, or might reduce the risk of a different disease.
Avoid dairy
BENEFIT
▲
Lower heart disease risk
(less fat intake)
COST?
▼ ? ?
Lost calcium? Nutrients?
Possible, but never addressed
Eat dairy
COST
▼
Higher heart disease risk
(more fat intake)
BENEFIT?
▲ ? ?
Calcium? Protein? Vitamins?
Possible, but never addressed
The argument only considers the solid boxes. The dashed boxes represent potential effects that might exist but are never examined. Without ruling them out, we can't conclude that avoiding dairy is better for overall health.
18.
The reasoning in the argument ██ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████████
a
The argument ignores ███ ███████████ █████ ████ ██████ █ ████████ ███ ████ ███████████ ████████ █████████████ ███ ███████████ ███ ████ ████ ████████ █████████████
Even though eating dairy could have the negative consequence of raising the risk of heart disease, avoiding eating dairy might also cause negative health effects. This possibility is ignored by the argument.
b
The argument fails ██ ████████ ███ ███████████ ████ █████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ███ ██ ██████████ ███ ████ ██ █ ███████ ████ ██ ███████████
The argument isn't claiming that there are no other ways to decrease the risk of heart disease, only discussing one possible way, namely avoiding eating dairy.
c
The argument presumes, ███████ █████████ ██████████████ ████ ███████ ████ █████ █████████ █████ ██ ████████ ████████████ █████ ██ ██ ███████████
The argument doesn't make this presumption. It claims that avoiding dairy will increase the probability of maintaining good health, but it doesn't tell us we "ought" to avoid dairy.
d
The argument fails ██ ████ ████ ███ ████████ ████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████████
All the evidence provided in the argument is directly relevant to the conclusion. The issue is just that the conclusion is broader than what the evidence allows, not that the evidence is irrelevant.
e
The argument fails ██ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██████
The argument consistently sticks to discussing probabilities and likeliness, and never makes a jump to saying that something will definitely occur.