Support The great medieval universities had no administrators, yet they endured for centuries. ███ ██████████ ███ █ ████ ██████████████ ██████ ███ ██ ███ ██ ███████ █████████ █████████████ ██████████ ██ ██████ ███████ ███ █████████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ ██████████████ ██ ██████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████
At its core, this argument involves a textbook flaw in causal reasoning – just because two things are correlated doesn't mean one causes the other. The reasoning here is notable, though, because the author's causal claim is implied rather than stated explicitly. Here's a summary:
Great universities: no admins; endured for centuries
Our universities: hella admins; endurance threatened
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Let's abolish the admins – that'll ensure our endurance.
The first two claims are correlative – they establish a few data points for which having admins is negatively correlated with endurance. An explicit version of the causal conclusion would look like this:
Admins cause a lack of endurance. / Not having admins will cause endurance.
Although the author never overtly makes this causal claim, their recommendation to abolish the admins implies it. Abolishing the admins with the goal of ensuring that the university will endure only makes sense as a strategy if having administrators is causally related to endurance.
Anyway, here's the abstract template by which to judge the answer choices:
Premises: These two things are correlated.
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Conclusion: Let's do [thing 1] – that'll cause [thing 2].
Analysis by MichaelWright
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