The presence of bees is necessary for excellent pollination, which, in turn, usually results in abundant fruits and v...

Irina on August 21, 2019

@dace,

Let's diagram the argument first:

The presence of bees (bee) is necessary for successful pollination (pol), which in turn usually results in abundant fruits and vegetables.

pol -> bee
~bee -> ~ pol

Note that "usually" is not a conditional statement as it does not guarantee a particular outcome.

Establishing a beehive (hive) or two near one's garden ensures the presence of bees (bee)

hive->bee
~ bee - > ~hive

Keeping bees is economical (hive), only if the gardener has a use for homegrown honey (use)

~use -> ~hive
hive -> use

Thus, gardeners who have no use for homegrown honey will tend not to have beehives.

~use -> ~hive

so their gardens will fail to have excellent pollination.

~hive -> ~ pol

The implied inference here is that:

~ hive -> ~ bee -> ~ pol


The problem with the argument is that it treats a beehive as a necessary condition for having bees, whereas it is a sufficient condition. A beehive ensures the presence of bees, thus we can infer that the absence of bees ensures the absence of a beehive, but we cannot infer that the absence of a beehive guarantees the absence of bees, as (D) accurately states.

(A) is incorrect because it is irrelevant to the argument. Even if there are other advantages of beehives, the fact that the hives are only economical if the gardener has use for homegrown honey still makes sense and fails to render argument invalid as the flaw would.

(B) is incorrect because this is not the case. The author is correctly concluding that no bees will result in no excellent pollination, bees are a necessary condition for pollination. The flaw is instead in saying that no beehives guarantee no bees.

(C) is incorrect because it is irrelevant to the conclusion. The conclusion concerns the use of honey -> hives -> pollination, the author never says anything about fruits & vegetables.

(E) is incorrect because there is no casual flaw in this argument. It is a conditional argument, if A then B, rather than A causes B. Since the author never claims that beehives CAUSE pollination, this flaw is irrelevant to the argument.

Does that help?

Let me know if you have any further questions.