Katelin says that we will be hit by a major snowstorm tomorrow. So she probably believes that tomorrow's antique car ...

shunhe on June 16, 2020

Hi @NK848,

Thanks for the question! So this flaw is essentially that the argument assumes that someone is going to believe something that’s true. People, of course, don’t believe true things all the time, so we can’t just assume that just because something’s true, a person’s going to believe it. Here, for example, it may be true that the car show will be cancelled if we’re hit by a major snowstorm, and Katelin may think that we’re hit by a major snowstorm. But that doesn’t mean that Katelin “probably believes” that it is going to be cancelled. We’re going to look for an answer choice with some of these components: a conditional, a person who follows the sufficient condition, and then saying that the person “probably believes” that the necessary condition will follow.

Taking a look at (B), this is what happens here. Bo says the soil is poorly drained. We also have a conditional chain that says that if soil’s poorly drained, then raspberry bushes won’t grow well. We then conclude that Bo “probably believes” that the necessary condition will follow, or that the raspberry bushes won’t grow well in his backyard.

The other answer choices don’t have this same parallel flaw. (A) has Jorge saying the piece of conditional logic, which doesn’t follow the same structure. (C)’s structure isn’t the same, since the conclusion is about “most people.” (D) introduces quantifiers (“most people who are good at math”). (E) is different, because the conditional reasoning is something Dr. Bowder is established as knowing (“since she knows…”).

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.

NK848 on June 21, 2020

Thank you. It makes sense now.