Columnist: It is impossible for there to be real evidence that lax radiation standards that were once in effect at...

Maxx on December 23, 2020

Flaw Question

Is the flaw that is displayed in this question a part to whole flaw ?

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shunhe on December 29, 2020

Hi @Maxx,

Thanks for the question! I wouldn’t quite say that this is a part to whole flaw. I suppose the logic is somewhat similar. Remember, part to whole flaws occur when you take something about the part and you generalize it to the whole incorrectly. For example, the tusk of the elephant is hard and made of ivory. Therefore, the entire elephant must be hard and made of ivory. That’s an example of a part to whole flaw. Here, we have individual cases of cancer from which we make conclusions about aggregate causes of cancer. So it’s more related to causation specifically, but there is kind of that “extrapolate from a small part to a large part” move happening.

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

Margarita on July 24 at 12:02PM

why is C incorrect?

Emil-Kunkin on July 26 at 07:29PM

The argument does not make a general conclusion about the causes of cancer writ large, it makes a conclusion that since there are many possible causes, we cannot know what caused one individual case.