Activist: Food producers irradiate food in order to prolong its shelf

Question

Activist: Food producers irradiate food in order to prolong its shelf life. Five animal studies were recently conducted to investigate whether this process alters food in a way that could be dangerous to people who eat it. The studies concluded that irradiated food is safe for human to eat. However, because these studies were subsequently found by a panel of independent scientists to be seriously flawed in their methodology, it follows that irradiated food is not safe for human consumption.

The reasoning in the activist's argument is flawed because that argument

(A) treats a failure to prove a claim as constituting proof of the denial of that claim

(B) treat methodological flaws in past studies as proof that it is currently not possible to devise methodologically adequate alternatives

(C) fails to consider the possibility that even a study whose methodology has no serious flaws nonetheless might provide only weak support for it's conclusion

(D) fails to consider the possibility that what is safe for animals might not always be safe for human beings

(E) fails to establish that the independent scientists know more about food irradiation than do the people who produced the five studies

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The structure of the argument is as follows:  Premise:  Food producers irradiate food in order to prolong its shelf life.  Premise:  Five animal studies were recently conducted to investigate whether this process alters food in a way that could be dangerous to people who eat it. The studies concluded that irradiated food is safe for humans to eat. Premise: These studies were subsequently found by a panel of independent scientists to be seriously flawed in their methodology.  Conclusion:  Irradiated food is not safe for human consumption. The author uses the fact that the studies were flawed to conclude that irradiated food is not safe for human consumption. Is this a reasonable conclusion? No. The studies purported to prove that irradiated food is safe. The fact that the studies used flawed methodology should have been used to prove that the studies did not prove that irradiated food was safe. Instead, the activist takes the argument too far, believing that because the studies did not prove that irradiated food is safe, therefore irradiated food is not safe. Here “Some evidence against a position is taken to prove that position is false.”  Answer choice (A) perfectly describes this mistake.

Answer choice (B): Use the Fact Test to easily eliminate this answer. Although past studies were shown to have methodological flaws, this evidence is not used to prove that methodologically sound alternatives are impossible to achieve.

Answer choice (C): It’s true, the argument does fail to consider the possibility that a non-flawed study might provide only weak support for its conclusion. But—and this is the critical question—is that a flaw in the reasoning of the activist? No, it is perfectly acceptable for the author to ignore an issue (non-flawed studies) that does not relate to his argument. Remember, the correct answer choice must describe a flaw in the reasoning of the argument, not just something that occurred in the argument.

Answer choice (D): As with answer choice (C), the author has failed to consider the statement in this answer choice. But is this a flaw? No. The fact that animal testing is widely done and the results are accepted as indicative of possible problems with humans falls under the “commonsense information” discussed back in Chapter Two. Testing products on animals is a current fact of life, and the author made a reasoning error by failing to consider the possibility that what is safe for animals might not always be safe for human beings. Another way of looking at this answer is that it effectively states that the author has failed to consider that there is a False Analogy between animals and humans. He fails to consider it because the analogy between animals and humans is not false.

Answer choice (E): Again, the activist does fail to establish this, but it is not necessary since the independent scientists only commented on the methodology of the study, not the irradiated food itself.

mahakmalik · Answer

According to E the argument is flawed because it does not prove that independent scientist are more capable than other scientist.
But this is not necessary to prove.
The claim is:As methodology is wrong so the result is also wrong.
It is not necessary as some other correct methodology might give the same result.

RanjanSury · Answer

Choice (A) makes sense.

Treats a failure ( here implies that the five animal studies conducted to prove that irradiated food is safe for humans to consume is a FAILURE according to the ACTIVIST ) to prove a claim ( that irradiated food is not safe based on the observation of the independent scientists ) as constituting proof of the denial of that claim ( that irradiated food is safe to consume ).

Choices B, D & E are irrelevant to the argument.

Choice ( C ) is tempting but is not necessarily a flaw so to speak.

(A) IT IS !!!!!!!!!!!!

unraveled · Answer

Activist: Food producers irradiate food in order to prolong its shelf life. Five animal studies were recently conducted to investigate whether this process alters food in a way that could be dangerous to people who eat it. The studies concluded that irradiated food is safe for human to eat. However, because these studies were subsequently found by a panel of independent scientists to be seriously flawed in their methodology, it follows that irradiated food is not safe for human consumption.

The reasoning in the activist's argument is flawed because that argument

(A) treats a failure to prove a claim  as constituting proof of the denial  of that claim - CORRECT. If nothing is there to prove it than otherwise is true.

(B) treat methodological flaws in past studies as proof that it is currently not possible to  devise methodologically adequate alternatives  - WORNG. Irrelevant.

(C) fails to consider the  possibility that even a study whose methodology has no serious flaws nonetheless might provide only weak support  for it's conclusion - WRONG. May be that's true but not a necessary requirement for the argument.

(D) fails to consider the possibility that what is  safe for animals might not always be safe for human beings  - WRONG. May be yes but this is not relevant to argument.

(E) fails to establish that the independent scientists  know more about food irradiation than  do the people who produced the five studies - WRONG. True that activist failed to establish but that eventually would not have helped either. What independent ones said was enough for them to conclude as it is and no meritocracy is necessary to judge that.

Answer A.

MS61 · Answer

Activist: Food producers irradiate food in order to prolong its shelf life. Five animal studies were recently conducted to investigate whether this process alters food in a way that could be dangerous to people who eat it. The studies concluded that irradiated food is safe for human to eat. However, because these studies were subsequently found by a panel of independent scientists to be seriously flawed in their methodology, it follows that irradiated food is not safe for human consumption.

The reasoning in the activist's argument is flawed because that argument

(A) treats a failure to prove a claim as constituting proof of the denial of that claim -  Correct, Failure : Methodology, Claim : Irradiated is unsafe, because Methodology was flawed hence, considered this as proof to claim that irradicated food is unsafe.

(B) treat methodological flaws in past studies as proof that it is currently not possible to devise methodologically adequate alternatives -  Incorrect , conclusion is not on the methodology

(C) fails to consider the possibility that even a study whose methodology has no serious flaws nonetheless might provide only weak support for it's conclusion -  incorrect, we do not have info on methodology with no flaws, out of scope

(D) fails to consider the possibility that what is safe for animals might not always be safe for human beings -  Incorrect, This info is a not used to support the conclusion,

(E) fails to establish that the independent scientists know more about food irradiation than do the people who produced the five studies -  Incorrect, Scientists knowledge is not used to come to the conclusion rather the flawed methodology is used to come to conclusion

Activist: Food producers irradiate food in order to prolong its shelf

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Activist: Food producers irradiate food in order to prolong its shelf

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