PrepTest 120, Section 1, Question 8
Fortune-teller: Admittedly, the claims of some self-proclaimed "psychics"(58 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the fortune-teller's(12 more words not shown)
- Atakes for granted(16 more words not shown)
- Btakes for granted(22 more words not shown)
- Coverlooks the possibility(14 more words not shown)
- Dtakes for granted(13 more words not shown)
- Etakes for granted(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Some psychics being frauds doesn't establish that every psychic is a fraud. I'll grant the fortune-teller that much. But failing to disprove psychic powers doesn't establish that anybody has them either. Imagine claiming that Harry Potter lives on Pluto. If nobody has conclusively ruled that out, have we established that he's there? No. A claim can remain unrefuted because we haven't found a way to investigate it, not because we have evidence that it's true. Repeating unsuccessful attempts to disprove it doesn't automatically fill that gap.
What we’re looking for
The fortune-teller is the person making the positive claim: some individuals possess ESP. Where is the evidence of those powers? Instead of supplying it, the argument points to failures to prove that the powers don't exist. For the flaw question, that's the jump to name: treating the absence of disproof as proof.
Working the answers
- A
Showing that many people lack a characteristic really doesn't establish that everyone lacks it. Some supposed psychics could be frauds while someone else had genuine powers. That is a sensible distinction, not the mistake that justifies criticizing this argument. The problem comes when the fortune-teller treats failure to rule out that possibility as proof that it occurs.
- B
The argument mentions numerous failed attempts, but this answer describes failed attempts to prove a claim as the only relevant factor in accepting that claim. Our argument concerns attempts to disprove ESP and then treats their failure as proof of ESP. We don't need to read a sweeping rule excluding every other kind of evidence into the argument to identify that error.
- C
We're told that attempts to prove ESP doesn't exist have failed, not that studies produced a particular conclusion whose accuracy the fortune-teller must accept. Even if we accept the reported failure of those attempts, it doesn't establish ESP. The error lies in what follows from that failure, without needing to challenge a study's accuracy.
- D
Past failures don't establish that science could never determine whether someone possesses ESP. But the fortune-teller doesn't need that impossibility claim for the stated reasoning. The argument points to unsuccessful attempts so far and jumps from those to actual powers.
- ECorrect
The claim that some individuals have ESP has not been demonstrated false. The fortune-teller treats that as establishing it true. Those are different standards: leaving open a possibility isn't the same as supplying evidence that the possibility is real.
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