Q19 - A university should not

[b91302310]

I think this qustion is similar to June 2007, S3, Q19. Although I know (D) could be the correct answer, I did not choose it for the word "occasionally" still concerns me. As the conclusion is strong (A university "should" not be entitled the inventions of its faculty memebrs), is it fine to use "occasionally"(sometimes) to make the assumption?

Also, why is answer choice (B) flawed?

Thanks for the explanation.

[cyruswhittaker]

The scope of the assumption is intertwined with the kind of assumption that the question is referring to.

There are necessary assumptions (which must be true for the argument) and a sufficient assumptions (which allow for a conclusive argument).

Here, the question asks for which is "an assumption" that the argument makes.

So, this is a necessary assumption. There can be lots of necessary assumptions, but the critical factor is that regardless of its scope, it needs to be true or else it contradicts the argument.

I like to use the negation test for these as a check that the answer is correct (in which case you negate the choice and determine if the negation attacks the argument).

B is irrelevant to the argument. The argument only mentions a discovery being "potentially valuable." Profitability (a specific type of value) isn't directly related to the argument.

[b91302310]

So, is it the question stem to make us known that the question requires a necessary assumption?

[cyruswhittaker]

Yes, it's phrased in the question stem.

[iridium77]

I must admit, i still don't see how d.) is a necessary assumption for this argument...

Any help would be appreciated.

[timmydoeslsat]

We are told that the university has a motive to suppress information about a potential big discovery if the university retains the right to patent the inventions of a faculty member.

We know that universities should encourage the free flow of things like ideas.

The argument concludes that suppressing information is incompatible with the ideas of the university.

And I would agree that this is true, but we only know that the university has a motive to do this. Do they actually do this? Perhaps they have the motive to do so but do not actually suppress.

D is necessary. If they do not occasionally act on the motives, then they are not acting on them at all, which would make this argument go nowhere.

[ohthatpatrick]

Let me try to clarify the idea of a Nec vs. Suff assumption, since your original hesitation was with the watered down strength of "will occasionally" in (D).

That watered down strength is actually the hallmark of most correct Nec Assump answers. They'll more often than not sound like something "can, may, might, sometimes" be true.

When the test is asking what needs to be assumed or needs to be true (such as on an Inference question), we should be very cautious of extreme / overly specific / out of scope wording.

99% of Necessary Assumption answer choices that use the word "most" are wrong, for example.

Other frequent dealbreakers are "only", "all/any/each/every", "typically/generally/usually/tends to".

Nec. Assump is a funky task, because "what has to be true" (necessary assumption) can take on MANY forms, while "what it would take to prove the argument is valid" (sufficient assumption) normally only has 1 or 2 possibilities.

Consider this simple argument.

Bob is one of Jane's friends. Thus, Bob must love chess.

Do we have to believe the conclusion based on this premise? Of course not. What would seal the deal? Something like:
all of Jane's friends love chess.

That's a sufficient assumption. When you add that idea to the premise, the conclusion is 100% logically airtight.

Let's think of some Necessary assumptions.

Some of Jane's friends love chess.

If I told you some of Jane's friends love chess, and I told you Bob is one of Jane's friends, could you be positive that Bob loves chess? Of course not. (So it's not a Sufficient assumption)

But what if you negate (contradict) "some of Jane's friends love chess"? You get "none of Jane's friends love chess".

Does that destroy the original conclusion that "Bob must love chess"? Yes. That's what tells you this NEEDS to be assumed.

We can get even weirder with Necessary Assumptions:
Loving chess is compatible with being one of Jane's friends.

What a weird sounding sentence. We certainly weren't thinking that when we originally read my sample argument. But when we consider it through the lens of "is it necessary?", we're asking ourselves, "if this were false, would it ruin the argument?"

Negating that assumption, we'd get:
Loving chess is incompatible with being one of Jane's friends.

Knowing Bob is one of Jane's friends, there's no way we could believe that he loves chess. Again, this needed to be assumed because if it were not true, the argument wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

We don't necessarily want to make the Negation Test our primary approach to every Necessary Assumption answer choice, but it's very useful when you're unsure whether something really "needs to be assumed".

Looking back at Q19
A) if we negate it, says that "universities are not the only institutions that are obliged to intellectual freedom". Does that blow up the argument? No. This author's talking about universities' obligation. Who cares if other institutions are also obliged?

B) if we negate it, says that "less than 50% of inventions by faculty members would be profitable". Does that blow up the argument? Does it matter whether 51% or 49% of faculty inventions would be profitable? No. The author is simply concerned that a university might hide a discovery. He can make his argument whether the university would find more than 50% or less than 50% of university inventions attractive.

C) if we negate is, says that "publication of reports is not the only way to disseminate info about new discoveries". That doesn't weaken the author's argument. He never said anything about publication of reports and certainly never claimed it was the only way to disseminate info.

D) if we negate it, says that "universities with a motive to suppress will never act on that motive". This blows up his argument. If universities never act on the motive to suppress info, then this author has nothing to worry about.

E) Another way to say this idea is that "all inventions not patented by a university will be patented by the faculty member instead." If we negate this, it means "some inventions not patented by a university will not be patented by the faculty member either." This definitely does not hurt the argument.

============
The reason you didn't like (D) originally is because you thought that something stronger than "will occasionally" would strengthen the argument a lot more. You're right in that assessment, but we have to appreciate that the task of "what is being assumed" is different from the task of "which, if true, most strengthens".

For the latter (Strengthen), we ask ourselves, "with this idea, is the conclusion more believable?"

For the former (Necessary Assumption), we ask ourselves, "without this idea, could the argument still stand?"

Hope this helps. Let me know if it elicits anything further.

[shaynfernandez]

I just don't understand why it's necessary for something to occur for the author to say its not compatible.

We have to assume something has happened to be able to conclude that it would be compatible with something else?

Sour cream is incompatible with a bowl of cereal... I have to assume that I have eaten sour cream and cereal...?

I am confused.

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you're getting confused by thinking that the last sentence of the argument is the conclusion (it's not).

The conclusion is the 1st sentence.

Normally we see "clearly" coming before a conclusion, but it can precede a premise as well.

Conc: a univ. shouldn't be allowed to patent faculty's inventions.

why?

Univ. should encourage free flow of ideas. If a Univ. can patent faculty inventions, it has a motive to suppress potentially valuable info. Suppressing potentially valuable info is incompatible with that promoting free flow of ideas.

He's not trying to prove that suppressing info is incompatible with the free flow of ideas (that's just a premise).

He's arguing that, since suppressing info is incompatible with the free flow of ideas, universities shouldn't be able to patent faculty inventions.

When we negate (D), it says that "universities will never act on the motive to suppress information" ... therefore, we could give them the right to patent faculty inventions and NEVER have to worry about the university suppressing information (thus NEVER have to worry about impinging the free flow of ideas).

(D) is pivotal to the issue of the 1st sentence, whether or not it's a bad idea to give universities the right to patent faculty inventions.

Hope this helps.

[shaynfernandez]

Ahhhh That makes a lot more sense!

Patrick, I am reviewing all of my previous questions completed based on type and I am trying to relate these arguments with a broad flaw or logical fallacy used in each argument that is flawed.

Would you say that the flaw in this argument is that the author is prescribing what a university should be allowed to do without actually showing evidence that the universities are doing this? Or would the broad flaw be that the author is ascribing suppression of knowledge to a university based on a motive that isn't proven to be acted upon and thus not sufficient evidence to show the university suppresses knowledge?

Answer choice D would be the necessary assumption in either logical fallacy, as you expressed, just wanted to see your take on the authors general flaw.

Thanks for all the help!

[griffin.811]

Overall it doesnt really matter. The premises and the IC all support the main conclusion which is the important idea.

It is helpful in the sense that, as the book states, most questions will test your ability to see issues between the IC and C rather than P and IC. So if you can spot this difference it may be helpful.

IMO, the IC falls under the Premise umbrella, much the same way a car falls under the vehicle umbrella.

[WaltGrace1983]

the IC falls under the Premise umbrella, much the same way a car falls under the vehicle umbrella.

This. Sometimes it can help to categorize things as IC's just because the question may ask about the gap between the premise and the Intermediate Conclusion rather than a Premise and the Conclusion. Yet ideally you would recognize all the gaps anyway.

I understand Q19 like this:

University with the entitlement to patent the faculty's inventions has a motive to suppress information
+
Suppressing information is incompatible with the university's obligation to promote the free flow of ideas
→
University should not be entitled the patent the faculty's inventions

What is the argument saying? The argument is primarily basing its conclusion on the idea that suppressing information is not compatible with the obligation of the university. The author is saying, "hey! the university shouldn't suppress information and, therefore, we need to make sure that university's don't patent these inventions!" Yet the gap here might actually be between the premise and the intermediate conclusion.

Why is this? This is because the author is assuming that just because you have a motive to do something, you are actually going to do it! I have a motive to drive 150 mph on the highway to get to my job because obviously I will get there much faster. Yet will I do it? Absolutely not. Just because you have a motive to commit an action doesn't mean that you can take it as a given that the action will be committed and this is what Q19 is about. Take an analogous argument:

A person that has a car has a motive to drive it 150 mph
+
Clearly, driving 150 mph is incompatible with the rules of the road
→
A person should not have a car

As you can see, the second premise is really like an intermediate conclusion and this intermediate conclusion forms a great basis for the actual conclusion. The problem is that the intermediate conclusion itself is not on a strong basis.