Question 1
Basketball scout: Over the last 25 years, every professional basketball player who was at least 6 feet 6 inches tall could dunk a basketball. Maurice will begin his professional basketball career this coming year and his amatuer team lists him as 6 feet 7 inches tall. Thus, Maurice definitely will be able to dunk.
The basketball scout’s argument is most vulnerable to which one of the following objections?
- The argument misinterprets evidence that a result is likely as evidence that the result is certain.
- The argument infers that a characteristic of a certain subset of basketball players is shared by all basketball players.
- The argument relies on data provided by Maurice's amatuer team without examining the reliability of such data.
- The argument draws a general conclusion about a group based on data about an unrepresentative sample of that group.
- The argument mistakes a condition sufficient for bringing about a result for a condition necessary for doing so.
Explanation: 25 years of data is pretty good evidence that players standing at least 6 feet, 6 inches tall are likely to be able to dunk. However, the possibility always exists that Maurice is an outlier and can't dunk or that circumstances have changed and the last 25 years are not indicative of what will happen in the future (e.g., maybe basket heights have been raised by 2 feet, making it more difficult to dunk). Thus, certainty as to Maurice's dunking ability is not possible based on the evidence presented.