Dietitian: 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 humans 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 dietitian’s argument is flawed because that argument ______.Choices:- treats a failure to prove a claim as constituting proof of the denial of that claim treats methodological flaws in past studies as proof that it is currently not possible to devise methodologically adequate alternatives fails to consider the possibility that even a study whose methodology has no serious flaws nonetheless might provide only weak support for its conclusion fails to consider the possibility that what is safe for animals might not always be safe for human beings.
Question
Dietitian: 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 humans 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 dietitian’s argument is flawed because that argument ______.Choices:- treats a failure to prove a claim as constituting proof of the denial of that claim treats methodological flaws in past studies as proof that it is currently not possible to devise methodologically adequate alternatives fails to consider the possibility that even a study whose methodology has no serious flaws nonetheless might provide only weak support for its conclusion fails to consider the possibility that what is safe for animals might not always be safe for human beings.
Solution
The reasoning in the dietitian’s argument is flawed because that argument treats a failure to prove a claim as constituting proof of the denial of that claim. The dietitian assumes that because the studies were flawed, the conclusion must be false. However, this is not necessarily the case. The studies could be flawed and yet still reach a correct conclusion. The dietitian is committing a logical fallacy known as argument from ignorance or argumentum ad ignorantiam.
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