Ryan Sheckler is the youngest skateboarder to ever participate in the X-games. He was awarded the gold medal this year for his skating abilities during the competition. Ryan Sheckler is therefore the most talented skateboarder in the world.
This is a strong argument; it is however not valid. The premises are true and give true facts which would influence people to believe the conclusion to be true as well. However, the argument is not valid. Even though it is an accurate fact that Sheckler is the youngest skateboarder to have ever participated in the X-games, and even though he did win the gold medal this year, it does not necessarily mean that he is the best skateboarder in the world. It is true that there is a high chance for the conclusion to be valid based on the premises; however there are also some chances for the conclusion to be false. Since there are millions of skateboarders in the world, many who do not participate in the X-games, it is very hard to prove that Sheckler is the best out of them. The other skateboarders participating in the competition might have also been having an off-day and might have not been performing at their best. Many people also rate skateboarders on different scales and would argue that Sheckler did not in fact deserve gold. It is very possible that Sheckler is in fact the best skateboarder and that the conclusion is therefore valid; it is however very difficult to prove with the given information. Even though the premises are true and state concrete facts, since the conclusion is not certain and cannot be proven, the argument is strong, but not valid.
This post stood out to me because I am a skateboarder. Nonetheless, great example of a strong but invalid argument. The premises do start off very good. He is the youngest skateboarder, and he is winning all these medals so we have reason to believe he could possibly be the best skater in the world. However, we can’t officially conclude that. Now, if the conclusion was “Ryan Sheckler is the youngest skateboarder to ever win a gold medal,” it would be valid because the conclusion directly follows the premises. We know this because if he is the youngest skater to compete, and he won a gold medal, then he must be the youngest skater to ever get a gold medal in the x games (as long as the premises are true and he actually is the youngest to compete). Great post!
ReplyDelete