Question Bank - CR Medical Education

[anusuthakaran]

This maybe silly but im trying to understand how to isolate the conclusion in an argument.

Medical education in the United States has focused almost exclusively on curative medicine, while preventive care has been given scant attention. This is misguided. Medical schools should invest as much time in teaching their students how to prevent illness as in teaching them how to cure it.

The first sentence 'Medical.... scant attention' is a fact. Hence a premise.
'This is misguided.' is an opinion - hence a possible conclusion.
'Medical ..... cure it' is an opinion as well.

Is this a case for the 'therefore' strategy.

Schools are misguided, therefore, schools must invest as much time in teaching...
Schools must invest in teaching...., therefore, schools are misguided

[JonathanSchneider]

You could use the "Therefore test" here, but be careful. In the second arrangement, you've made it sound as though schools are misguided because they must invest in teaching. Notice that you've changed the word "this" to the word "schools" in that middle sentence. What is misguided is the historical approach to medical education. If you use the "Therefore Test" for a sentence involving a pronoun (the word "this" here), you need to make sure that you are referring to the right thing. In this case, a better version would be:

"That schools have invested in curative medicine is misguided ... THEREFORE they should invest in teaching prevention."

OR

"Schools should invest in teaching prevention ... THEREFORE the fact that they have invested in curative medicine is misguided."

Of course, in this case, it's still difficult to say that either of the above is the correct version, no? This is because in fact both sentences are the conclusion. The conclusion is that the old approach is misguided, AND that a new approach is needed. This becomes clearer when the "Therefore test" is properly used; however, it may still seem challenging. Nonetheless, it is possible (though rare) to have a two-sentence conclusion. Generally, such conclusions are structurally similar to this one: "We should not do A. Instead, we should do B."