PrepTest 82, Section 2, Question 18
Doctor: Angiotensinogen is a protein in human blood. Typically, the higher a person's angiotensinogen levels are, the higher that person's blood pressure is. Disease X usually causes an increase in angiotensinogen levels. Therefore, disease X must be a cause of high blood pressure.
Doctor: Angiotensinogen is a protein in human blood. Typically, the higher a person's angiotensinogen levels are, the higher that person's blood pressure is. Disease X usually causes an increase in angiotensinogen levels. Therefore, disease X must be a cause of high blood pressure.
Doctor: Angiotensinogen is a protein in human blood. Typically, the higher a person's angiotensinogen levels are, the higher that person's blood pressure is. Disease X usually causes an increase in angiotensinogen levels. Therefore, disease X must be a cause of high blood pressure.
Doctor: Angiotensinogen is a protein in human blood. Typically, the higher a person's angiotensinogen levels are, the higher that person's blood pressure is. Disease X usually causes an increase in angiotensinogen levels. Therefore, disease X must be a cause of high blood pressure.
The doctor's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on which one of the following grounds?
It confuses a necessary condition for a sufficient condition.
It overlooks the possibility that even if a condition causally contributes to a given effect, other factors may fully counteract that effect in the presence of that condition.
It illicitly infers, solely on the basis of two phenomena being correlated, that one causally contributes to the other.
It confuses one phenomenon's causing a second with the second phenomenon's causing the first.
It takes for granted that if one phenomenon often causes a second phenomenon and that second phenomenon often causes a third phenomenon, then the first phenomenon cannot ever be the immediate cause of the third.
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