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Question

Asteroid 2004 MN4 is predicted to come within 20,000 miles of Earth and may even collide with us. The lump of rock and metal, which is 380m across, would have an impact equivalent to fifty one-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding simultaneously. It could devastate an area the size of a large American state and cause tsunamis around the world. We must act now to prevent this collision. We could fire missiles at the asteroid to deflect its orbit, cover it with aluminium foil so that the sun would thrust it into a different orbit or develop space tugs. These could either tug the asteroid away from us, or bring it into orbit around Earth as a metal-rich second moon.

Upon hearing this, a woman tries to make an analogy by saying:

“That’s like saying we should stop flying because of a small risk that aeroplanes might crash.”

Which ONE of the following best expresses the failure of the analogy?

Answer 1

hah all of them r good but i'd personally pick D

Answer 2

Kazi is right.

C would technically be the right one.

Answer 3

C

Answer 4

B.

she's really stating impossibility of an action

Answer 5

Yeah I think D is more of a why it failed, but it's tough to say.

Answer 6

Okay this is a VERY difficult question to answer But i think The correct answer is (C)

Justification:

R1 Asteroid 2004 MN4 is predicted to come within 20,000 miles of earth and may even collide with

us.

R2 The lump of rock and metal, which is 380m across, would have an impact equivalent to fifty onemegaton

hydrogen bombs exploding simultaneously.

R3 It could devastate an area the size of a large American state and cause tsunamis around the

world.

C We must act now to prevent this collision.

Suggestions for action:

We could fire missiles at the asteroid to deflect its orbit, cover it with aluminium foil so that the sun

will thrust it into a different orbit or develop space tugs. These could either tug the asteroid away

from us, or bring it into orbit around Earth as a metal rich second moon.

“That’s like saying we should stop flying because of a small risk that aeroplanes might crash.”

The asteroid argument suggests that we should take extreme measures to minimise a small risk.

The analogy suggests that we should avoid the risk of a (largely beneficial) human activity by

avoiding the activity.

Which of the following best expresses the failure of the analogy?

(C)             Avoiding a slightly risky activity is not the same as acting to minimise risk.

By not flying we would be avoiding the risk at all rather than trying to minimise a risk. A better

analogy would perhaps be taking extreme and expensive measures to minimise the small risks

associated with flying.

Distractors:

A) Stopping flying would be very much cheaper than diverting an asteroid.

We are interested in the pattern of reasoning rather than the practical points of comparison. The

cost is not the significant point of comparison, it is the reaction to risk. In any case, stopping flying

might have such an enormous impact on the global economy that the cost might indeed be

comparable.

B) Flying planes is a human activity, whereas asteroids are beyond human control.

The argument tries to suggest that asteroids are not completely beyond human control. In any

case, this misses the point of comparison.

D) An asteroid hitting earth would have considerably worse consequences than a plane crash.

This may be the case, but it still misses the point of the comparison, which is the reaction to risk

rather than the size of the risk. It could be a good analogy if the pattern were similar, even though

the scale was different.

E) Asteroids do not have pilots and therefore lack the risks associated with human error.

Way off the point.