Bunuel wrote:
The usefulness of lie detectors cannot be overestimated. Although there is no employee screening procedure that is 100 percent accurate, the lie detector is a valuable tool for employers and employees alike. The lie detectors usefulness is amply demonstrated in a recent survey conducted by a prestigious university. In the survey, those employees of a large company who were applying for a newly created position within the company were asked if they had ever worked on Project X. More than one-third of the applicants studied lied and said they had worked on the projecta project that never existed.
Which one of the following best identifies a flaw in the authors argument about the usefulness of lie detectors?
(A) The argument depends on the assumption that whatever is good for the employer is good for the employee.
(B) Since lie detectors are known to be less than 100 percent accurate, the test will tend to help only those with something to hide.
(C) By referring to a prestigious university, the author is appealing to authority rather than to evidence.
(D) The study shows only that certain individual will lie, not that the lie detector can detect them.
(E) The author fails to address the issue that the use of lie detectors may fail to prevent embezzlement.
Which one of the following best identifies a flaw in the authors argument about the usefulness of lie detectors?
(A) The argument depends on the assumption that whatever is good for the employer is good for the employee.
(B) Since lie detectors are known to be less than 100 percent accurate, the test will tend to help only those with something to hide.
(C) By referring to a prestigious university, the author is appealing to authority rather than to evidence.
(D) The study shows only that certain individual will lie, not that the lie detector can detect them.
(E) The author fails to address the issue that the use of lie detectors may fail to prevent embezzlement.
The argument wants to say that the lie detector is a useful tool.
To showcase that, it talks about a survey - Employees were asked whether they have worked on project X. More than 1/3rd employees said they had. Though there was no project X. Here is the point - where did the lie detector help here? How did we prove that lie detectors are useful. The survey shows that people lie. There was no project X so whoever said they did work on it, they lied. For this we didn't need a lie detector. You ask people and whoever says yes is lying. We did not need the lie detector in this. It doesn't show that the lie detector can detect lies.
Hence answer is (D)
(B) Since lie detectors are known to be less than 100 percent accurate, the test will tend to help only those with something to hide.
This does not make sense. Say lie detectors are 95% accurate. What does this mean? That 5% lies it will not catch? Or that 5% of the times it could claim that a truth is a lie? Or either could happen? We don't know. So how can we say it will help only those who are lying? It will reveal some lies so it won't help all those who have something to hide. It will reveal some truths to be truths so it will help people telling the truth too.
In any case, this is not the flaw in the argument.