But it's not an unreasonable requirement because without inferring iff you get "Judge Wilson believes one has the right to end the life all living things" and "Doctor Simmi believes the surgery should proceed no matter what"
Still, I imagine that's enough to throw of an unknown percent of people, alas.
>I am afraid that the only conclusion here is that, in the absence of a clear logical argument to evaluate, (either due to ambiguity or complexity), people fall back on their beliefs.
Still an interesting conclusion though.
Do people commonly expand "if" to mean "if and only if" outside of a conversational setting where it's implied? I would think in a small body of text people would only refrane from doing so.
I'd be interested in having the per syllogism results to see if this impacted the accuracy of the respondents.
The logic in the 2nd and 3rd prompts is subtle. In fact, I don't think the 2nd one is in fact a syllogism -- it's unclear if Judge Wilson believes if or if and only if. In the former case, the statement is in fact not a syllogism, but in the latter case it is a syllogism. I wouldn't expect your average study participant to pick up on the difference.
I am afraid that the only conclusion here is that, in the absence of a clear logical argument to evaluate, (either due to ambiguity or complexity), people fall back on their beliefs.