Testing an argument about a college should keep its library open later 1
A committee argues that A college should keep its library open later. Its main evidence is that many evening students currently leave before finishing research. The recommendation is plausible, but the evidence alone does not establish the conclusion. It assumes that those students would actually use the additional hours. The committee also needs to consider whether the observed result was temporary, whether the comparison group was genuinely similar, and whether a less costly measure could produce the same benefit. These questions do not prove the recommendation wrong. They identify what further evidence would make the inference more reliable.