Is this an abductive argument?
Is this an abductive argument?
By the time the rescue team helicoptered to the remote Dyatlov Pass in late February 1959, the nine Russian adventurers—seven men and two women, all highly experienced cross-country skiers—had been dead for nearly a month. Nothing about the scene seemed right. The adventurers’ tent had been sliced open from the inside, and inside lay rucksacks, neatly arranged boots, and a plate of sliced pork fat. The rescuers found the victims over half a mile down slope from their camp, some of them barefoot and almost naked. The primary cause of death was hypothermia—temperatures would have been well below zero degrees Fahrenheit the night they fled. Four had suffered severe trauma to their heads and chests, as if they’d been in a car crash. The tent was not buried in snow and the slope was not steep enough to cause an avalanche. From all of this we can conclude the following: the nine adventurers were roughly awoken by the release of a relatively small snow slab directly above the tent. Dynamic simulations have shown that even a relatively small slab could have led to severe but non-lethal thorax and skull injuries, as reported by the postmortem examination. They panicked because they thought it was the beginning of a full-scale avalanche and tried to flee for safety to their base camp. However, in the extremely low temperature didn’t get very far.
[B]
- I believe this is also an abductive argument. I think that this is a good argument because based on the evidence provided we can conclude the reason for death. I think that this is a strong argument because if the hypothesis were true the observations would be unsurprising, however, if the hypothesis was false said observations would be surprising that those were not the reasons that caused their death, therefore making this a strong argument.
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