Since Professor Smythe has been head of the department, the most distinguished member of the faculty has resigned, fewer new courses have been developed, student enrollment has dropped, and the reputation of the department has gone down. These facts provide conclusive evidence that Professor Smythe was appointed to undermine the department. The reasoning in the argument is flawed because the argument ['bases a general claim on a few exceptional instances', 'overlooks the fact that something can have the reputation for being of poor quality without being of poor quality', 'fails to distinguish between a decline in quantity and a decline in quality', 'assumes that because an action was followed by a change, the action was undertaken to bring about that change']