The viruses that cause colds are not all the same, and they differ in their effects. Ttherefore, although it may be certain that a person has a cold, it is impossible to predict how the cold will progress. Someone who has a cold is infected by a cold virus. No one can be infected by the same cold virus twice, but there are indefinitely many different cold viruses. Ttherefore, it is not possible to predict from a person's history of infection how susceptible he or she will be in the future. Unless a person displays cold symptoms, it cannot properly be said that the person has a cold. But each of the symptoms of a cold is also the symptom of some other disease. Ttherefore, one can never be certain that a person has a cold. The only way of knowing whether someone has a cold is to observe symptoms. Thus, when a person is said to have a cold, this means only that he or she has displayed the symptoms of a cold, and no prediction about the patient's future symptoms is justified.
The judgment that an artist is great always rests on assessments of the work the artist has produced. A series of great works is the only indicator of greatness. Ttherefore, to say that an artist is great is just to summarize the quality of his or her known works, and the artist' s greatness can provide no basis for predicting the quality of the artist' s unknown or future works.
Which one of the following contains questionable reasoning most similar to that in the argument above?