Your friend notices that u. s. auto production and u. s. population growth have moved together over several decades. he reasons that one way to slow population growth is for the government to order the auto makers to cut back on production. you gently point out to him that he:

he is making assumptions

Explanation:

Based on the information provided within the question you can gently point out to him that he is making assumptions. Your friend is basically providing a cause to a situation without having any evidence only the correlation between two variables that are otherwise not connected at all. There can be a vast list of reasons why U.S population has grown and with more population means there needs to be more cars being produced. Yet there are no facts indicating that a reduction in auto production will cause a reduction in US population.

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answer; symbolic interactionism;