Q1 - In his new book

[WaltGrace1983]

I have problems with this question. I’ll go through my thought process first and then I’ll go to the answer choices. I’d appreciate insight.

R imputes bad faith on researchers disagreeing with him
+
R says that other investigators have their findings determined by funders
+
R is arrogant, ambitious, and nasty
→
R’s book about "complex scientific research" does not merit attention from serious professionals

I think the most important point here is premise 3. Premise 3 is just saying "he’s nasty and arrogant" so THEREFORE "serious professionals shouldn’t give him any attention." This overall seems like an attack on the person rather than his book. In fact, it never really even mentions the actual book other than simply saying that in the book he attacks people. This is what I am thinking of when I go to the answer choices and I’ll start with the wrong one’ first...

(B) So this is saying "Contrary to funder’s interests → unlikely to report" and thus "likely to report → in line with funder’s interests." From the contrapositive especially, we can actually see that this goes pretty much with one of the premises. Maybe research gets reported only if it is line with the interests of the funders and, thus, the funders kind of "determine" the findings. Okay but wait. This says NOTHING about the premise-conclusion relationship! All we did was just agree or question a premise. We still need to evaluate the relationship between the premise and the conclusion.

(C) The argument is not necessarily about a "scientific theory." It is about a book. Maybe the book is just summarizing data without positing any theories. Due to the derth of information on the book, we cannot really say anything about anything not related to a "book" in specific. Also, we aren’t giving a biased account of anything WITHIN the book. We are giving a biased account of the person. Premise 1 is objective. Premise 2 is objective (although the argument does say that premise 2 is "a troubling aspect"). Premise 3 is a biased view...towards R.

(D) No. Premise 1 and 2 are verifiable. Premise 3 may be based on strong conviction though it is arguably verifiable.

(E) "Sufficiently interesting"? We don’t need to know anything about it being "sufficienty interesting."

Now we get to (A), the correct answer but a problematic answer. Who wants to defend the LSAT here?

A) "Using an attack on character"...good. "of the writer of the book"...good. "as evidence that this person"...getting warmer. "Is not competent in matters of scientific substance." WHAT? Is it just me or is this WAY TOO STRONG. Maybe the book shouldn’t merit attention because it is written with bias or maybe it shouldn’t merited attention by serious professionals for other reasons. However, I have a really hard time believing this answer as true because it could very well be that this man is competent in "matters of scientific substance." I mean really! "Matters of scientific substance!" That is a huge area to generalize upon. Maybe even if he wasn’t competent on what the book is about he could still be competent in a few other matters of scientific substance not discussed. I just really don’t like this answer choice and I was hesitant to pick it for that very reason. I thought maybe I grossly undervalued the rest of them.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Some really interesting thoughts here, WaltGrace1983!

I will admit that I don't love the wording of this answer choice. My strategic side is reminding me that since it is question 1, I shouldn't obsess over the language too intensely, and also that all 4 wrong answer choices are wildly off the mark. My analytical side is a bit bothered though.

The argument seems to boil down to this:

PREMISE: R is a meaniehead and says nasty things.
CONCLUSION: R's book on complex scientific research does not merit attention from serious professionals.

Flaw: uses character attack as evidence that R is science-incompetent.

For this to appropriately be characterized as the flaw, we do have to assume that if one were science-competent, in any way, that could by itself warrant some attention from serious professionals. Thus, the only way we can get to a conclusion of 'no attention' is if there's complete scientific incompetence.

While I don't love that we have to make this assumption, strictly speaking, it's actually not that far of a leap. Serious professionals are, by definition, both serious and professional. As such, one would think that if something were produced by someone with scientific competence, they would potentially give it attention.

Again, I don't love that the LSAT is being a bit looser here with the language than they often are, but at this point in the analysis, my strategic side takes back over and says "it may be a little sloppy, but I can see how one could make that connection."


As for your eliminations, great work on (C) and (D)! I have just a few comments on (B) and (E) though:

(B) I'd be wary about turning this into a conditional statement, and I'd be especially wary about contraposing a statement of likelihood - they get very strange. However, this worded as as assumption, so we should be able to easily employ the negation test. What if an investigator WERE likely to report finding contrary to the interests of those funding them? This would undermine the book-author's claim, but not the claims in this argument!

(E) While I understand the skepticism raised by the language of "sufficiently interesting", the entire phrase was "sufficiently interesting to merit attention", and since the conclusion is all about whether something merits attention, I would look for another reason to eliminate this. The "criteria of being true", however, is more problematic. This would only be a good connection if we had actually discussed or implied the concept of truth in the premises - but we didn't!


Overall, I agree with you that the correct answer is not quite ideal, but it's a small and relatively reasonable leap away, and the other four answers are so clearly wrong. I know that's not a deeply satisfying response!

[deedubbew]

Isn't the ad hominem attack in C a biased account? And I thought the scientific theory is the "complex scientific research;" in other words the scientific theory is about complex scientific research as a topic.

Some really interesting thoughts here, WaltGrace1983!

I will admit that I don't love the wording of this answer choice. My strategic side is reminding me that since it is question 1, I shouldn't obsess over the language too intensely, and also that all 4 wrong answer choices are wildly off the mark. My analytical side is a bit bothered though.

The argument seems to boil down to this:

PREMISE: R is a meaniehead and says nasty things.
CONCLUSION: R's book on complex scientific research does not merit attention from serious professionals.

Flaw: uses character attack as evidence that R is science-incompetent.

For this to appropriately be characterized as the flaw, we do have to assume that if one were science-competent, in any way, that could by itself warrant some attention from serious professionals. Thus, the only way we can get to a conclusion of 'no attention' is if there's complete scientific incompetence.

While I don't love that we have to make this assumption, strictly speaking, it's actually not that far of a leap. Serious professionals are, by definition, both serious and professional. As such, one would think that if something were produced by someone with scientific competence, they would potentially give it attention.

Again, I don't love that the LSAT is being a bit looser here with the language than they often are, but at this point in the analysis, my strategic side takes back over and says "it may be a little sloppy, but I can see how one could make that connection."


As for your eliminations, great work on (C) and (D)! I have just a few comments on (B) and (E) though:

(B) I'd be wary about turning this into a conditional statement, and I'd be especially wary about contraposing a statement of likelihood - they get very strange. However, this worded as as assumption, so we should be able to easily employ the negation test. What if an investigator WERE likely to report finding contrary to the interests of those funding them? This would undermine the book-author's claim, but not the claims in this argument!

(E) While I understand the skepticism raised by the language of "sufficiently interesting", the entire phrase was "sufficiently interesting to merit attention", and since the conclusion is all about whether something merits attention, I would look for another reason to eliminate this. The "criteria of being true", however, is more problematic. This would only be a good connection if we had actually discussed or implied the concept of truth in the premises - but we didn't!


Overall, I agree with you that the correct answer is not quite ideal, but it's a small and relatively reasonable leap away, and the other four answers are so clearly wrong. I know that's not a deeply satisfying response!

[WaltGrace1983]

Isn't the ad hominem attack in C a biased account? And I thought the scientific theory is the "complex scientific research;" in other words the scientific theory is about complex scientific research as a topic.

Some really interesting thoughts here, WaltGrace1983!

It is not the scientific theory that the author is biased towards I don't think. A question matching this would probably involve two competing scientific theories and the proponent of one saying that the other is wrong for dumb reasons. Instead, I think the author - if anything - is just attacking the character of R. This is a bit different.

[renata.gomez]

can someone go more into how A works?

Thank you!