Q16 - The familiar slogan "survival of the fittest"

[anjelica.grace]

I got this one right, but I just wanted to know exactly why the other choices are wrong, particularly (C) and (D).

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

We're asked to find a necessary assumption of the argument. That means we're not looking for anything that justifies the reasoning, but rather something that needs to be true in order for the argument's reasoning to have a chance of working.

The argument concludes that the slogan "survival of the fittest" is neither informative nor of scientific value. Why? Because, while it is true, it is a tautology.

Answer choice (E) defends the argument from the case that being true is enough to make a claim of scientific value. If we were to negate answer choice (E), the argument's reasoning falls apart.

Incorrect Answers

(A) relates the two terms within the conclusion, without relating either to the evidence provided.
(B) relates the evidence to the conclusion, but in way that is irrelevant to the argument. It suggests that if a claim is of scientific interest, it must be true. Since the slogan is true, we couldn't even use this to support the claim that the slogan is not of scientific interest.
(C) supports the conclusion, but does not need to be true in order for the conclusion to be drawn. Even if popular slogans were generally informative and of scientific interest, the conclusion about the slogan discussed might still follow from the evidence.
(D) would justify the conclusion that this is not an informative scientific claim, but it is not needed to draw that conclusion. It's possible that some informative scientific claims use terms in ways that are the same as they are popularly used, while at the same time the particular slogan at hand may not be informative nor of scientific interest.

Hope that helps!

[uhdang]

Hi, I had a different reasoning for eliminating D) and didn't quite understand posted reasoning.

I simply thought that we are not given anything about "using terms in the way they are popularly used", so we don't even know HOW it would affect the argument. For the same reason, negating the answer choice does not impact the conclusion in anyway. So, I concluded it was irrelevant.

(D) would justify the conclusion that this is not an informative scientific claim, but it is not needed to draw that conclusion. It's possible that some informative scientific claims use terms in ways that are the same as they are popularly used, while at the same time the particular slogan at hand may not be informative nor of scientific interest.

While I can see how this would justify the conclusion, I did not quite get the later part of reasoning... When answer choice stated that "Informative Scientific claims cannot use term in the way they are popularly used", how is it possible "some informative scientific claims use terms in ways that are the same as they are popularly used"?

Could you check my reasoning and how I failed to understand the post?

[rinagoldfield]

Hi uhdang,

Thanks for your post! I'll just share my thinking on (D), which is a little different than any of the above.

I found (D) very tempting. The stimulus indicates that the slogan is familiar and mistakenly attributed to biologists; as a result, we can infer that the slogan is popular. Yet the author defines the slogan according to the biologist’s idea of “fittest” rather than according to any popular idea of the word. Thus one flaw in the argument is that the author assumes that the biologist’s meaning of “fittest” is relevant to the popular meaning of "fittest." However, the slogan would not be tautological if the popular meaning of "fittest" is "most physically attractive" or "most physically strong" or "smartest."

Hence, (D) was tempting to me. However, the author bases his faulty conclusion on the biologist’s definition of “fittest,” not the popular definition. (D), on the other hand, talks about claims that include popular definitions. Thus, choice (D) swaps the mistake made by the author.

What are your thoughts on this?

Best,
Rina

[uhdang]

Thank you for the reply!

After reading your post, I see why it was confusing for me when I saw "the way they are popularly used." I didn't think about other ways of interpreting the term 'fittest' than biologists' way. Your illustration of the fittest (i.e. smartest) helped me see this point. Thank you.

So then, if the answer choice stated, 'Informative scientific claims cannot use terms in the way biologists use.', would it be okay for an answer? Negation of this would be 'informative scientific claims CAN use terms in the way biologists use' and, since the argument disapproves of biologists' way of using the term as informative, this sounds like it would destroy the argument.

On second thoughts, the order of 'conditions' looks controversial. Since the argument puts its reasoning as, "Claim with Biologist's usage of term is NOT informative", I feel like sufficient condition and necessary condition should switch and say, "Using terms in the way Biologists use cannot be informative scientific claim."

Basically, what i'm asking is which could be a right answer choice between:

1) Informative scientific claims cannot use terms in the ways biologists use.
2) Using terms in the way Biologists use cannot be informative scientific claim.

What do you think?

[rinagoldfield]

Hi Uhdang,

Thanks for your further post!

Those would not be correct answers. The author isn’t saying the claim is meaningless BECAUSE it’s using scientific claims. As a result, she isn’t assuming that informative scientific claims cannot rely on scientific terms.

Let’s look back at the argument core:

Biologists say fittest means “most likely to survive”
-->
The popular use of the phrase “survival of the fittest” is tautological, even though it’s true
-->
That phrase is of little scientific interest

There are assumptions between the premise and the intermediate conclusion, and between the intermediate conclusion and the final conclusion. Between the premise and the intermediate conclusion, the author assumes that the biological meaning of the term “fittest” is how the term is used in this phrase. Between the intermediate conclusion and the final conclusion, the author assumes that tautological claims are not of interest, and that truthfulness cannot make a claim interesting on its own.

Remember: assumptions must connect the author’s given premises (the “because” of her argument) to her conclusion.

[uhdang]

Thanks for the reply.

First of all, I didn't know this argument has a form of Premise - Intermediate Conclusion - Conclusion. Gap seems to be clear now. I can see that I made a mistake of trying to connect Premise (Biologists' way of interpreting a term) to the Final Conclusion (informative scientific) directly. Like you said, I can see now that being used in scientific way is NOT the issue, but its being tautological is the issue. (which is apparent from Intermediate Conclusion - Final Conclusion relationship) Correct core analysis really helped me see that.

I'm not sure how LSAT test makers come up with questions, but to analyze D) a bit on how it is constructed, it seems that it's constructed by connecting Premise (Biologists' way of interpreting a term) and the Final conclusion (informative scientific) directly AND THEN switching the component of the premise from 'Biologists's way' to 'popular way.' Double Twist! (I'm just trying to get inside of a test maker's mind)

So, essentially, D) is not following the author's chain of reasoning. It's just connecting two components from the argument. So negating this doesn't have any effect on the argument.

Thanks again for the help! If there is any arguable elements in my reasoning, please let me know.