Q24 - Agricultural economist: We can increase

[irini101]

I narrow down by elimination to B and C, and find out C actually restates part of the conclusion thus I choose B. But I am confused by "abandon conventional agriculture" (abd) and "modify agricultural technics" (mdf):

I diagram the stimulus as follows:

Premise:
biodiversity not decrease--> agricultrure production increase--> abd
conclusion:
eco growth sustain-->agricultrure production increase-->mdf

I see there's a gap between biodiversity... and eco growth..., but is mdf and abd the same thing? I was wondering should I also bridge the gap between mdf and abd as it seems they are two different things? (luckily there's no such choice otherwise...)

Please enlighten me! Thanks a lot!

[timmydoeslsat]

I thought about it this way:

Stimulus:



Increase Ag Production --------------Abandon conventional
without reducing biodiv. --------------agriculture

_______________________________________________________
Sustain Economic Growth ----------Increase Ag Production

Then we should radically modify agricultural techniques.


The "radically modify agricultural techniques" is meant to be an alternate way of saying abandon conventional agriculture.


So, the conclusion is really "Should abandon conventional agriculture" provided that we choose to sustain economic growth.

Notice that the premise of this argument has "Increasing Ag prod without reducing biodiversity" and the conclusion has "Increasing Ag prod."

We cannot validly reach the idea of abandoning conventional ag techniques in this argument unless we include the idea of not reducing biodiversity.

This would allow us to follow the chain of conditional logic.

Let me know if you would like to go over this more or if I was not clear.

[ohthatpatrick]

Nice response! I concur.

Although it's great to be skeptical about language shifts and detail creeps, I think we can all accept that "radically modifying our agricultural techniques" is 98% the same as "abandoning conventional agriculture". Radical and conventional are opposites, so doing something radical definitely involves abandoning convention.

The real trick was that the argument said:

in order to do A, while still getting B, we have to do C.

and the conclusion was essentially, "so if we're gonna do A, we have to do C."

If you wanted to argue with this author, you would just say, "You never convinced me we HAVE to keep B, so there's no reason I have to believe that C is our only method of accomplishing A."

The correct answer is telling us "You HAVE to keep B", which then forces us to believe that C really is our only option (hence, a valid conclusion).

[irini101]

You guys clear things up, thanks!

[joseph.m.kirby]

I found this problem a bit difficult. I diagrammed it as follows:

Define the variables:
IAP = Increase Agricultural Production
RB = Reduce Biodiversity
ACA = Abandon Conventional Agriculture
CSE = Choose to Sustain Economic Growth

Formulation:
IAP + ~RB → ACA
CSE → IAP
-------------------------
CSE → ACA

Given this formulation, what we need to know is the relationship between CSE and ~RB. Basically, if we choose to sustain economic growth, will that lead to reduced biodiversity? If so, that situation undermines the argument. Thus, (B) tells us that RB → ~CSE (contrapositive is CSE → ~RB).

I hope this formulation is correct (and makes sense).

Props to Matt for providing me additional guidance in correctly formulating this bad boy.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Hey joseph.m.kirby! I see a couple of points in your logic that you may want to adjust.

First, allow for them to say the same thing in slightly different ways. Otherwise, they would be a really dull read. "Abandoning conventional agriculture" is the same as "modifying conventional techniques."

Second, you need to add a premise. The argument has two premises and a conclusion.

IAP + ~RB ---> ~CA
EG ---> IAP

-------------------------
EG ---> ~CA

The argument works if we add that EG ---> ~RB. Best expressed in answer choice (B).

Notation Key: IAP - increase agricultural production, RB - reduce biodiversity, CA - conventional agriculture, EG - sustain economic growth

[SJK493]

Would this be a nested conditional? If it is please explain how it works

Thanks!