Q4 - Ecologist: Before finding a mate

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Strengthen

Stimulus Breakdown:
Male birds stop decorating their nests with smelly plants once the egg-laying starts. Therefore, they probably do it to attract mates.

Answer Anticipation:
This question falls into the phenomenon/explanation pattern, which is similar to a causal argument. Generally, the correct answer in a Strengthen version of this will rule out an alternative explanation, or it will give evidence to boost this explanation (answers which will be similar to our regular Correlation/Causation Strengthen answers).

Correct answer:
(D)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Tempting. This answer choice is trying to get you to think it's ruling out an alternative cause (getting rid of parasitic insects). However, the issue is with parasites attacking nestlings, so this answer about adult birds being protected is out of scope.

(B) Opposite. This answer choice suggests that the practice is done to protect from parasites, an alternative theory.

(C) Opposite. This answer choice suggests that the practice is done to get robust children, an alternative theory.

(D) Bingo. This answer is similar to a Same Cause/Same Effect answer. When a female is around (but can't get to the male), it brings out the big guns to attract her - more smelly plants (is this like bird cologne?).

(E) Out of scope. If the ecologist is correct, the male birds just care about attracting female birds, so the impact of the plants on the nestlings is out of scope.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Arguments that offer an explanation for a phenomenon are almost identical in approach to Correlation/Causation arguments.

#officialexplanation

[KelliW299]

Question about the stem - when it asks us to strengthen the support - isn't that asking us to strengthen the evidence (premises)?

Thanks!

[christine.defenbaugh]

No, it's just (in my opinion) somewhat sloppy wording.

Usually, strengthen questions have phrasing such as:

• ...most strengthens the argument...


• ...provides the most support for the conclusion...


• ...adds the most support for the argument...


• ...most strongly supports the reasoning...

This phrase, "most strengthens the support" hasn't shown up all that often. It does appear on PT75, S1, Q9, but that may be the only other location.

I don't love the phrasing, but I believe what they really mean is "strengthens the support by adding new evidence to the existing evidence - thus making the overall 'support stuff package' better/stronger." The answers to both this question and the one from PT75 confirm that this is meant to behave exactly like a typical strengthener.

Since we're meant to treat premises in arguments as accepted facts, it would be really, really weird for the LSAT to ask us to make those premises more likely than they are already taken to be. That alone should make you skeptical of reading this as anything other than a regular strengthen question.

[xjiang.xj]

When I read the stimulus, I thought it might be that males stopped using it because the aromatic plants were harmful to egg laying. When I read D, I didn't know how a caged female is related here. Then I came to E and E seemed to rule out my alternative explanation...

If E said the compounds were harmless to egg laying, would it rule out an alternative explanation?

[ohthatpatrick]

I feel ya, with how you were thinking about (E).

It's possible to lean on the fact that (D) seems like stronger evidence that the aromatic plants are related to adult females, and that type of answer would have more effect in making me believe the author's hypothesis than would simply ruling out one possible alternative explanation for why the birds remove the greenery once egg laying starts.

If I argued:
Jason is crying. Thus, he must be cutting onions

Which would strengthen more?
(A) He wasn't crying until he started cutting produce on the cutting board
or
(B) His dog didn't die today

(B) does strengthen, somewhat. But ruling out one alternative explanation for Jason's crying isn't making me as likely to believe the "cutting onion" hypothesis as (A)'s fact, which seems like pretty compelling evidence that his crying is connected to his cutting.

Another thing with (E) is this ... we have two different hypotheses for why male starlings put aromatic plants on the nest:
1. it's to protect their babies
2. it's to attract mates

If I told you that "the aromatic plants are harmless to the babies", then that would support #1 and be compatible with #2.

If I told you that "the aromatic plants are harmful to babies", that would undermine #1 and therefore strengthen #2.

You're thinking about "how ELSE can we explain why they got rid of the greenery once the egg laying started"?

But the causal question the conclusion is meant to address is
"What is the function of the decorations?"

The two available answers to THAT question are "to protect nestlings" or "to attract mates".

(E) seems to help strengthen the plausibility of the first answer, rather than the author's.

[EmilyL849]

Hi, Gurus

So, I have a question on (C).

The Ecologist is arguing "the cessation of an activity is due not to one cause, rather the other".
His reasoning is that even if decoration is potentially helpful to nestlings, male starlings stop after egg laying starts.

I thought 'what if the reason why males stop is because once egg laying starts, there is no need of protection?' If so, his argument that decoration done to attract female would be weakened.
Therefore, if it could be shown that although nestlings still need the protection, males stop decorating, this could strengthen the argument. Then, really the motivation must have been to attract female.

With this reasoning (C) seems to strengthen.
If nestlings grow faster in nests with aromatic plants, it means parasitic threats are not just "potentially harmful" but indeed harmful.

Could you point out where my reasoning has gone awry?

Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

I think the complexity of your thinking prevented you from seeing the simplicity of how the test writers are intending these two answers: (C) and (D).

This is a "Curious Fact" type argument (i.e. causal explanation).

CURIOUS FACT:
why, before they've even found a mate, do we find male starlings decorating their nests with fragrant plants?

EXPLANATION 1:
the fragrant plants are there to protect the nestlings (since these plants are known to kill parasitic insects who could harm a nestling)

EXPLANATION 2:
the fragrant plants are there to attract females (since the male stops decorating once a female finally lays an egg in his nest)

(C) definitely sounds like it helps Theory 1
(D) definitely sounds like it helps Theory 2

That's the simple way in which we'd see (C) as strengthening the other theory and (D) as strengthening the author's theory.

The logical problem with your storyline is that you were conceiving of an alternate explanation that was too implausible to be worth ruling out:

"the male starling is adding these fragrant plants in order to protect nestlings .... when the nest is still empty and he hasn't even found the female he's mating with .... and then when the egg is first laid in the nest, he stops adding plants because the egg/nestlings no longer need protection?"

You'd be arguing that putting the fragrant plants on the nest before there's even an egg on there offers enough parasite-killing juice that nothing more would need to be added for the entire duration of the egg's incubation and the entire duration of the nestling's stay in the nest.

A nestling, I assume, is not the bird inside the egg but rather the bird once it's come out of the egg and lives in the nest.

You said:
'what if the reason why males stop is because once egg laying starts, there is no need of protection?'


The biggest need for protection would be weeks after the egg laying starts, when the nestling is actually in the nest, potentially exposed to insects.

Hope this helps.

[StratosM31]

Quick comment on (A): actually it does rule out a potential alternative cause. The actual flaw of the argument is the fact that the ecologist jumps into a conclusion by ruling out a hypothesis. Means we have to find AC that either a) strengthen the rule-out of the initial hypothesis or b) show further evidence for the conclusion or c) rule out other potential causes.

The problem I see with (A) is that, although it rules out another potential cause, it is not as strongly supporting the argument as (D), which actually fills the gap of the lacking evidence regarding why the hypothesis of attracting females should be correct.

[JeremyK460]

(B) does strengthen, somewhat. But ruling out one alternative explanation for Jason's crying isn't making me as likely to believe the "cutting onion" hypothesis as (A)'s fact, which seems like pretty compelling evidence that his crying is connected to his cutting.

(b) is talking about the number of parasites.
the stimulus is an explanation about the purpose of a behavior

although more/less parasites most likely means more/less danger, the threat of a parasite whether there’s one or a million is nonetheless a threat.

let’s say there’s only one parasite:
given the information we have, can we really measure the level of threat? what’s our metric?
can we really say that one parasite is more or less threatening than ten parasites? maybe. idk.

this makes (B) not too effective, if effective at all