peg_city
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Q25 - Medical research findings are customarily

by peg_city Wed Jun 22, 2011 3:41 pm

Why is A right here?

for A, the part that throws me off is 'by a medical journal'

I don't see that anywhere in the stimulus.

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Re: Q25 - Medical research findings are customarily

by ManhattanPrepLSAT1 Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:11 pm

"Medical journal" is in the very first sentence and again in the conclusion (last sentence). The argument can be understood in the following way.

Peer review is the only way to protect the public from making decisions based on substandard research. Therefore, one needs to wait for publication in a medical journal in order to protect the public from making decisions based on substandard research.

The assumption being that publication in a medical journal is the only way to get research through the peer review process - best expressed in answer choice (A).

(B) may be the most tempting, yet incorrect, answer choice. The argument never claimed that only those folks on medical review panels have the expertise to evaluate the research, it simply claimed that pre-publication peer review was the only way to prevent erroneous information from reaching the public. This answer choice supports the premise, but it does not express a gap between the evidence and the conclusion.
(C) is irrelevant. The argument prevents the public from exposure to erroneous research by engaging in the peer review process before it is published.
(D) misses the issue. The argument is by what means is one able to protect the public from erroneous information, not about whether the public is actually protected or not.
(E) undermines the argument. Assumptions should not hurt the argument, but rather should support it.

Hope that helps, and let me know if that doesn't answer your question!
 
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Re: Q25 - Medical research findings are customarily

by zainrizvi Tue Mar 26, 2013 5:45 pm

Very confused.

So the stimulus states "Yet, prepublication peer review is the ONLY way for blah blah blah". This is a premise and not a conclusion.

Prepublication obviously necessitates that it occurs before the medical journal publishes it. So one will need to wait for it regardless of who is actually doing the peer reviewing (e.g. some third party or medical journal themselves)

Then why is the conclusion not well supported? "Therefore, waiting until a med journal has published...findings that have passed peer review.."

Basically the point I am trying to make is that regardless of who does the peer review, the process will always occur BEFORE publication and hence cause the "wait" until the med journal has published the research......hope this makes sense.
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Re: Q25 - Medical research findings are customarily

by ManhattanPrepLSAT1 Mon Apr 01, 2013 12:36 pm

zainrizvi Wrote:Then why is the conclusion not well supported? "Therefore, waiting until a med journal has published...findings that have passed peer review.."

I think you're focussing on the "waiting" aspect of the conclusion, when there's another part that might have slipped past you. Why do we need to wait for a medical journal to publish the research findings in order to get prepublication peer review? Couldn't the peer review occur through some other process?

The conclusion is very specific that we have to wait for a medical journal to publish the research findings. We can establish that peer review is necessary, but the argument fails to prove the need to wait for a medical journal to publish the research findings in order for the peer review process to occur.

Hope that helps!
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Re: Q25 - Medical research findings are customarily

by ttunden Sat May 03, 2014 2:00 am

I hope a question like this never appears on a modern day LSAT. This type of question should remain in the 90s.
 
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Re: Q25 - Medical research findings are customarily

by smsotolongo Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:35 am

I'm still a little lost because the stimulus says "Yet prepublication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and therefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on it's own." So it's saying the public can't determine what's good info and what isn't. Therefore you need to have the ability, knowledge, expertise etc. to evaluate medical claims.
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Re: Q25 - Medical research findings are customarily

by uhdang Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:21 pm

Hi,
I had a pretty tough time going though this question, too. I changed my reasoning multiple times while I was writing this down. But I feel like my reasoning is pretty solid. So, here we go.

This is a necessary assumption, so the correct answer should either "link a missing gap" or "defend the argument by eliminating a potential weak point."

Here is the Core:

Peer review delays public access + Peer review is the only way to prevent miscellaneous information from reaching public. ==> Waiting until medical journal publication is a legitimate cost to make sure public doesn't make substandard decision.

Argument sounded pretty airtight. Couldn't spot the missing link. (If anyone could point out one, please do) I concluded that this question is a "defender" type. So, I went for the answer choices to look for the one eliminating potential weakness.

A) Re-wording this sentence would read, "If peer review occurs, medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal." This necessitates "medical journal"-route when peer review is being done. In other words, there could be no other ways that peer review could be done, but to bring the findings to peer review via medical journal. What if research findings could be brought to peer review by some other ways? What if a local newspaper has decided to publish a medical research finding, and this newspaper company asked peer review panel to review this first and then publish the finding? This would actually indicate that "waiting until medical journal has published (conclusion)" would NOT necessarily be the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on substandard research. (Since this findings did go through peer review, it would be verified to be safe) Therefore, this answer choice defends the argument from a possibility of peer review-verified research findings to be accessible to public without going through medical journal.

B) This one was very tempting. But the argument only said that "peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous information to get to the public" and "a panel of experts reviews medical journals in peer review." The argument never stated that a medical review panel has necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research findings. So this has no influence on medical review panel. What this ACTUALLY does is to influence a part of a premise, "a public that is ill-equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own." B) just strengthens this premise. It's a premise booster. No influence to the gap between premise and conclusion.

C) This would weaken the argument, because whether they go through the peer review or not, public won’t have the access anyway. Thus, this hurts the conclusion.

D) We are concerned with whether it is an appropriate cost to wait for the publication of medical journal or not. How much of findings go through peer reviews and get published is not our concern. No influence on the core.

E) This would weaken the premise, "peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and therefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public." We are not looking for a premise-weakener.

I welcome any comments on my reasoning.
"Fun"
 
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Re: Q25 - Medical research findings are customarily

by donghai819 Thu Jan 21, 2016 9:16 pm

To those who feel really confused:

I felt confused too until I recognize the pattern here.

Take a look at this argument:

Essential metabolism of human body needs salt and joggers lose a tons of salt when they are jogging. Jogger should eat vitamin supplements daily.

Is "people cannot intake enough vitamins through eating vegetable" a necessary assumption for this argument?

No, it is not. Because we are talking about "joggers".

In this question, the author talks about "pre-publication peer review via MEDICAL JOURNAL" is the only way. Can't someone else provide a pre-publication peer review? Such as a medical research center, a conference, and lab or whatever institutions related to the topic. If there are other options other than medical journal, then the argument is seriously weakened.


And it is also interesting to compare question 2 in section 4, to see how different two arguments of similar topic can be.