Q12 - People in the tourist industry

[aidanmenzul]

I got the right answer (D), but just wondering what are some ways that you could see this flaw in reasoning disguised in the answer choices for some of the tougher questions?

[giladedelman]

Great question! You've made a very insightful observation: the LSAT could make this problem a lot harder by making the answer choices more difficult to sort through. Let's run through the problem quickly, then discuss your specific question.

As it is, it's not tough for us to identify the flaw here. We're told that the tourist industry would never knowingly damage the environment because doing so would damage their industry, which they'd never knowingly do. From this intermediate conclusion, the argument then concludes that people concerned about environmental damage have nothing to fear from the tourist industry.

(D) is correct because it clearly expresses the glaring flaw: just because the tourist industry wouldn't knowingly do something doesn't mean that they might not do it unintentionally!

(A) is incorrect because the argument does offer support for that claim.

(B) is incorrect because the argument is explicitly about whether the tourist industry will cause, not merely coexist with, damage to the environment.

(C) is incorrect because the argument never shifts from "few" to "all"; it deals with "the tourist industry" as a whole the entire time.

(E) is incorrect because the argument doesn't say that anything is inevitable.

Okay, so, how could the LSAT have expressed the flaw in a trickier way? Well, one way the test makes answer choices harder is by shifting from concrete to abstract language. So instead of explicitly mentioning the tourist industry and harming the environment, the answer could look something like this:

(D) The argument fails to consider the possibility that a desire to avoid a certain consequence need not prevent that consequence from occurring.

Or this:

(D) The argument presumes, without providing justification, that not consciously causing a phenomenon is sufficient to avoid bringing that phenomenon about unintentionally.

I'm basically saying the same thing here, but instead of talking about the tourist industry and environmental damage, I'm replacing those specific terms with more abstract ones.

Does that answer your question?

[aidanmenzul]

It does...

I'm trying to become more familiar with the language that may be used. Especially when its done in the last part of the section when time is limited

[creek1262]

Hi, now that I see it again, I think that D is the best answer but I really thought that C was a good contender.
I guess I thought this way because it starts with "people in the tourist industry..." to the conclusion of "nothing to fear from the tourist industry."
Is this because they mentioned people in general terms, not subjecting to any quantifiers like some or most so it would be ok to assume that people = industry in this argument?

Thank you so much.

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, "people in the tourist industry" is used three times, and each time it seems to be treated as a categorical universal.

I think you're right that we could probably draw a distinction between "people in the tourist industry" and "the tourist industry".

For example, the latter includes "tour buses / tour boats / tour planes", all of which might do damage to a seaside environment.

It still seems like we're mainly meant to treat that mention of 'tourist industry' in the final sentence as a callback to who we've been talking about, but I would have definitely considered an answer choice that was like
(A) The argument fails to consider that non-human aspects of the tourist industry might still do damage to the seaside environment

The problem is that (C) can't be that answer for us, because it's not talking about shifting from talking about PEOPLE to talking about an ENTIRE INDUSTRY (the people and the vehicles and the laws and such associated with that industry).

It's talking about going from talking about a "A FEW PEOPLE" in the premises, to "ALL THE PEOPLE" in the conclusion.

If the premises said, "Some people in the tourist industry know that ..."
and the conclusion said, "and thus have nothing to fear from people from the tourist industry", then you'd have the shift that (C) is describing.

But the actual argument has premises saying
"All people in tourist industry"
and a conclusion saying "the tourist industry itself".

Hope this helps.