Q12 - Politician: Those economists who claim

[jaydizzle]

So, I narrowed it down to C and D. I see how D is correct, but why not C? It seems like the politician claims something is not true (the 3 percent increase) by bringing up examples of how it has been not so with the much higher increases in the things he listed. I do see how it is a small sample, so I agree with D. I just don't see how C does not work as well.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I can see why answer choice (C) would be tempting but the evidence used in support of the conclusion is that prices for certain products have increased. The evidence is not that there is no evidence to support the economists. Answer choice (D) relates the evidence with the conclusion, whereas answer choice (C) correctly describes what occurs in the conclusion (thereby making it sound like a good candidate), but doesn't lead off with the correct evidence.

(A) refers to an ad hominem attack. The argument questions the economists claim, not their motivations or personal character.
(B) does not describe something that the argument actually needed to accomplish.
(C) purports that the argument relies on evidence that is not currently in the argument. It is not ever established that there is no evidence in support of the economists claim, so how could that be the evidence?
(D) correctly states the flaw COMMITTED in the argument. I highlight the word committed because it's important to think about what the argument did that was wrong. The argument relies on evidence that was insufficient to prove the conclusion.
(E) is way off track. There is no emotional appeal. In order for this to be the right answer, we would need to see a plea for sympathy or something that appeals to our emotions, not just our budgets.

[fyami001]

Hi Matt,
I've read the previous back and forth about answer choice "C" but I'm still not understanding why it can be eliminated.

For me,the language of the answer choice"c" is really really throwing me off! Mainly because when I'm trying to substitute the particular statements within the abstracted answer it doesn't make sense to me.

Heres How I see it"
- Answer choice C says:
"mistakenly infers that something is not true from the claim that it has not been shown to be so"

-When I "plug in" the particular statements here's what it says:
The Politician's argument mistakenly infers that it is false to say that price increases have averaged less than 3 percent over the last year- from that claim that ?.

I'm not sure what "claim" they are talking about, is it the support that the politician gives for his argument that I would plug in, i.e.gas is up 10 percent, auto insurance 12 percent, etc. OR is the right thing to plug in the the claim that economists are making?

Thank you so much in advance for your help, this answer choice is so confounding for me.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Answer choice (C) suggests that the argument infers that the economists' claim - consumer price increases have averaged less than 3 percent over the last year - is false, from the claim that there is no evidence to support the economists' claim.

In the stimulus the argument does provide evidence, but the evidence one might suspect is unrepresentative. For answer choice (C) to be correct the last sentence shouldn't have been about the prices of several consumer goods, but should have said that the economist failed to provide any evidence in support of their view.

[jardinsouslapluie5]

(D).
It's vague for me to understand these samples are unrepresentative.
How do we know if these are small samples?
And what would be the non-unrepresentative samples for this argument?

Thank you.

[joseph.m.kirby]

The politician puts forward a small sample to support his/her argument, hence (D).

In regard to (C), the politician does make a claim (that economists are mistaken); however, this claim is not the claim (consumer price increases have averaged less than 3 percent over the last year) that (C) puts forward. Thus, the politician doesn't commit the flaw in (C).

Perhaps if the politician said, "Those crummy good for nothing economists that claim consumer price increases have averaged less than 3 percent over the last year are mistaken. No information has been provided to show that this information is true." If this were in the stimulus, (C) would be correct.

[michellemyxu]

I chose C and this is how I see it: [The politician] mistakenly infers that [the economists' claim that consumer price increases have averaged less than 3 percent over the last year] is not true, from the claim (referring to the politician's claim that "the economists have not shopped anywhere recently") that it has not been shown to be so (according to what's shown, 5 things are up >10 percent over the last year. The fact that consumer price increases were less than 3 percent is therefore not shown by evidence/the politician's observation).

Really can't see why C is wrong here Any help? Also, what would be a good number for samples to say that they are representative? For some reason I just find 5 to be already very representative...

[ohthatpatrick]

It will be way easier for you to eliminate (C) once you memorize the 10 Famous Flaws, since this is one of them (which we call "Unproven vs. Untrue").

This flaw is when an author ONLY presents negative evidence as positive proof of his conclusion.

"Cell phones clearly do not cause cancer. After all, no one has ever proven that cell phones cause cancer."

The author is mistakenly inferring that "avg. consumer prices have increased by more than 3%" from the evidence that "gas is up 10%, car insurance is up 12%, etc."

The author has some positive evidence for her conclusion. Thus we can't accuse her of relying on "They clearly haven't shopped anywhere".

(C) would describe an argument that sounds more like
"Economists claim that avg consumer prices have gone up less than 3%. However, they must be mistaken, since they clearly have not shopped anywhere or offered proof of their less than 3% figure."

There's no number for sample size that automatically makes it representative (other than something crazy like 95-100% of the data pool).

If I said "it looks like California is now almost 100% Democrats. I asked over 10,000 people in San Francisco and Berkeley what party they were affiliated with, and they almost all said Democrat."

10,000 is a robust sample size, but this isn't representative if I cherry picked my 10,000 Californians by looking at two of the most liberal, Democrat-leaning cities in the state.

Similarly, consumer price index presumably keeps track of nearly all consumer goods. Bread/newspapers/propane/gas/insurance are definitely five completely different categories, but they're still a tiny fraction of all the different types of things we might buy.

So if you were trying to say "the average price of these 1,000 goods has gone up more than 3%" ... how do I know? ... because these 5 things have gone up more than 5% ....

That's not very persuasive.

You don't necessarily need a large sample size to be representative. I could poll only 1,000 Californians, but as long as I polled them from an accurate cross-section of citizens (not an UNREPRSENTATIVE sample like San Francisco and Berkeley), my sample might be representative.