Q14 - Astronomer: Does a recent meteorite

[shirando21]

can anyone analyze this one? I was totally lost on this one.

[O LSAT Why Art Thou A Pain]

I'll take a shot...

Prof Tagar believes that structures found in the meteorite aren't fossilized bacteria because there's something wrong with their size. The astronomer says that Tagar is wrong. Why is Tagar wrong? B/c he refuses to accept the view of 2 other biologists who believe ("maintain") that the fossilized bacteria size is not an issue.

Here's whats happening: X says A is wrong b/c B believes something contrary to what A believes in.

The flaw here is that the astronomer is simply accepting the 2 biologists' position. No proof is provided. Why should we accept the biologists' position and discard Prof Tagar?

Think of it this way: John says this is hydrogen. But he is wrong because Mary maintains this is oxygen. Why should we trust what Mary has to say and not believe John? No proof is provided.

[rinagoldfield]

This stimulus is stuffed with extraneous information. Let’s break down the argument to its essential core:

Tagar the biologist doesn’t accept the views of two other biologists, Swiderski and Terrada

-->

Tagar’s view cannot be right

There’s a huge gap in this argument! The astronomer assumes that Swiderski and Terrada have greater authority than Tagar, and bases this assumption on... nothing.

I like O LSAT’s analogy above; here’s another one:

Jenny thinks fire is hot.
But she’s ignoring Jane and June, who say that fire is cold.
Therefore, Jenny’s view that fire is hot must be wrong.

Who’s to say that Jenny’s view is less valid than Jane’s or June’s? Similarly, who’s to say that Tagar’s view is any less valid than Swiderki’s or Terrada’s?

We’re looking for a flaw in the answer choices:

(A) isn’t the flaw; it doesn’t matter whether or not the biologists have ALWAYS held these views.

(B) correct! There’s no reason why should we accept Swiderski’s and Terrada’s views over Tagar’s; this is the flaw.

(C) The authority granted to Swiderski and Terrada is arbitrary, and is therefore unconnected to the fact that they are two people while Tagar is one. This isn’t the flaw.

(D) Swiderski, Terrada, and Tagar do indeed take contradictory positions, but this isn’t the flaw. The flaw concerns which position to believe.

(E) The argument does the opposite! The astronomer doesn’t assume that all views are equal justified; on the contrary, he randomly assumes that some views are more justified than others.

[shirando21]

Thank you, both. now I see how B is correct and D is not a flaw.

does " appeal to" in D mean ask for support?

[Djjustin818]

I really wanted to choose B because I knew it was the correct flaw but I thought they were trying to trick me...

The Astronomer holds that Tagar (one authority) is wrong because he doesn't accept the views of Swiderski and Terrada (two authorities). Thus, before even going to the answers I noticed the flaw was that the argument provides no justification for giving preference to the views of two authorities over the one.

BUT, the answer choice says the opposite: that the argument provides no justification for giving preference to the views of ONE rather than the other TWO competing sets of authorities... But he doesn't do that. The astronomer is in favor of the TWO competing sets of authorities RATHER than the one.

This is why I didn't choose this answer. I wasn't sure if it was still a flaw. Could someone help me out here?

[ohthatpatrick]

(B) isn't saying that the argument gave preference to ONE rather than TWO.

It says that the argument gave preference to ONE rather than the OTHER.

The TWO is just saying that there were two competing points of view to choose from. (Tagar's vs. Swiderski/Tarrada's)

I think LSAT chose the weirdly worded "sets of authorities" because it wanted a pithy, and possibly confusing way, of managing the fact that one view was held by one person (Tagar) and the other view was held by two people (Swiderski and Tarrada).

(A "set" can consist of any nonnegative number of things. A set with nothing in it is called a 'null set' in math.)

Does this clarify things?

[Djjustin818]

Got it! I don't know how I didn't notice the "the other of two competing sets of authorities" part. I guess I just read too quickly and misinterpreted it.

Thanks for the clarification!

[ttunden]

D - this says the astronomer appeals to views that contradict rather than support eachother. This is wrong. The astronomer appeals to views(Terrada and Swiderski) that SUPPORT each other,not contradict. So eliminate because it is wrong

E - never assumes this. Doesn't assume opinions of ALL experts are equally justified.

C - no never does this. Never assumes anything about # of authorities supporting a particular hypothesis nor is this alluded to in any way.

A- not true. The argument does not assume the "ALWAYS" part. too strong/extreme.

So we are left with B which is the correct answer. If you need me to explain more, feel free to send me a message.

[nickek]

Lol

I too was confused with the wording.

"One rather than the other of two"

My eyes are starting to glaze :p

[rbisker]

I don’t quite understand why (C) can be ruled out. Yes, the argument never mentions that the more authorities supporting a hypothesis, the more valid it is. However, the answer says it “takes this for granted” In my mind that means, “presumes/assumes without justification”. If the Astronomer were making the assumption described in (C), he would not necessarily state it, and his conclusion, that Swiderski & Terrada are right while Tagar is wrong, would correctly follow. In that case the “flaw” would be that he’s making this assumption without justification/evidence, i.e. he is taking it for granted.

Can anyone explain where I’m going wrong here?

[snoopy]

I don’t quite understand why (C) can be ruled out. Yes, the argument never mentions that the more authorities supporting a hypothesis, the more valid it is. However, the answer says it “takes this for granted” In my mind that means, “presumes/assumes without justification”. If the Astronomer were making the assumption described in (C), he would not necessarily state it, and his conclusion, that Swiderski & Terrada are right while Tagar is wrong, would correctly follow. In that case the “flaw” would be that he’s making this assumption without justification/evidence, i.e. he is taking it for granted.

Can anyone explain where I’m going wrong here?

C says it assumes "that the number of authorities supporting a particular hypothesis" even though the author does not mention numbers in his argument, and the difference in numbers (one v. two) is not used to base his conclusion.