Q15 - Almost all advances in genetic

[isoffan21]

Can you please diagram question 15 and review the correct answer choice?

Thanks,

Ally

[clarafok]

i'm also kind of confused with this question...

i chose A instead of D. here's my logic: the argument says that almost all advances in genetic research give rise to ethical dilemmas, and i just assumed that since the government is the exclusive funder, then they have fund more than corporations do, hence A, right?

and i don't really see why D is right. is it because if genetic research wasn't funded by the government or corporate funding, there would be no research, and hence no ethical dilemmas?

thanks in advance!

[giladedelman]

Thanks for your comments!

This is a great example of an inference question in which, despite all the clutter, only one sentence actually matters. In this case, it's the last sentence: "one or the other of these sources of funding [government or corporate] is necessary for any genetic research."

That information alone is enough for us to realize that answer (D) must be true, because as you put it, Clara, if there's no corporate funding and no government funding, then there's no research, and hence no ethical dilemmas arising from research!

All the other answer choices try to lure us into mistakes concerning the other information in the stimulus.

(A) is incorrect because although we know that government is the exclusive funder of most genetic research, we have no idea which genetic research leads to advances. Maybe all government-funded genetic research goes nowhere, and the minority of research that's funded by corporations is responsible for all of the advances! Because we don't know, we don't have support for this answer.

(B) is wrong because, again, we have no idea how much or which research leads to advances.

(C) see above!

(E) is tempting, but the stimulus only tells us what's true currently about genetic research. We have no idea whether this will continue to be the case, or whether it will change.

Does that clear this one up for you guys?

[legalrabbithole]

Like the original poster, I was wondering how to diagram the stem since that is my default technique for solving harder problems.

Under timed conditions, I diagrammed the stem like so:
advances in research --> ethical dilemmas
research --> funding

However, none of the answers really matched this. After reading the previous poster's explanation (very helpful!) I think this is how the stem should be diagrammed:

ethical dilemma -> research --> funding

therefore, D is correct because it states no ethical dilemmas result without funding aka ethical dilemma --> funding

I think what messed me up was the phrasing in the first sentence "almost all advances in genetic research give rise to ethical dilemmas" so I wasn't sure which one was the sufficient/necessary conditions.

Can anyone clarify or confirm this?

[chike_eze]

For me, the key to this question was keeping track of "advances in genetic research" (specific), and "genetic research" (general).

Most "advances in Genetic research" -> ethical dilemma
Most "Genetic Research" -> Govt funded (solely)
All "Genetic Research" either Govt, else Corporation
therefore,
some "Genetic Research" -> corporation (solely)

Inference:
advances in Genetic Research -> Genetic research -> Govt. or Corp (not both)

(D) True! advances in Genetic research results from Genetic research which is funded exclusively by either Govt, else corp.

(A) "Most advances in genetic research were funded by govt, not Corp." There is no way to conclusively prove this based on the fact set. It may be true, but it doesn't have to be true. (D), however, must be true.

[goriano]

Like the original poster, I was wondering how to diagram the stem since that is my default technique for solving harder problems.

Under timed conditions, I diagrammed the stem like so:
advances in research --> ethical dilemmas
research --> funding

However, none of the answers really matched this. After reading the previous poster's explanation (very helpful!) I think this is how the stem should be diagrammed:

ethical dilemma -> research --> funding

therefore, D is correct because it states no ethical dilemmas result without funding aka ethical dilemma --> funding

I think what messed me up was the phrasing in the first sentence "almost all advances in genetic research give rise to ethical dilemmas" so I wasn't sure which one was the sufficient/necessary conditions.

Can anyone clarify or confirm this?

I have the same exact question that legalrabbithole has

Why should the first sentence "almost all advances in GR give rise to ED" be diagrammed as

ED --most--> Advances in GR

as opposed to

Advances in GR --most--> ED

?

[giladedelman]

It shouldn't be; the second one makes more sense.

More generally, none of these diagramming attempts are free of mistakes. Rather than address each one, let me repeat a favorite point of mine: diagramming should not be anyone's default strategy. There are some inference questions that do lend themselves to diagramming, but this one doesn't fit the bill, because we don't have conditional statements that chain together. In this case, diagramming only makes things more complicated. Please do not mistake "most" statements for conditionals.

Let me know if there's anything unclear about my explanation above.

[timmydoeslsat]

It can be helpful to diagram the quantifying statements if you see an inference question that is revolving around this idea. Initially, I believed this may be at play with the 2 most statements, but as we can see the two most statements are concerning different terms:

We have:

AGR most Eth Dilemmas
GR most Govt. Exclus. Funder

We cannot infer anything from those 2 statements. Had the 2 left terms in those most statements been identical, we could have had a some statement built between Eth Dilemmas and Govt. Exclus. Funder.

We also know that:

GR ---> Govt. or Corp.

And what answer choice D says is something that must be true. You must have at least one of those sources of funding for ethical dilemmas resulting from AGR to exist.

[goriano]

It can be helpful to diagram the quantifying statements if you see an inference question that is revolving around this idea. Initially, I believed this may be at play with the 2 most statements, but as we can see the two most statements are concerning different terms:

We have:

AGR most Eth Dilemmas
GR most Govt. Exclus. Funder

We cannot infer anything from those 2 statements. Had the 2 left terms in those most statements been identical, we could have had a some statement built between Eth Dilemmas and Govt. Exclus. Funder.

We also know that:

GR ---> Govt. or Corp.

And what answer choice D says is something that must be true. You must have at least one of those sources of funding for ethical dilemmas resulting from AGR to exist.

Sorry, but I'm still not seeing it.

The relevant statements from the stimulus are:

(1) Advances in GR --most--> ethical dilemmas
(2) GR ----> Gov't or Corp funding

The only way I can see combining (1) and (2) is if we assume that advances in GR is sufficient to establish that GR occurred in the first place, which might be a legitimate assumption? The final diagram would thus look like

ethical dilemmas <--most-- Advances in GR ----> GR ----> Gov't or Corp funding

ethical dilemmas <--most-- Advances in GR ----> Gov't or Corp funding

We can only conclude that SOME ethical dilemmas that result from advances in GR had Gov't or Corp funding as its source, which is much weaker than what (D) says.

I'd like to know whether this final diagram (in red) is correct, and, if so, whether there would be a way to pick answer (D) from this picture alone. I know giladedelman has advised against the diagramming method for this question, but I've relied on this technique on so many occasions on inference questions similar to this that I don't know why it's not working out this time. Thank you for your patience!

[timmydoeslsat]

I would say that I personally would not diagram quantifying statements in that manner.

You are writing a most statement with a biconditional arrow and it presents itself as appearing to be read A most B....and B most A.

I just don't see it as very effective. If I gave you these 2 statements:

A most B

A ---> C

I would foresee a lot of arrows being used in your diagram.

Mine would look like this:

B some A ---> C

I have one arrow going in only one direction. I know that some statements are reversible. I know that most statements can reverse to derive some.

In regards to this problem, it is not an assumption to say that advances in GR is sufficient to establish GR occurred.

If we know we have advances in GR, we know GR has occurred. There is no assumption made.

I do not think there is one test taker that got this question right under timed conditions that diagrammed to get to the answer.

While the majority of the time for these inference questions involving quantifiers and conditionals we see diagramming lead us to the answer, this does not occur here.

We only need 1 sentence in the stimulus to arrive at choice D.

GR ---> Govt. or Corp.

If we ~Govt. and ~Corp., then we ~GR.

If we ~GR, we do not have advances from GR because GR doesnt exist.

Since advances in GR does not exist, we know that anything stemming from that does not exist.


In regards to your red diagrammed statement. You are incorrectly inferring what that is saying.

We know that some ethical dilemmas are of the sort resulting from advances in GR. Which means we know that some ethical dilemmas arose from funding through either Govt. or Corp.

The statement I believe you are having trouble with is this:

ED some AGR ---> G or C

This statement can be read: Some ethical dilemmas result from AGR that is funded either by G or C.

You are reading this statement by saying, "Some ethical dilemmas that result from AGR..."

No! We know for a fact that EVERY ethical dilemma that result from AGR is funded by G or C. I know more than some!

[giladedelman]

For my diagram fiends out there:

most advances in genetic research --> ethical dilemmas

most genetic research --> gov't funded

all genetic research --> either funded by gov't or by corporation

And now, STOP. We can't chain anything together.

Really, stop. At this point we must simply check the answer choices against our statements.

And, lo and behold, (D) must be true because ANYTHING resulting from genetic research has to be funded either by the government or corporations, according to the third statement. It doesn't matter whether it's an ethical dilemma or a Rob Schneider movie; if it comes from genetic research, it must have either government or corporate funding.

[denis468]

The argument stem states:
GF--> GR-->ED

Answer D states:

Not ED--> NotGF which equals to GF-->ED

[cyt5015]

I'd like to add a bit of my thoughts to this post. I think the premises are composed of causal and conditional logic. The first sentence "Almost all advances in genetic research GIVE RISE TO ethical dilemmas" is a causal statement instead of a conditional!
Therefore you cannot apply contrapositive rule to it, instead you need to use no cause, therefore no result relation.
Answer D is a mixture of conditional and causal rules:
conditional: -(government+corporate funding)-->-genetic research
-->-advances in genetic research
causal: -advances in genetic research-->-ethical dilemmas.
Can anyone look through my discussion and share some opinion about it?

[maryadkins]

Careful there. You're right that there's causation in the first sentence, but I want to clarify something important:

Causation doesn't mean "if you don't have the cause, you don't have the effect." I can say that my neighbor causes me to get mad, but that doesn't mean that if it's not my neighbor making me mad, it's no one and I'm never mad. So that part of your logic you want to lose and then remember this forever more!

The conditional part of your diagramming in (D) is correct. And from there, we don't need to say "no advances means no ethical dilemmas" because that's not what (D) is saying. (D) is saying that there aren't any ethical dilemmas THAT HAVE RESULTED FROM ADVANCES IN GENETIC RESEARCH that weren't funded by the government or corporate funding. The text in (D) takes care of the causal part for us.

Hope this helps.

[ganbayou]

Hi,

Is C wrong because it does not have to be must be true? "Since it says One or the other" I assumed there are some from are funded by corporations, but it is not necessarily true?

For some reason I feel starting this PT LR becomes kind of harder...Is only me who feel like this?

Thank you

[maryadkins]

Is C wrong because it does not have to be must be true? "Since it says One or the other" I assumed there are some from are funded by corporations, but it is not necessarily true?

Yes, your assumption is wrong. It is not necessarily true. Good catch. Do not assume this unless you are told it explicitly.

[atzhang6v6]

I'm just curious...
If C does not have to be true why does the stimuli say "those projects not funded by gpvernment are funded solely by corporations. One or the other...is necessary" anyway?
It's meaningless to mention this, isn't it?

[miaohualiu2014]

Hello all, I would like to share my thought of this question.
For this question, you'd better not use formal logic to diagram the stimulus, otherwise you may get caught on it, because there is no way to a form a logic chain. It says that Most Advances in Genetic Research cause Ethical Dilemmas. All Genetic Research are funded either by the Government or Corporates. if there is no G or C funding, there is no GR, and of course no A in GR, Therefore there is no ED raised from A in GR. Answer (D) match this point: ED —> G&C, ~G or ~C —> ~ED. That is the same thing of what we have analyzed from the stimulus.

[JeremyK460]

Statements:
Nearly all advances in genetic research give rise to ethical dilemmas.
The only source of funding for most genetic research is the government.
Projects that aren’t government funded are only funded by corporations.
All genetic research requires either government or corporate funding.

Breakdown / List:
R → G or C
not-G and not-C → not-R → not-A (→ not-E)

Most R is only G
(implied) Few R is C

Most A (of R) is E
(implied) Few A (of R) is not-E

Answer Choices:
(A) This is about proportion. This answer needs information about the public/private sector funding allotment of such advances. That info isn’t expressed. I don’t have the right kind of information to determine who’s funding them and at what proportion. For instance, here are two situations allowed by the logic:

100 genetic research projects.
10 genetic research projects resulted in advances.
8 genetic research projects that resulted in advances resulted in ethical issues.
60 genetic research projects are funded by only the government.
40 genetic research projects are funded by only corporations.

The 10 advances could be funded by either the government or a corporation.

(B) This is doing something similar to (A). There’s no information on the sources’ distribution of funding such advances.

(C) Similar to (B) and (A). There’s no such information about advances.

(D) This must be true. Nearly all advances in genetic research results in some ethical dilemma which means that a few advances in genetic research didn’t result in some ethical dilemma. Either way, when there’s such an ethical dilemma, either government or corporate funding must be present.

(E) This seems to place responsibility on the government, or at least presupposes the responsibility. The temporal terms of this answer don’t apply to the statements of a different temporality.