Q15 - Because of the lucrative

[mcrittell]

I actually got this question correct, but I'm not really sure why D is incorrect.

[noah]

Let's do a full run through.

The core of this argument is:

trimming the horns will eliminate the motivation for poaching --> trimming the horns will ensure the survival of the species.

How would you debate this? It's a pretty strong conclusion - ensuring the survival is no laughing matter! All we need is one problem that would somehow disrupt their survival...perhaps even one created by the proposed solution itself - how ironic! (B) blocks one of these possible problems. If we negate it, and no hornless rhino can procreate, how will the rhinos survive, let alone be happy ?

As for the wrong answers:

(A) is out of scope - we're only talking about rhinos.

(C) is tempting, but it's actually hurts the argument! We want to ensure the survival, (C) is a problem. Reversed!

(D) is tempting because it's hard to see how it relates. But, it doesn't really matter in the end whether the demand is constant, high, or low - will the trimming ensure the survival is the question at hand. If we negate this, and say that the demand will not stay constant, what does that mean? Is there more or less demand now? And even if it were more, will that mean folks will now go out and hunt hornless rhinos? That doesn't make sense, they're hornless!

(E) is similar to (C) - we want those rhinos to survive! (E) makes that more difficult. Reversed!

That clear it up?

[boy5237]

Hey Noah,

I was tricked into picking A because of the last statement:

therefore... thereby eliminating the motivation for pouching.

My initial anticipated answer was correct... that the removing horns wouldn't affect the likelihood of survival of rhinos.

But then when I saw that thereby.... I was confused whether therefore... was the conclusion or that one...

I applied negation test and found out that if A is negated: Most poachers who are discouraged from hunting rhinoceroses are likely to hunt other animals for their horns and "thereby" will make the argument fall apart because even removal of horns will cause them to be motivated to hunt for horns.

So... thereby doesn't do anything? it's like additional premise or something???

[noah]

Hey Noah,

I was tricked into picking A because of the last statement:

therefore... thereby eliminating the motivation for pouching.

My initial anticipated answer was correct... that the removing horns wouldn't affect the likelihood of survival of rhinos.

But then when I saw that thereby.... I was confused whether therefore... was the conclusion or that one...

I applied negation test and found out that if A is negated: Most poachers who are discouraged from hunting rhinoceroses are likely to hunt other animals for their horns and "thereby" will make the argument fall apart because even removal of horns will cause them to be motivated to hunt for horns.

So... thereby doesn't do anything? it's like additional premise or something???

This is a good example of where formulaic thinking can run you into a trap. "Thereby" is often used to indicate that we're moving to the conclusion, but here the 'therefore test' trumps: it makes more sense that the poaching motivation is eliminated, therefore it's an effective way to ensure the species survives than to think that it's an effective way, therefore it eliminates the poaching motivation.

As for (A), the issue is that it's about "other animals" which is outside the scope of the argument.

[WaltGrace1983]

I must say I am a bit confused on this one because, while I totally see why (B) is right, I have a really hard time eliminating (A). The core looks something like this...

(Periodically trimming horns off rhinos →) eliminate motivation for poaching
→
Periodically trimming horns off rhinos → effective way to ensure survival

The way that I see it, the author is definitely utilizing an intermediate conclusion. The author is saying that trimming off the horns of all rhinos would eliminate the motivation for poaching. The "thereby" solidifies this interpretation.

So while (B) rules out one possible way how the plan would backfire, (A) shows that there is a gap between trimming off rhino horns and eliminating the motivation for poaching entirely. The only way I can think of how this analysis would be invalid is if the "motivation for poaching" refers SPECIFICALLY to rhinos, and only rhinos. Otherwise, I think this question's ambiguity is a disaster.

What do you guys/girls think?

[christine.defenbaugh]

Interesting thoughts, WaltGrace1983!

I completely agree with you that there's an intermediary conclusion here. I see the core like this:

PREMISE: Poachers hunt rhinos because of the horns
INTERMEDIARY CONCLUSION: Removing the horns eliminates the motivation for poaching
CONCLUSION: Removing the horns will ensure rhino survival

There are two aspects to the question that you raise, one a bit more meta than that other.

First, I would argue that it's clear from context that the author is clearly talking about eliminating the motivation for poaching rhinos. It doesn't seem at all likely that the author is actually attempting to claim that removing rhino horns would somehow eliminate the motivation to poach, say, leatherback sea turtles in South America. Since poaching can quite literally describe any species anywhere, this interpretation just isn't reasonable in the context of the argument.

The second point is a more universal one. When an argument contains an intermediary conclusion, the author may make assumptions to attain that intermediary conclusion, and those assumptions are absolutely fair game for necessary assumption questions. However, the intermediary conclusion is only truly useful for the author in so far as it supports the final conclusion. So, if we were to find an assumption whose negation undermined/limited an intermediary conclusion, but did so in such a way that the intermediary conclusion was *still* perfectly valid support for the conclusion, that assumption would not actually be required for the entire argument to hold.

In this case, even if we were to read the intermediary conclusion as suggesting, bizarrely, that the motivation for ALL poaching would go away - then negating (A) would undermine the idea that ALL poaching would go away by showing that there are still some species getting poached. However, as long as the rhinos aren't getting poached, we haven't done any real damage to the final conclusion.

You see, the only reason it's permissible to go undermine the intermediary conclusion is because in doing so, one ultimately undermines the final conclusion. Undermining the intermediary conclusion in a way that does not damage the final conclusion is as good as out of scope.

However, I've never actually seen a trap answer that was demonstrably a necessary assumption for an intermediary conclusion and yet NOT a necessary assumption for the entire argument as a whole, so while it's theoretically possible to do, I'm inclined to think that the LSAT isn't quite this mean. Or at least, they've chosen not to be so far.

What do you think?

[WaltGrace1983]

Yea I see your point. The whole rhino poaching vs all poaching is frustrating because I guess I still see it as odd, but plausible. Hopefully a more modern test would be a bit more careful

[christine.defenbaugh]

Yea I see your point. The whole rhino poaching vs all poaching is frustrating because I guess I still see it as odd, but plausible. Hopefully a more modern test would be a bit more careful

I completely understand your frustration, here, but don't blame this particular issue on earlypreptest disorder. I've seen a lot of what that looks like, and this isn't it, I'm afraid.

The LSAT is very clear about expecting you to take the reasonable meaning of words in context. As much as we can 'mathize' a lot of the logic, you can't get away from that requirement.

And remember, even if we *did* read the argument that way, that assumption still wouldn't be necessary to the entire argument as a whole.

[MMeissner947]

THIS IS NOT A NECESSARY ASSUMPTION, EVEN IF NO RHINOS COULD ATTRACT MATES, THIS DOES NOT MEAN PROCREATION WONT HAPPEN. MAYBE IN THE WILD, ANIMALS NEITHER ATTRACT NOR CONSENT TO FORNICATING, OR MAYBE ZOOS OR ANIMALS ORGANIZATIONS ARTIFICIALLY INSEMINATE RHINOCEROS TO KEEP THE SPECIES ALIVE, PLEASE TELL ME AFTER THESE 2 VERY REAL and PRObable possibilities how B is a necessary assumption

[ohthatpatrick]

Necessary Assumptions, when negated, don't REFUTE the argument.

They WEAKEN the argument.

You're devising (far-fetched) ways of saving the rhinos to establish that negating (B) doesn't make rhino survival impossible.

That's too harsh of a standard to use one Necessary Assumption.

We could say:
Andy likes chocolate. After all, all boys like chocolate.

This argument must assume that "Andy is a boy". Negating that (i.e. "Andy is a girl") doesn't REFUTE the idea that Andy likes chocolate, but it weakens the argument.

Also, the word "probable" means "greater than 50% chance".

I think you meant "plausible", which has a much lower threshold of justification.

It is in no way "probable" (and not really even "plausible") that medical people chase down rhinos in the wild to artificially inseminate them, OR that animal sex in the wild is spontaneous, random, and nonconsensual.

Those are both incredibly exotic ideas, and the beginning of every LR section warns us against this stuff:
"You should not make assumptions that are by commonsense standards, implausible, superfluous, or incompatible with the passage"

More simply, think of Nec Assump as "Which answer, if negated, most weakens" and you're good to go.