Q16 - Henry: Some scientists explain

[skapur777]

I'm stuck here between B and C. I ended up picking B (of course the wrong answer) but here is my reasoning:

B- I suspect Henry would disagree with this one, seeing how he finds another method that honeybees could use and thus he says the dance cannot be for the same thing.
As for Winifred, he goes into this thing about how animals have several ways of accomplishing critical tasks, but doesn't agree that there is more than one valid explanation or disagree. He just says 'not necessarily', which means there COULD be one valid explanation for the dance or multiple. Thus this is wrong?

C- Henry would disagree...we don't know for sure what Winifred thinks? I guess from the last line, we can infer that since scent trails are supplementary that the honeybees use the dance to locate food too? Doesn't this kind of require a jump from saying that scent are supplementary and going from that to saying that he thinks honeybees use dance to locate food? What if using dance was wrong, it could still be true that scent trails are still supplementary...

[bbirdwell]

It really helps to nail down the facts from each side first.

Henry:
1. honeybees don't need the dance to communicate food info
2. some bees just leave a scent
3. must be another explanation for the dance

Winifred:
1. there doesn't necessarily have to be another explanation
2. most animals have a few ways of doing important stuff
3. bees can use the sun or landmarks
4. for honeybees, scent is supplementary, not exclusive

(A) is not mentioned by either speaker

(B) Henry -- we don't know how many explanations Henry thinks there are -- just that food location is not one of them. Same with Winifred -- we don't know how many. At least one, and maybe others.

(C) I hear what you're saying. I do think the "supplementary" in the last sentence is helpful. I also think we can infer that Winifred agrees with this one through structural means (the big picture of what her argument is designed to do). "Not necessarily" is basically a nice way of saying "You're wrong," and then all the evidence she mentions is used to support the idea that the dance is used to communicate food. Henry clearly disagrees.

(D) W disagrees. H we don't know.

(E) they both agree.

Hope that helps!

[mrueda08]

I'm confused. My book says "B" is the correct answer. It appears you're saying that "C" is the correct answer. Please further clarify your explanation of why "C" is correct and "B" is incorrect.

Thanks!

[tommywallach]

Hey Mrueda,

Nope. (C) is the accredited answer (I'm looking at the original LSAT 19 right now).

-t

[roflcoptersoisoi]

Henry: There must be some other explanation for the honeybees dance.
Why? Because they don't need such a complex mechanism to communicate such information.
Foreager bees communicate such information using a scent trail.

Winifred: There need not be another explanation for the honeybee dance, i.e., the dance could conceivably be a mechanism to communicate such information.
Why? Many species of bees have several different ways of achieving critical tasks.

Point of disagreement: Whether the honeybee dance is a mechanism for bees to communicate to location of whatever source of food they've found.

(A) This is unique to Henry. He over extrapolates the behaviour of forager bees to all bees in order to make his point
(B) Tempting but this is unique to Winifred's point, when he/she discusses that some bees can navigate using either memory marks or the position of the sun, to justify the his/her claim. Henry doesn't disagree that there may be different ways to achieve a critical tasks, just that in this case dancing isn't one of them.
(C) Bingo. Henry argues that this cannot be the case because they don't need to do this. Winifred argues that they could still use this method because some species of bees have several ways of accomplishing the critical tasks.
(D) This is not discussed by either.
(E) This is unique to Henry's argument.