Q17 - Columnist: It is impossible for there

[aidanmenzul]

I picked A but I'm having trouble pinpointing the flaw in the argument.

[giladedelman]

Thanks for posting -- this is an interesting question!

The argument concludes that it's impossible to have real evidence that lax radiation standards led to increased cancer rates. This conclusion is based on the premise that it's impossible to determine the cause of any particular case of cancer.

Well, hang on a second! Just because we can't tell what caused a particular case of cancer, does that mean we can't find evidence of something contributing to an increase in the rate of cancer?

For example, imagine if Town X and Town Y are exactly identical in every single way save one: Town X is near a factory, and Town Y is not.

Now, if Mr. Smith from Town Y gets cancer, we probably wouldn't be able to pinpoint the cause. But if 30% of the residents of Town X have cancer compared to 5% of Town Y, and they only differ in that one has a factory and one doesn't, then we could potentially infer something about the relationship between the factory and cancer rates. (Though strictly speaking, all we'd know is that there's a correlation.)

(A) is correct because it identifies this flaw in the argument. Just because individual causes may not be known doesn't mean it's impossible to have real statistical evidence about the rate of cancer overall.

(B) is incorrect because the argument does the opposite: it says that we can't determine the cause of something just because it followed something else.

(C) is tempting, but the argument never deals with a particular case of cancer. It talks about particular cases of cancer, but in general!

(D) is incorrect. Again, the argument does the opposite: it suggests that there may have been other causes.

(E) is also tempting, but be careful: the conclusion says that we can never have real evidence about a causal claim, but it doesn't say that the claim is false.

Does that clear this one up for you?

[aidanmenzul]

Yes, I've seen a several questions like this before and always get what they were hinting at but your insight gave granularity on what's behind it.

[WaltGrace1983]

Awesome analysis! Really helpful! I thought that there was some tough stuff going on with this question so I'll add a bit of insight too!

Cannot determine the cause of cancer
→
Cannot find any evidence that lax radiation standards contributed to cancer

The argument is basically saying that "we don't know what caused X so therefore there is clearly no evidence for what contributed to X." In other words...

~know the cause → ~have evidence for what contributed to X.

Also, this is saying...

have evidence for what contributed to X → know the cause.

Very interesting. Now let's imagine another situation. John gets salmonella. John ate at a variety of restaurants in a span of 24 hours, one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now clearly we don't know the cause of his salmonella. It could be the case that any one of the foods he ate at any of the restaurants gave him this food poisoning. However, does this mean there is no evidence that something - maybe a restaurant or a food - simply contributed? Probably not! Sometimes restaurants will appear on the news with an apology to people who ate there because they found out that some of their meat was bad, sometimes someone who ate with you will get the same food poisoning, etc. There can absolutely be evidence! Now this doesn't PROVE anything...but that's another story for a different question.

(B) Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc. This is saying that if Y comes after X, X caused Y. In this argument, we actually have no idea what caused Y so this is all a moot point.
(C) This is not about one particular case.
(D) I actually think it may be doing this. It does so that a particular cause of cancer is due to radiation, exposure, smoking, diet, of genetics. So it may actually be ignoring other factors that can cause cancer. But not only is this question only focusing on the premise, it is just simply not the flaw of the argument!
(E) Interesting. However, look at this closely: "The argument concludes" that a "causal connection is false" because of "lack of evidence" for the claim. In other words..

Lack of evidence → Causal connection is false

This has it ALL backwards. The argument is actually concluding a lack of evidence! Furthermore, it is assuming (the premise) that the causal connection is indeterminate! Not false, exactly.

(A) is right because it points to the flaw of the argument. We have already analyzed this.

[WaltGrace1983]

If (E) had been flipped around a bit to say, "The argument concludes a lack of evidence on the basis of a lack of a known causal connection," would it have been right? It seems that (E) is very close but just turned around a bit.

Also, doesn't (D) actually happen even though it is NOT the flaw? The argument says, "who can say if its X, Y, or Z?" Doesn't this exclude the possibility of the cause being "A, B, C, etc.?"

[nja21]

If (E) had been flipped around a bit to say, "The argument concludes a lack of evidence on the basis of a lack of a known causal connection," would it have been right? It seems that (E) is very close but just turned around a bit.

Also, doesn't (D) actually happen even though it is NOT the flaw? The argument says, "who can say if its X, Y, or Z?" Doesn't this exclude the possibility of the cause being "A, B, C, etc.?"

If it were turned around then it would be a correct answer. It would be like arguing There will never be any evidence that A contributes to B's existence because we don't know what caused B.

(D) Happens every time we are faced with a causal argument. All the causal argument are at risk of ignoring other possible causes unless the stimulus says it is proven that A and only A causes B.

Hope this helps.

[jasonleb1]

I originally chose A but then I changed my answer (to E, which I now can see is wrong) because I thought A was making the correlation != causation flaw. Having statistical evidence can never prove causation. Did I go too far and assume that A was saying the statistical evidence would show that the standard CAUSED the cancer?

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, the same light wording in the conclusion ALLOWS us to pick (A) and PREVENTS us from picking (E).

'Evidence' is not the same thing as 'Proof'.

'Evidence' can strengthen/weaken a hypothesis/claim/accusation without actually proving or refuting it.

Correlations DO strengthen causal claims. LSAT authors are hated on because they are overconfident in thinking that correlations prove causal claims.

This author's conclusion is that you could never have "real evidence" (a match for "convincing evidence") for the idea that nuclear reactors CONTRIBUTE (have a causal influence, but not necessarily a definite or exclusive causal influence) to cancer.

When you're analyzing a flaw answer choice like (E):
the argument CONCLUDES ______ ON THE BASIS OF _______ ,
you're essentially just making sure that the 1st blank matches the conclusion and the 2nd the premise.

So I would start by trying to match what (E) says about the conclusion:
"the author concludes that a claim about a causal connection is false".

Does that match?

Not really. Our author didn't say "nuclear reactors DO NOT CAUSE cancer". He said something closer to "there's no way to prove/support a causal connection".

That's as far as you need to read into (E) to know it's wrong. It accuses the author of concluding something the author didn't conclude.

When you see a Flaw answer choice with the structure of:
"fails to consider/recognize" that ________ even if / even though _______

The 1st blank should sound like the Anti-Conclusion, and the 2nd blank should sound like the premise.

For example:
Bill is left handed. Thus Bill is clumsy.

Possible correct answers:
- the author concludes a claim about clumsiness on the basis of a claim about handedness.

- the author takes for granted that left handed people are clumsy

- the author fails to recognize that someone may be graceful even if that person is left handed.

So (A) perfectly matches the Anti-Conclusion ('impossible for there to be real evidence' vs. 'there may be convincing statistical evidence') and the Premise ('who can say if a particular case is due to ...' vs. 'individual causes cannot be known')

[LolaC289]

One more question on this question. If Factor X does indeed contribute to the formation of Phenomenon Y, can we say there is Causal Connection between the two?

Just want to make myself clear what role does "contribute to" plays in an argument.