Q19 - The charge made above

[rdown2b]

Why is it D not B?

[timmydoeslsat]

This is a set of statements. It is not an argument.

I would say that the last statement, however, as this question stem shows, is a strong attack on alternative medicine.

We want to weaken this attack on alternative medicine that the author has made.

The author states that alternative medicine is free of side effects because how could you have side effects when the thing has no effects at all!

How can we weaken this?

Show a reason why alternative medicine has no side effects other than the fact of no effects at all!

Answer choices:

A) Predictions about orthodox has sometimes failed does not weaken idea that alt. med. has no effects.

B) Just because alt. med. relies on different concepts than orthodox. med does not weaken the idea that alt. med. has no effects.

C) Hope does not squash the idea of why alt. med. patients have no side effects.

D) This gives us a reason why alt. med. has no side effects for a reason OTHER than no effects. This reason is that a belief in the med treatment can release pain killers, etc. Great answer.

E) Does not show why alt. med. patients have no side effects. Just because many treatments used by orthodox med. were found to be ineffective says nothing about alt. med.

[Mab6q]

I honestly think this is a bad question. I choose eliminated B for the same reasons that you did, and ended up with D. However, D is severely flawed and one could even argue that it strengthens the argument. If it's the bodies own treatment, then that supports the claim that alternative medicine has no effect. It's not the alternative medicine, but the body that produces the effect. If the body believed in some other form of medicine, we would have the same effect. Anyone want to weigh in?

[ohthatpatrick]

As Timmy stated above, this is a little weird as question stems go, because we're not actually weakening an argument, we're just weakening an unsupported claim.

The charge against alternative medicine is that it does not have any effects at all.

(The fact that it's free of side effects is a good thing, not a charge against it).

So here is the claim we're trying to weaken:
"Alternative medicine does not have any effects at all"

Whenever I'm trying to weaken a claim or conclusion, I want to find an answer that suggests the OPPOSITE of the what the claim says.
Here, I want an answer that suggests that "Alternative medicine DOES have some effect".

So, which answer suggests that "alternative medicine DOES have some effect"?

(A) This has nothing to do with alternative meds. Eliminate

(B) Hmm, does saying that something has unique concepts show that it has some effect? Not really. Maybe hold on.

(C) Providing hope - is that an effect? Yes, but is it an effect in the therapeutic context of the passage? Maybe. Maybe having hope helps you get better. Hold on.

(D) Oh, wait. This answer explicitly makes it sound like there's an effect from taking alternative medicine. Keep it.

(E) This has nothing to do with alternative meds. Eliminate

Comparing (B), (C), and (D), (D) makes it the most concrete that taking alternative medicine DOES have some effect, so it does the most to weaken the original claim.

I understand the previous poster's reservation that these are indirect effects of taking alternative meds, not directly related to their chemistry. But the effects ARE directly related to the taking of the alternative meds. If taking the meds causes a psychological effect, and that psychological effect causes a physiological one, then we can say that weaken the claim that taking alternative meds has NO effects at all.

When you said, "If the body believed in some other form of medicine, we would have the same effect." that's true, but that's not really an objection to (D). We're not trying to say with (D) that alternative medicine is the ONLY type of medicine that would have this effect. We're only trying to say with (D) that alternative medicine HAS an effect.

Hope this helps.

[WaltGrace1983]

I just don't know about this one. I know this is an early PT and all but (D) just seems very "meh." Is the second to last sentence supposed to be related to "a patient's belief in the medical treatment?"

I am onboard with the rest of the answer choice "can release the body's own painkillers..." but the first part just doesn't make sense to me. Can someone please explain this?

[maryadkins]

I don't think we need support for the first part of (D) because it's just a hypothetical ALTERNATIVE REASON why alternative medicine might not have side effects. We don't necessarily need for that reason to be triggered for it to still weaken. Make sense?

[WaltGrace1983]

I don't think we need support for the first part of (D) because it's just a hypothetical ALTERNATIVE REASON why alternative medicine might not have side effects. We don't necessarily need for that reason to be triggered for it to still weaken. Make sense?

But I thought we were supposed to weaken the claim that "alternative medicine doesn't have any side effects." Wouldn't providing an alternative reason just strengthen? I don't think I am understanding what you are saying.

[maryadkins]

So if the argument is:

Alternative medicine doesn't have bad side effects

--->

One reason for this is that it doesn't have side effects at all (good or bad)

We want to weaken the statement that the reason the AM doesn't have bad side effects is because it doesn't have effects at all.

(D) does this by giving us another reason why AM doesn't have bad effects OTHER than its having no effects at all. I should have clarified in what I wrote, "why it doesn't have BAD side effects." My bad. Does that make sense now?

[robinzhang7]

But there is a major flaw with answer choice D: It requires you to assume that it's referring to alternative medicine!!!!!!!!! Really, this answer choice could be referring to ANY KIND OF MEDICINE. maybe there is a third, fourth, or fifth school of medicine. That's why I chose C, which explicitly mentions "hope" being provided by alt. medicine.

[nibs7985]

Hey,

I chose C as well, but looking back, I don't believe D is flawed at all. The Q stem specifically asks: "the charge made above against alternative medicine is most seriously weakened if it is true that"

The AC says, "a patient's belief in the medical treatment the patient is receiving..." This refers to all types of medical treatments including alternative medicine.

We know from the stimulus that people are taking alternative medicine when orthodox medicine fails to help them.

So the fact that belief in the medical treatment (which is a byproduct of the treatment) ends up releasing chemical painkillers, diminishing allergic reactions, and promoting healing, we know that if true, this would show that alternative medicine is having an effect and would weaken the author's charge against it.

Answer choice C is wrong because of the context in which the author uses "effect". In the stimulus, the author refers to alternative medicine's lack of effect in a therapeutic context and his claim is based on this specific context.

Seen in this light, the AC leaves it unclear as to how hope can be linked to alternative medicine.

[MichaelD988]

This is why, to me, choice C is clearly the best answer:

We need to prove that alternative medicine has "any effect at all". Hope is an effect ...caused by alternative medicine. This is an effect. The question does not say anywhere that we need to show a "medical effect", just an "effect".

The problem with D, is that it is conditional. IF the patient believes in alternative medicine, then it will have this effect. The stimulus and the answer choice combined, do not prove that any single individual does, in fact, believe in alternative medicine. I don't know if any single person ever has or ever will believe in alternative medicine. The test makers have done absolutely nothing to demonstrate the triggering of the sufficient condition. This answer choice is worthless.

[obobob]

This is why, to me, choice C is clearly the best answer:

We need to prove that alternative medicine has "any effect at all". Hope is an effect ...caused by alternative medicine. This is an effect. The question does not say anywhere that we need to show a "medical effect", just an "effect".

The problem with D, is that it is conditional. IF the patient believes in alternative medicine, then it will have this effect. The stimulus and the answer choice combined, do not prove that any single individual does, in fact, believe in alternative medicine. I don't know if any single person ever has or ever will believe in alternative medicine. The test makers have done absolutely nothing to demonstrate the triggering of the sufficient condition. This answer choice is worthless.

Could anyone please respond to this?
I am reviewing this question, and I am still kind of unclear about any reason to eliminate (C).
Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

It's just not a very well written question + answer choices. I would relieve yourself of the torment of "figuring it out".

As people have said, if we were simply trying to counter the claim that alternative medicine "has no effect at all", then (C) is a better answer than (D).

However, if we were being more holistic / more conversational / more common sense, we would interpret that final claim about "no effects at all" as "no positive medical effects at all".

After all, the paragraph is discussing the limitations of orthodox medicine to find ways to ease certain forms of suffering or cure certain diseases.

Alternative medicine is brought up in this context ... people to turn to it for "help" (not "hope"), because orthodox medicine has failed them.

So if you're playing along with the context / gist of the paragraph, then you interpret that final claim to be saying "alternative medicine doesn't have harmful side effects, because it's basically doing NOTHING [chemically / biologically] to your body."

Through this lens, (C) is not direct enough to be relevant. "Hope" is not itself a medical help, unless you consider it common knowledge that "hope" helps us to achieve some medical benefits.

(D), meanwhile, is opening a door through which we MIGHT be able to say that "alternative medicine can give patients something new to believe in, and that new belief can actually lead to an effective reduction in aches, pains, and allergies."

Correct answers on Weaken don't have to firmly establish the counterpoint we're wanting to make. If they open up the possibility for some doubt, they can still Weaken the case.

If you have an eyewitness who testifies that she saw Johnny at the crime scene,
and a lawyer says "Have you ever mistakenly thought you saw someone somewhere only later to discover you were wrong?", if the eyewitness says "Yes, sometimes I make mistakes about whether I saw someone somewhere", then we have weakened the prosecution's case at least somewhat.

Her saying that doesn't PROVE that she is wrong about identifying Johnny at the crime scene, but it opens up the possibility for some doubt.