Q19 - Today’s farmers plant only

[geverett]

Got this right timed, and wrong untimed. Still having a hard time wrapping my mind all the way around it. Here is what I was thinking:

(A) Is this wrong, because although in the past it would devastate food supplies in several regions. The world several is synonymous with many, some, etc. and so the regions that it would affect the food supply in might not be enough to constitute the food supply in general.

Gosh some of these later PT's are hard hard hard. I am definitely prone to believe that the difficult of the LSAT has increased. Check out test 38 and check out test 43. Both have same curves. Both are completely different animals in my opinion.

[timmydoeslsat]

You will be amazed at the results when you analyze the core of an argument, look at how the conclusion is flawed!

The core of the argument can be seen at this:

Farmers plant only a few different strains of a given crop.

+

Crops lack diversity that they once had.

------> THEREFORE.....

A disease that hits only a few strain of crops would DEVASTATE the food supply today whereas it would only have had a minor impact in the past.


Does that conclusion follow from those premises? No!

It is not considering other factors. If you were to assume that once those crops were infected with the disease, there was no stopping the food supply from being devastated, you may have a valid argument.

But there is an assumption made.

Choice A does not weaken the argument. So what if there were crop diseases that would sometimes devastate entire regions?

The arguer would say, "Yeah, just imagine what would happen to those regions nowadays with the way crops are now! This does not weaken the conclusion of crop diseases devastating food supply today while not doing so in the past.

Choice B does weaken the argument substantially! I usually find many weaken answers, forgive the pun, weak. However, this one is great.

If it is true that affected crops can be quickly replaced that store those strains, then that weakens the idea of food supplies being devastated. This idea goes after the assumption made in the argument, in which there is no stopping the chain of events upon infection of a crop to devastation of food supply.

C) This point is really irrelevant, but it could be seen in a scope as possibly strengthening but in a different way.

The reasoning used initially to validate why the food supply would be devastated today, whereas it in the past it would have only had a minor impact, was that there are so few strains and diversity. This adds in the idea that some crops in the past were MORE resistant to disease than some of today's crops.

D) The variety of food that humans eat does not change the fact, that it is given as truth in the argument, that the food supply would be devastated whereas in the past only a minor impact. This does not weaken that idea. It may change the response factor of humans, but not the food supply being devastated.

E) Our concern is disease on these crops, not damage from insects. It may be true that today's crops are better in that respect, but that would mean that those nice and neat crops that have not been messed up by insects are RIPE FOR THE devastation! This has no impact on the disease factor.

[geverett]

I see your point on A in that if it was minor in the past and more detrimental in the present then if they would devastate in the past it would be even more devastation in the present. What was hard for me is that A talks about devastation to food supplies in the past from crop disease. The word devastation seems to go against the "minor impact" on the food supply of the past that is mentioned in the conclusion.

I think this answer should perhaps be discounted more b/c it talks about devastation throughout "entire regions" which could still be a relatively minor impact on the food supply in general as is mentioned in the stimulus.

Thoughts?

I totally see where you are at with B though. Thanks!

[timmydoeslsat]

I see your point on A in that if it was minor in the past and more detrimental in the present then if they would devastate in the past it would be even more devastation in the present. What was hard for me is that A talks about devastation to food supplies in the past from crop disease. The word devastation seems to go against the "minor impact" on the food supply of the past that is mentioned in the conclusion.

I think this answer should perhaps be discounted more b/c it talks about devastation throughout "entire regions" which could still be a relatively minor impact on the food supply in general as is mentioned in the stimulus.

Thoughts?

I totally see where you are at with B though. Thanks!

Ahh! But you are assuming that the crop diseases that would often devastate food supplies throughout entire regions is the same caliber of crop disease that would have a minor impact on only a few strain of crops.

Imagine there being a MONSTER disease that annihilated crops in the past. Does that carry any weight whatsoever to the idea of a disease that would affect only a few crops in the past (perhaps a "Monster Lite version") that would nonetheless devastate the crops nowadays because of the limited number of strains compared in the past?

It does not.

Let me know if you would like for me to explain this more!

[geverett]

Please explain more. haha. I'm having a hard time grasping it fully.

[timmydoeslsat]

No problem. It is difficult to go through this process. It is like trying to find your own mistakes on a paper you wrote! Much easier to have someone else check it out!

Just to bring a refreshing aspect to this argument, we will go over what we know.

We know that we need to weaken this argument. We know going into a weakening question that there will be holes in the argument. It will not be airtight.

The core of this argument is:

Today's farmers plant only a few different strains of a given crop.

+

Crops lack diversity that they used to have a few generations ago.

---> A disease that strikes only a few strains of crops would devastate the food supply today and would have had only a minor impact in the past.

Do those premises entail that conclusion? Is that conclusion airtight?

No way.

Why not?

Well, the arguer is assuming that there is NO beneficial aspect of today's farming practices or technology that would be able ward off the crop diseases in such a way as to not allow for the devastation of the food supply.

That is a necessary assumption of this argument.

The correct answer played upon this idea by stating, "affected crops can be quickly replaced from seed banks."

A correct answer could be something like, "Technology today allows for radiation beams that destroy all diseases and today's farmers use this technology every day on its crops."

Or something like, "Today's farmers use a concoction of chemicals that give crops the ability to ward off crop diseases, a technology not available generations ago."

Let us talk about A.

A) I understand that you are very fixated on the idea of "entire regions." I totally respect this thinking and I personally think it is a nice find! You are correct that the idea of entire regions does not give us sufficient reason to conclude a big area, as these could be small regions, and the word several does not mean most, just more than two I would say.

However, the concept of entire regions is not what is wrong with this answer choice. What is wrong with this answer choice is the wording of "crop diseases."

This is what answer choice A states verbatim.

"In the past, crop diseases would often devastate food supplies throughout entire regions."

OK, so how does this statement weaken the idea of "Crop diseases today would devastate food supply."

Not only does this statement not weaken this idea in any way, it also has a big problem with its phrase of crop diseases.

We want to talk strictly about diseases that strike only a few strain of crops.

We do not want to talk about crop diseases in general.

Let us say we have two crop diseases, Big Bertha and Small Sarah.

Big Bertha strikes every single crop known to man. This disease is out of scope of our argument. We want to talk about how the diseases that would strike ONLY A FEW STRAIN OF CROPS would just kill today's food supply.

[nflamel69]

Did anyone else thought A was irrelevant since the conclusion mentions that the diseases that would had only minor impact would have a much bigger effect today, but the answer choice A mentions the diseases that may have a big effect back then? I mean by addressing some diseases may have a big effect back then doesn't really relate to the stimulus to my understanding.

[wj097]

I just think (B) is the least worse answer that doesn't strengthen...cuz I don't think its reasonable to infer from (B) that replacing crops with SEED not crop (which we might not even get it to grow until the next season) makes us put a stake on the ground that it doesn't devastate the food supply...isn't it more reasonable to infer the other way around?? (replacing with SEED can still devastate the food supply)...

Thx

[ericha3535]

Here is the breakdown of the argument:

Today's crops lack diversity.

So, if disease ever comes to arise, then it will wipe them out more effectively than before.

Ex:

We have Crop A B C compared to A B C D E in the past.
A crop disease called X came to arise and it could kill A B C. So, this shows that lack of diversity could lead to a devastating
result.

Ok. Let's weaken this.

A) Who cares about past? We are concerned with present crops

Skipping B for no reason

C) Ok, so some of the seed in the past are more resistant than crops of today. So what? Our argument is about the current crops being killed. Also, even if we want this answer choice to work, we need an additional assumption: we are going to replace these resistant crops with current crops.

D) Who cares about diet

E) Who cares about insect damage? We are worried about crop disease.

Now B is the best answer out of all. It makes sense though. Let's go back to our example A B C.
Now there is disease that can kill A B C but if we are able to more quickly than before to replace those damaged crops with seeds that are stored, this could effectively stop the disease from spreading out. In turn, this will not devastate the crops.

[griffin.811]

I actually came to post about the same thing as wj just 2 posts above me. Im not sure how replacing crops with seeds would help.

[noah]

We're looking for an answer choice that will weaken the argument. The argument is that a crop disease that affects a few strains of a crop would devastate the food supply. Why? Because while in the past there were many different strains of a crop, today farmers only plant a few.

An assumption that the correct answer relies on is that the loss of those crops would lead to a devastating impact to the food supply. One way to weaken the argument would be note that most of the food supply is fish. (B) suggests that the food supply would not be seriously affected because there are emergency supplies available to replace the lost crops.

(A) is out of scope. The geographic scope of past devastations is irrelevant. If anything, this reiterates the idea that crop diseases are problematic.

(C) strengthens the argument, providing an example of how modern crops are more vulnerable than past ones.

(D) is tempting, as it seems to suggest that the food supply is not comprised solely of crops. However, it does not actually state that; instead it simply notes there is more variety in our diet. without noting percentages. Perhaps in the past we ate 90% crops and 10% beef, while today we eat 90% crops, 5% beef and 5% lamb. Furthermore, the answer choice ends by mitigating the answer - stating that we "still rely heavily on cereal crops. . . " Apparently, crops are an important part of our food supply then.

(E) it tempting. The answer choice shifts from focusing on diseases to insects and weed encroachment; the expected effect of crop diseases on the food supply is not affected by this answer choice. However, even if (E) were to say that modern crops are less vulnerable to diseases, the argument - that if there were to be a disease, it would be more devastating than past diseases would have been -- would still stand.

Analogously, if I tell you that the swine flu is more powerful than past flues and is more likely to cause death if someone contracts it, the fact that people can easily avoid getting swine flu by washing their hands does not change the fact that if folks do contract swine flu, they are more likely to die.

It's interesting to consider what argument (E) would weaken. Want to take a crack at that?

[noah]

Thanks for the comprehensive response, Noah. I'm going over this problem in Manhattan 10 types and still had a few questions about this if you get the chance.

You brought up in your explanation that there was a possibility that fish was the main food supply, and I totally agree with you for that hypothetical. But the answer choice in (B) says that the affected crops will be replaced by seed banks that store strains of THOSE crops. If there was a disease that just wiped out crop A, how would it be helpful to plant crop A again from the seeds that were stored in the bank? It seems like a leap to say that the disease would go away so quickly. Are we to assume that the second round of crop A will not be decimated by the same disease that just wiped out the same type, even though the second round is being grown at roughly the same time that the first round jsut died?

Good question. The issue is that the argument and (B) are about the effect on "strains" of a crop. The argument notes that the disease only strikes a few strains of the crop, meaning other strains are unharmed. The disease strikes "only a few", while the seed bank store "many."

One other thing that bothers me about (B) is that even if you can quickly replace the affected crops, doesn't that mean that the food supply will still be devastated? It takes a long time to plant, grow, and then harvest the crops. If a disease came and destroyed the majority of the crops (since there are now only a few strands), that would mean that the farmers would have to start over from scratch. Sure, they might be able to REPLACE the crops, but that doesn't mean that the food supply will not be devastated because the entire process needs to be done over again, which is basically what the conclusion is saying. Hence, I don't really see how (B) would weaken the argument.

(B) says they can quickly be replaced, and we need to take it on face value. (I have a feeling you won't like that explanation!)

I guess the final thing about (B) is that it doesn't really seem to indicate any change in time. I would have been more comfortable if the seed banks were a new innovation, but how do we know that the seed banks did not exist before as well?

Even if it were true back then, couldn't these seed banks still weaken the argument now, in this new world in which fewer crops lack the diversity of a few generations ago?