Q20 - So-called environmentalists have argued that

[deedubbew]

help please

[ohthatpatrick]

The keywords in the question stem "questionable argumentative techniques" tell us that this is a Flaw question.

Let's find the argument core:

Conc: The claim that "Golden Lake Development would interfere with bird-migration patterns" should be dismissed without further consideration.

(why?)

Prem:
Because the environmentalists who claimed it have previously opposed other proposals for environmental reasons.
+
They're not concerned with birds; they're just concerned with their antidevelopment, anti-progress agenda.

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Can you find a way to criticize the way the conclusion is derived from those premises?

(This is actually one of the classic recurring LSAT flaws: Attacking the Source of the Argument rather than the Argument Itself)

The author is trying to conclude that someone's warnings of environmental damage can be dismissed without consideration given that the same source has previously warned about environmental damage.

That's a crummy argument for at least a couple reasons:
1. Maybe this source is continually CORRECT about sounding the environmental alarm. Maybe we would have been right in the past to heed this warning and we would be right in the present to do so.

2. Even if someone has been wrong in the past, that doesn't mean you categorically dismiss them in the present. (Even though "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" lied about there being a wolf the first two times, that doesn't mean that there isn't ACTUALLY a wolf the third time)

Let's see which answer choice says something like this (or otherwise matches the argument)

(A) This is a recurring flaw described on LSAT called "Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence" or "Failure to Prove is not Proof of Failure".

It's like if I said, "No one has ever proven that God exists. Therefore, God does NOT exist."

Since our author is trying to prove that "we needn't worry about Golden Lake Development interfering with migration patterns", this answer choice would mean that our author's premise was, "after all, no one has been able to prove that GLD would interfere". That's not the author's premise. The premise is that "the same people who are worried now are the same people who were worried before ...".

(B) This seems accurate. The author DOES reject the environmentalists' claim. The premises ARE about the motives of the environmentalists (they're REALLY working towards their anti-development, anti-progress agenda; they don't REALLY care about birds)

(C) This answer describes a different classic flaw. It would be like saying, "People are wrong to think that women face discrimination in the business world. After all, several CEO's of Fortune 500 companies are female."

This author's argument, by contrast, was "Don't listen to X. X has said this type of thing before." When the author refers to previous cases in which environmentalists did the same thing, the author isn't referring to exceptional cases, but rather typical ones.

(D) The position the argument is intended to refute is "GLD would interfere with migration patterns". Is there any evidence presented to support that position? No. So there's no way that the author is misrepresenting such evidence.

(E) This describes a classic flaw: Whole to Part. Nothing in this argument acts like a Whole to Part flaw, which would sound like, "Since this team is very defensive minded, each player on this team is very defensive minded."

Hope this helps.