Q26 - Sasha: Handwriting analysis should

[nanagyanewa]

Could someone please explain to me why D is the answer? I chose E because if few analysts conform to the standards of this professional board, then the board will not be effective in controlling exaggerated claims.

I don't get how D weakens the argument at all.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

If the only people who feel that handwriting provides reliable evidence are those who are irresponsible, then it would be impossible to set up a board that would function the way the author claims it would function -- one that would deter irresponsible analysts. If it's not possible to set up such a board, then Gregory's conclusion collapses.

(D) seems unlikely to be true in real life, but that's of no consequence. If we take (D) to be true, it is very strong evidence that Gregory's argument is flawed.

(E) is tempting but its impact on the conclusion is unclear. "Very small" could mean 10 people or 1000, and in either case, it's unclear how many analysts would be needed by the court system.

[rustyjkent]

I understand your logic, but wouldn't there be an assumption made in that the Licensing Board would be made up of handwriting analysts. What if it was not made up of handwriting analyst. Then it would not matter if answer (D) was true or not. I know this is not likely in the real world, but in the LSAT world that is not always the case. Would this not make (E) not a good answer, in terms of the next best thing that might weaken the argument a little bit. Should we just assume the Licensing Board will be made up of handwriting analyst?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

Hi -- thanks for your excellent question --

I tried the question again and reread my explanation, and I realize that my explanation was far from ideal, so I apologize -- let me try to make it up here --

We are looking for an answer that weakens, and, slightly more specifically, we are looking looking for an answer Sasha would use in response to Gregory.

Let's look at (D) in-depth:

The only handwriting analysts who claim that handwriting provides reliable evidence of a person's character are irresponsible.

Let's start with the handwriting analysts -- let's not think about the analysts in terms of the board, but rather in terms of those who would testify in a trial.

Are handwriting analysts who claim that handwriting provides reliable evidence the only handwriting analysts who would testify in a trial? I'm going to try to encourage you to think yes, though I know it's not 100% perfect (strengthen and weaken answers often aren't designed to be).

I think it's actually a much smaller leap than we might originally think. Consider what one does before testifying at a trial -- one promises to tell the truth -- which is not terribly different from claiming to be reliable (particularly in this context, because, if the analysts didn't think they were reliable, but testified nonetheless, it would be very difficult for them to tell the truth).

Okay, so let's imagine that only handwriting analysts who claim that handwriting provides reliable evidence testify at trials...

We're actually told in this answer, in an indirect way, that every single one of these analysts is irresponsible. If that's true, Gregory's plan to set up the court wouldn't work -- they wouldn't be able to find the people to make licensed practitioners.

Is this answer perfect? Of course not. One could argue this board would "rehabilitate" the irresponsible analysts, so that they could provide legitimate testimony. But it can then be countered that then these analysts would no longer be irresponsible. But by this point, it should be clear that (D) puts Gregory's point that the lack of a board is the "only" reason that the current state is problematic into serious question.

What I'd add about (E) is that --
1) we do not know how many such analysts a legal system might need (my real world estimate, btw, would be less than 10).
2) we do not know how small very small is.
When we combine these two factors, it's tough to say (E) has much an impact. I definitely agree it's second best, but, in my opinion, not characteristic of any correct answer you will see.

This is a tough question to explain and I hope that was helpful! Please don't hesitate to follow up if you have any more questions.

[skapur777]

So in other words, D is correct because a licensing board attempts to separate the responsible testifiers from the irresponsible testifiers. But if all the people that WOULD testify are irresponsible, then they would surely have a tough time getting a board together right?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

yeah, you got it

[Mab6q]

I guess my issue with this question is that reading D, it sounds like it can be interpreted to mean that the those who don't believe handwriting provides reliable evidence might do so because there is no such board in place. As such, that kind of response really would have no impact on Gregory's argument.

[ohthatpatrick]

Can you clarify what you mean by:
"those who don't believe handwriting provides reliable evidence might do so because there is no such board in place. As such, that kind of response really would have no impact on Gregory's argument."

Might do what?

Those who don't believe handwriting is reliable evidence might decide to testify in court? Just to make a buck, not believing their testimonial is reliable but wanting the paycheck for delivering expert testimony?

Gregory thinks that IF we had a licensing board, the problem of sketchy handwriting evidence would no longer exist.

So any answer that gets us closer to arguing, "even if we did had a licensing board, the problem of sketchy handwriting evidence WOULD still exist" is a good answer.

It sounds like the people you were thinking of would be contributing to sketch handwriting evidence. They DON'T think the evidence is reliable but they testify anyway?

(D) is trying to say "Gregory, a licensing board can't weed out the bad apples if there is nothing BUT bad apples out there!"

[Mab6q]

Can you clarify what you mean by:
"those who don't believe handwriting provides reliable evidence might do so because there is no such board in place. As such, that kind of response really would have no impact on Gregory's argument."

Might do what?

Those who don't believe handwriting is reliable evidence might decide to testify in court? Just to make a buck, not believing their testimonial is reliable but wanting the paycheck for delivering expert testimony?

Gregory thinks that IF we had a licensing board, the problem of sketchy handwriting evidence would no longer exist.

So any answer that gets us closer to arguing, "even if we did had a licensing board, the problem of sketchy handwriting evidence WOULD still exist" is a good answer.

It sounds like the people you were thinking of would be contributing to sketch handwriting evidence. They DON'T think the evidence is reliable but they testify anyway?

(D) is trying to say "Gregory, a licensing board can't weed out the bad apples if there is nothing BUT bad apples out there!"

Sorry for not making by question clear. I was suggesting that maybe those people who do believe in handwriting evidence and are responsible are not advocating for the use of such a technique because they understand that without such a review board, irresponsible people would take advantage of it. As such, only the irresponsible people believe in the practice now, but maybe more would after the board was established. However, reading it now, it is apparent why D is wrong. It talks about the practice in general. Thanks for the help, nonetheless.

[yiwoo0216]

I understand that D is superior to the other choices...

But the license exists because there is a board that regulates the profession. A specific scenario would be that irresponsible analysts would not be able to obtain a license... or if they do, they will lose the license upon violating a standard in court.

The stimulus essentially states that IRRESPONSIBLE analysts are targeted thereby preventing them from making exaggerated claims ... which would normally allow me to cross off answer D at first glance.

The point of the licensing board is to distribute licenses and to set standards where (for all we know) all license holders are irresponsible, but cannot practice their irresponsibility because Gregory stated that it will be deterred.

(I believe) It is a given that irresponsible analysts will obtain a license, and so D seems wrong to me because:

1) Sasha would be contesting Gregory's premise without any additional proof/argument....

2) Gregory clearly included 'irresponsible' analysts and their behaviors in his argument

3) The consequence of issuing a license is the possibility of it being taken away (thereby deterring activity outside the scope of the professional standards, and especially in open court)

Also, wouldn't it be ad hominem to undermine the licensing board by attacking the analysts? (ie Since every analyst is irresponsible, the licensing board will not work)

I understand that I'm probably missing something essential in my response that is making me incredibly wrong... and so I would appreciate it if somebody could point out any outrageous assumptions that I have made that would help convince me that I was wrong to eliminate D after the first scan.

Please and Thank you !

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting, yiwoo0216!

I'm afraid I don't quite follow your rationale for eliminating (D) at first glance. You say:

The stimulus essentially states that IRRESPONSIBLE analysts are targeted thereby preventing them from making exaggerated claims ... which would normally allow me to cross off answer D at first glance.

Can you explain a bit further? It sounds a bit like you believe that (D) contradicts the premise that a future board would deter irresponsible analysts from making exaggerated claims. But (D) does not contradict this. (D) is saying that right now, without an existing board, the only analysts who claim handwriting analysis is reliable are themselves irresponsible. That does not undermine the premise.

If (D) is true, and right now there are no responsible analysts who claim handwriting analysis is reliable, then this board of Gregory's may well find itself with no licensed analysts who could actually testify in court that handwriting analysis was reliable. If that were true, it's hard to conclude handwriting analysis is going to be "a legitimate courtroom tool" - no one could use it! So, (D) opens up a potential weakness for Gregory's conclusion!

Now, (D) does not definitively prove Gregory's proposed board won't work. Perhaps, as you and Mike.kim both acknowledge, the board will give licenses to irresponsible analysts who outwardly pretend to be responsible, and who can ALSO claim without exaggerating that handwriting analysis is reliable. But that's okay! Weakeners do not have to prove the argument wrong, just damage it a bit, and make the conclusion a bit less likely to follow.

In this situation, if all the analysts are irresponsible, that would at the very least make the board's job more difficult! It opens up some distinct possibilities that would make it less likely we'd end up with handwriting analysis as a legit courtroom tool.

Does that help clear things up a bit?


AD HOMINEM
Let's also address the issue of ad hominem. A classic example of this would be to say that Bob's argument must be wrong because Bob smells. The critical aspect that makes this an ad hominem is that the criticism has no bearing on the argument itself.

If the attack were instead, say, that Bob's claim is suspect because Bob is known to be a liar, that would not be an ad hominem. It's still an attack on Bob's character, but it's one that has some direct bearing on the reliability of his claim.

Another version of ad hominem might be that Bob's argument is invalid because his sister smells. Again, the attack is not relevant to the substance of the argument (presumably).

In this situation, you worry that criticizing the board because the analysts are irresponsible follows this last pattern. But there are a few key differences. If the character attack on the analysts makes a logical difference in assessing the board, then it is a reasonable point. If all the analysts were pathological liars, for instance, then that fact would have real bearing on whether the board was capable of getting its job done and allowing handwriting analysis to be a legit courtroom tool. In other words, that attack would not be an irrelevant consideration at all.

The responsibility of the analysts is not raised as an unconnected character attack. Rather, it is raised to undermine the reliability of handwriting analysis for the courtroom as a general matter!




Please don't hesitate to follow up with additional questions if there's anything that is still at all unclear!

[yiwoo0216]

Thank you very for your response christine.defenbaugh.

I'm just having trouble convincing myself that D actually mentions anything that Gregory didn't already cover.

I eliminated D because I believed that it had no bearing on the argument since it was consistent with what Greg stated, which was that it would deter the irresponsible ones from making exaggerated claims.

If Sasha said "there would only be irresponsible analysts who have licenses" (paraphrased from D), then Gregory can respond " I already said that it would deter those people from making bad claims, so you're not really making a point. And besides, we're talking about how they would behave in court, which I covered"

I tried to use conditional reasoning to support my claim (as below):

1)
Problem Exists --> No board exists to No Deterring of irresponsible analysts

2)
Board Exists to set Standards and deter irresponsible analysts Irresponsible --> Problem does not exist
(Contra positive of 1)

The Board existing to set standards and deter irresponsible analysts is a sufficient condition for the problem to not exist.

So, my interpretation was that, if there are only irresponsible analysts, it will be okay because a board exists to deter irresponsible analysts from exaggerated claims which is sufficient for the analysis' legitimacy as a tool(last sentence in the stimulus). Also the last statement is a conditional relationship. When a board is established--> WILL be legit

The assumption by Gregory, I believe, is that the licensing board will regulate and enforce reliable standards and fairly distribute licenses.

An appropriate attack to this argument would then be that either the standards may be suspect, or the people distributing the licenses (the board) are unfair or that there is no way to enforce the standards.

To me, C would be a relevant attack on the relationship above because it is attacking the strength of the sufficient condition, essentially saying that a Board exists but those who run the board may affect the legitimacy of the analysis as a tool in court in the future (directly questioning Greg's last conditional statement).

It forced me to ask:
How can this be a legitimate tool when the board exists to increase reliability, and they are denying licenses to responsible analysts based on factors that are not about reliability.
And why can't we ask this question when we can hypothesize that all the irresponsible analysts will get their hands on a license?

[christine.defenbaugh]

Ah, I think I may see the issue!

You are completely correct that (D) is consistent with the statement "the board would deter irresponsible analysts from making exaggerated claims." It does not conflict with that at all, which is what we want, since that's a premise of Gregory's argument.

Let's take a big step back and make sure we have the core of Gregory's argument correctly distilled:

PREMISE:
Exaggerated claims are only a problem because we have no regulatory board.
If we had a regulatory board, such problems would not happen.
CONCLUSION:
At such point, handwriting analysis would become a useful courtroom tool.

We're not trying to weaken the idea that the board would be effective in stomping exaggerated/irresponsible claims. We're trying to weaken the idea that this system would result in "a legitimate courtroom tool."

Let's take a silly example core:

PREMISE:
I'm going to throw away all of the expired food in my frig.
CONCLUSION:
After I do, I'll be able to pick something at random from my fridge and know that it's not expired.

What if ALL the food in the fridge is expired? I might do an awesome job of finding and tossing out all the expired food. But then my fridge would be empty. So I've been effective, but my conclusion still doesn't work - because there's no food left in the fridge to grab!

So if (D) were true, and all the analysts that claimed "reliability" were the irresponsible ones making exaggerated claims, and the board was awesomely effective at reining them in, what would happen?

Well, it seems likely that you'd be left with a whole bunch of analysts not making exaggerated claims, and therefore unwilling to call handwriting analysis "reliable". And if no one will call it "reliable", then how could it be a legitimate courtroom tool?

The premise holds true - exaggerated claims are not a problem anymore, but the conclusion fails - it's still not a legit courtroom tool.

If you're focused on whether (D) weakens the legitimacy or efficacy of the board, then you'd have some very valid concerns about it! But the effect it has on the eventual usefulness of handwriting analysis in court takes a different turn.

I hope this perspective helps turn things around a bit!

[bernard.agrest]

I thought of this question the following way.

S: We should ban hr analysis, because experts aren't reliable and exaggerate.

G: You're right, but that's because we don't have a board to certify them. Once we get that, problem solved!

Now, we're looking for a response from S that counters G, but G claims that once the board is established, it will be LEGITIMATE tool. So we should look for something that makes this an ILLEGITIMATE tool.

A) Who cares about OTHER methods, we're talking about THIS method.

B) Tricky-ish, but assume or a second this is true, so what? The board is going to certify EXPERTS, who should be able to figure out the difference.

C) This is out of left field, not only that but its super weak. Some experts, some is like many, anywhere from 1-everyone.

D) There you go! This A/C questions the legitimacy of the experts.

E) Again, it doesn't matter how MANY people can do it, and for all we know very little people may mean 100,000 people!

I would really appreciate it if one of the instructors could correct me if my train of thought in approaching this problem was wrong.

[coco.wu1993]

I still have issue with D. Who says only analysts who claim handwriting is reliable will do handwriting analysis? I don’t think such stretch is allowable in the LSAT.

I originally picked B. A responsible analyst does not have to be a highly trained one. Therefore, if B is right, given that a licensing board can deter irresponsible analysis, using handwriting analysis as evidence can still be problematic.

[maryadkins]

The point is that if ANY handwriting analysis is presented in court as evidence of a person's character, it's going to come from people who think handwriting analysis is a reliable thing. Think about it, why would they testify about how a person's handwriting shows their character if they didn't believe this? It wouldn't make any sense.

(D) says therefore that anyone who does this is irresponsible. If this is true, Gregory's argument falls apart.

I hope this helps clarify!

[nja21]

But Gregory is not saying that the committee will eliminate irresponsible analysts from courtrooms. He is saying that the committee will deter them from making exaggerated claims. So even if they are the only people who would testify, (D) does not weaken Gregory's argument.

[Mab6q]

But Gregory is not saying that the committee will eliminate irresponsible analysts from courtrooms. He is saying that the committee will deter them from making exaggerated claims. So even if they are the only people who would testify, (D) does not weaken Gregory's argument.

Let me just say i know where you're coming from, so let me see if I can help. Gregory admits that " the current use of handwriting analysis as evidence if problematic." He says that such a problem exists because irresponsible analyst are making exaggerated claims. Why are these analysts irresponsible?? Because they are making exaggerated claims. So, in D, if the only people who will testify are irresponsible, then it is reasonable to assume that they are the still going exaggerate the claims. The point of Gregory's idea is to eliminate the issue of irresponsible analyst, and D shows that the problem would still exists.

Hope that helps.

[jrnlsn.nelson]

This is a hairy problem.

(D), the correct answer, is clearly a source argument, which is a reasoning flaw. Is it not odd that the test makers are encouraging a reasoning flaw? Can someone explain this?

The only way I could see why a source argument response is a strong counter in this argument is because Sasha's claim seems to be a source argument as well -- "handwriting analysts called as witnesses habitually exaggerate the reliability of their analyses." Though, her claim is less of a source argument than the correct answer choice is, as she is not directly attacking the handwriting analysts in the way that (D) does.

Anyone hear what I'm saying?

[AseemN739]

I read through the previous posts and this question is still bugging me. I can see why every answer other than D is incorrect. But as a couple people mentioned earlier, D itself seems like it's incorrect too.

Greg’s argument was:
P1: Handwriting analysis is currently problematic/ not a legitimate courtroom tool
P2: This problem only exists because a lack of a licensing board to set standards and deter irresponsible analysts from making exaggerated claims.
C: When we establish a board, they will establish these standards, and handwriting analysis will become a legitimate courtroom tool.

The correct answer, D, suggests Sasha should counter Greg’s response by claiming “the only handwriting analysts that claim handwriting is reliable evidence are irresponsible”

Supposedly this weakens P2, but I don’t see how. Greg’s premise explicitly stated that the point of the standards would be to deter the irresponsible analysts from making exaggerated claims. That is, it is indicated nowhere that being irresponsible is the problem at hand. We don’t care only if they’re irresponsible, because that might be because they frequently arrive late or because they misplace documents or something else entirely; we care that they make exaggerated claims, because this is what currently makes handwriting analysis illegitimate. There is nothing that states that the analysts are irresponsible solely because they make exaggerated claims.

If we are seeking to make handwriting analysis legitimate, then it is entirely allowable that the analysts continue to be irresponsible so long as they don't continue to make exaggerated claims.

So, answer D wouldn't counter anything in Greg’s argument. Greg could reply:
“So what? Ok, they’re all irresponsible but a licensing board ensures they won’t make exaggerated claims, so problem solved; handwriting analyses are legitimate.”

It seems this is either a 1) flawed phrasing of a premise or 2) flawed answer choice or 3) we are supposed to assume something not explicitly stated in the premises—namely, that the analysts in question are irresponsible solely because they exaggerated their claims. Or am I missing something here?