Q4 - Professor: A guest speaker recently

[brookedillon]

So I decided the question type was "Identify the Flaw"

This was my arguement core:

A few students hurled taunts at speaker, many applauded the students --> universities don't foster fair-minded/intellectual debate

I thought the gap in the argument was "taunting a speaker isn't a form of intellectual debate," (in the professor's opinion) so the flaw in reasoning would be:
A.) Draws a conclusion based on the professor's own opinion rather than majority of students present.

But...the answer is not A!
It is D.) Draws a conclusion based on too small a sample.

What does that mean? Who is the sample supposed to be? And how was I supposed to get that from the assumption gap?

Thanks in advance

[ohthatpatrick]

Hey, Brooke. Good question.

As you wrote, the core would be ...

A few students hurled taunts at speaker, several others applauded the students attempt to humiliate --> universities these days don't foster fair-minded/intellectual debate

When you analyze the core, look particularly for new terms in the conclusion.

You saw "fair-minded/intellectual debate" as a new term, and realized that the author was treating "hurling taunts, attempting to humiliate" as "NOT fair-minded/intellectual debate".

Cool.

What about the phrase "universities these days" from the conclusion?

What was the author equating with "universities these days"?

He was assuming that what happened at a talk at this university was proof of what is true about "universities these days".

So here are the two skeptical (assumption-related) questions we could ask ourselves based on the conclusion:

1. Am I supposed to believe that "hurling vicious taunts" and "attempting to humiliate" is NOT "fair-minded and tolerant intellectual debate"?

2. Am I supposed to believe that something two students did at a certain talk at a certain university is proof of how "universities these days" operate?

Either of those objections/assumptions could potentially be the source of the answer, but I would argue that #1 is not much of an assumption.

What if our argument core were:
Ernie is mean and cruel --> Ernie is not kind.

Would we say "the author is assuming that mean and cruel means the same thing as not kind"?

We probably wouldn't say that, because the meaning of "cruel" and "mean" is antithetical to "kind". That's not an assumption; that's just using the English language to name something's opposite.

I think in this argument, "vicious taunts" and "attempting to humiliate" are antithetical to "fair-minded and tolerant". So even though they look like different symbols, the test would expect us to read that as A and ~A (not A).

The sort of symbol stretching that creates assumptions takes place with related, but distinct, phrases.

Sally is beautiful --> People want to date Sally.

There's obviously an assumption there because "being beautiful" and "people wanting to date you" are two different things, but they are related. They're not antithetical or identical.

So getting back to (D), it is just saying "Hey, author. You can't conclude something about universities these days based solely on a couple bad apples at ONE talk at ONE university."

(A) doesn't really give you the assumption you were looking for. Yes, the professor's opinion is that taunting and humiliating are not fair-minded or tolerant. How do the majority of the students who were at the talk feel about taunting and humiliating? Do they think it IS fair-minded and tolerant? Nothing in the argument suggests they do, so how do we know their opinion is any different from the professor's?

(B) is incorrect because the professor never advocates tolerance. He merely concludes that universities these days do not foster tolerant debate. There does not have to be any personal preference for tolerance included in that judgment.

(C) is incorrect because the professor's premise is not an emotional appeal (he's not trying to elicit the reader's sympathy/pity). Rather, the professor's premise describes the actions of a few students at a recent talk.

(E) is incorrect because it has nothing to do with the reasoning flaw inherent in moving from the premise to the conclusion. The behavior of the dissenting students is the premise for his conclusion. The dissenting behavior is actually more relevant to the conclusion than the "reasons for that behavior" would be.

Let me know if this elicits any other questions.

[nicholasasquith]

Good point.

Though this was a fairly straightforward question, (E) is a good example of how wrong answer choices can seem attractive, and how important it is not to lose sight of your argument core.

E would be good if the conclusion said "Universities these days do not provide grounds for differences of opinion in their discussions" or "Universities these days do not allow for the intermingling of varied opinions." Basically if the Professor in question concluded only that universities weren't allowing people to say what they wanted, and didn't mention anything about being tolerant when having a debate.

However, since this is a part of the conclusion, it is certainly valid to focus on the methods in which the students voiced their opinions.

[mercedesbenz923]

A. Does give a reason about how the students at the talk feel by saying " several others applauded their attempt to humiliate the speaker". Could you please clarify.

[asafezrati]

A. Does give a reason about how the students at the talk feel by saying " several others applauded their attempt to humiliate the speaker". Could you please clarify.

In the LSAT we are not looking for absolute truths in this world or in imagined realities, but we take the claims stated and examine the logical connections between them.

There are many words here that can be viewed as opinion items by the professor, but we need to take these words as facts in his arguement (even if certain people, even a majority might think otherwise):
-The speaker's talk was carefully researched etc..
-The taunts were vicious and were an attempt to humiliate the speaker.
The imaginary students can disagree with these claims, but they are still FACTS IN THE ARGUMENT.

The conclusion is also treated as a fact which can be derived from the premises:
-Universities do not foster...

The question is - What is the connection between the items? Is it bad? why?

Opinions can be an item mentioned in a premise, but note that on this case opinions are hardly there - some people thought different things on a certain issue, but the argument focuses on the behavior of the people and not the disagreement itself.

Sorry for the length. Hope these points are clear.

For my own practice:

B. The argument doesn't advocate tolerance, and doesn't tell anything about the students' views - only their behavior.

C. As reader we might feel some emotions regarding the events described, but the connections in the argument are logical - because students behaved in a certain way, all the universities don't do something.

D. Yes. Some students' behavior in a single university doesn't tell us about all the universities, and even a conclusion regarding this one mentioned university isn't airtight.

E. The focus on the behavior and not the reasons for it is legitimate in general, and is not a logical flaw in the argument between premises and conclusion.

[BarryM800]

I got this question wrong by choosing (E).

The way I see the argument is that the author tries to draw a conclusion about the universities based upon a few students' behaviors. The universities might indeed made serious efforts to foster fair-minded and tolerant intellectual debate, but universities could still not control students' behaviors. In other words, some students may exhibit outrageous behaviors, but it does not necessarily mean that the universities omit to foster an environment to facilitate fair-minded and tolerant intellectual debate. "Foster" is defined as: encourage or promote the development of (something, typically something regarded as good). "Fostering a conducive environment" has a very different standard from "eliminating all outrageous behaviors." The conclusion would certainly be much stronger, if it had concluded that universities do not "guarantee/ensure" fair-minded and tolerant intellectual debate.

Now, the answer choice part. As for (E), "incorrectly focuses on the behavior of the dissenting students" refers to erroneous use of the premise ("behavior of the dissenting students") in drawing the conclusion. "Relating the reasons for that behavior" is the proper conclusion that can be drawn from behavior of the dissenting students: students' own volition v. the universities omission to foster a conducive environment. The author does assume a causal relationship between the universities' omission (cause) and some students' outrageous behaviors (effect). In other words, the students' behavior may not necessarily be attributed to the universities, which is a different entity.

As for (D), I failed to see this as a sampling issue. The conclusion was not that the students in general would exhibit similar outrageous behaviors. Rather, the conclusion is about the universities, or the administration, which is kinda the opposing side of the student body.

Where did I go wrong? Thanks!

[Misti Duvall]

This is a tricky one, and I see where you're coming from with answer choice (E). However, even if the conclusion did talk about guaranteeing rather than fostering, there would still be a problem. Namely, that the premise gives one example of one talk at one university, but the conclusion applies to universities in general. That's the sampling error: making a general conclusion based on one example.