Q6 - Cattle egret

[soyeonjeon]

Can someone please help me with this question?
I got it right, but I have difficulty comprehending why E would be wrong. Is it because it fails to provide a connection between the cattle egrets and the herds of cattle, thereby fails to provide another explanation?

Thank you.

[fmuirhea]

This is a classic LSAT question: we have an observed phenomenon and a supposed explanation of that observation.

I like the putative author of this passage because he's bold: he outright claims that his is "the only available explanation" of the event, despite the fact that he has given us little reason to believe him.

Any phenomenon can be interpreted in multiple ways. Imagine you saw someone itching their arm; you might claim that he recently brushed against some poison ivy. It's certainly possible, but it's not the only option: maybe he's allergic to cats, or is using a new laundry detergent that's irritating his skin, or suffers from Morgellon's, or [insert your own wild conjecture here].

Without more evidence, it's hard to say which is correct. For instance, if in addition to the itching, you knew that he was recently in a wooded area known to contain poison ivy, your original explanation might look better. This argument tells us that the egrets eat the insects stirred up in the cattle's wake, but it's not the most compelling piece of evidence.

So, the best way to weaken an explanation of an observed phenomenon is to point out another equally plausible explanation, which is what (C) does.

(E) might explain why egrets don't live in forests, but it does nothing to explain why they seem to follow cattle around. The only way you might begin to make (E) work is to assume that any non-forest land is occupied by cattle, making the fact that egrets and cattle live together something of a coincidence. This is a big assumption, outside the LSAT's prescribed bounds of common sense.