Q6 - Ornithologist: This bird species

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: This bird species does NOT subsist primarily on vegetation.
Evidence: I hid in the bushes and observed hundreds of these birds every morning for months, and half of what they ate was animal stuff.

Answer Anticipation:
Given that he observed them eating more than 50% animal food sources, how could we still argue that this bird species DOES subsist primarily on vegetation? We'd have to argue that he was either wrong about what he observed or that what he observed is not representative of the overall truth about this species of bird.

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Tempting. If the feeding behavior WAS affected by observation, that might give us a way to say that what this ornithologist observed was NOT representative of the true, overall behavior of this species. However, it's a little inaccurate to say that the author "assumes this, without providing justification". The author provides some justification for this assumption by saying that he was concealed in a well-camouflaged blind.

(B) The author's argument doesn't hinge on what specific animals were eaten. The issue is animal food source vs. vegetation. We don't need to know anything more specific than that.

(C) He does NOT adopt a widespread belief. He actually goes against it.

(D) Would this weaken? Yes. If the birds eat different foods at night, then the ornithologist's observations WOULD be unrepresentative of the overall species's behavior.

(E) Would this weaken? No. If the birds' diet has changed, the author's conclusion could be correct.

Takeaway/Pattern: There is a time honored LSAT reasoning template in which a scientist says "the belief in X is not the case, since it was not the case in my observations." We basically have to address whether the scientist's observations were accurate and (more importantly) whether they are representative of the overall truth about X." A and B were Assumption answers (assumes X / fails to specify X). C was Describe the Move (adopts X without considering Y). D and E were Weaken answers (neglects/fails to consider the possibility of X).

#officialexplanation

[sloan_galler]

Can someone please explain why A is incorrect?

I narrowed the answer choiced to A and D and I was indifferent on the two

a) It may be because of him observing the birds that changed their eating patterns ...

I ended up choosing A ...
thanks in advance

[giladedelman]

Thanks for your question! I see where you're coming from on this one. First, let's break down the argument.

The ornithologist concludes that these birds don't subsist primarily on vegetation, because every morning for several months he observed that they ate mostly animal food sources.

The gap here is glaring: the ornithologist completely ignores what the birds eat when it's not morning. If you observed me every morning for a few months, you'd be convinced that I subsist almost entirely on omelets, toast, and Grape Nuts cereal. (TMI?)

That's why (D) is such a good answer. The ornithologist assumes that his morning observations give a valid overall impression of the birds' eating habits.

So why is (A) incorrect? Remember, we're always looking for the BEST answer. In this case, I think (A) is weaker because the ornithologist does explicitly point out that he was "concealed in a well-camouflaged blind." Is it possible that the birds still noticed him? Yeah, maybe they smelled him. But his argument does address that issue. Either way, it's clearly not the best answer because (D) so perfectly addresses the fundamental logical gap in the argument.

Does that answer your question?

It does, I was under the impression that there was always 4 wrong answers choices, but your explanation was quite comforting, thank you kindly

[vik]

Ans choice A is not weakly correct. It is clearly incorrect, because it says, "Assumes, without providing justification, that..."

The Orn does provide justification - the well-concealed blind. So while he does assume the assumption in Ans A, he does provide justification.

Unrelated, the Orn made me think of Brian Birdwell.

[nflamel69]

Why is B wrong? what if the other animal's food resources are vegetations? Or is B not explicit enough because it says fails to specifiy? would B be right if it said it fails to consider the possibility that other animal's food resources consist of vegetations?

[griffin.811]

other animal food sources refers to other animals that are not insects. Perhaps it eats worms, small rodents etc...

animals are never made of vegetation, so this assumption is safe to make. I was torn between A and D like the op, but I like both explanations.

[hyewonkim89]

I picked D at first then I started thinking 'who cares about other times if the ornithologist has seen the birds eating insects and other animal products?'

But is the answer D because he says "this bird species is widely thought to subsist primarily on vegetation"???

So if birds are seen to eat only plants for all the other times of the day, then the widely known thought is not erroneous?

I just want to make sure I'm understanding this right.

Thanks in advance!

[sumukh09]

I picked D at first then I started thinking 'who cares about other times if the ornithologist has seen the birds eating insects and other animal products?'

But is the answer D because he says "this bird species is widely thought to subsist primarily on vegetation"???

So if birds are seen to eat only plants for all the other times of the day, then the widely known thought is not erroneous?

I just want to make sure I'm understanding this right.

Thanks in advance!

Yup. You have the correct understanding of the issue present in the stim; the flaw committed is that observing eating habits only in the morning is not representative enough to make the claim that the wide held belief is erroneous. They could still subsist primarily on vegetation by eating plants during the afternoons and night. Just because the ornithologist observed them in the morning deviating from the wide held belief does not mean that they their eating patterns are consistent throughout the day.

[nthakka]

The other thing about (A): even if the behavior was affected by his presence, couldn't it be for some reason that they ate LESS insects because of his presence? Maybe his presence had insects running away and they couldn't feast on them.

Any time you can see that an AC can go both way (you're unsure if it strengthens or weakens) more than likely the AC is wrong and has no direct bearing on the argument.

[AlexandraT781]

When I first analyzed D (the correct answer), I see how this would point out a flaw in the argument, but I eliminated it because I thought the feeding patterns were out of scope, and not addressed at all in the question. So while I understand that D is a flaw, I thought it was incorrect because it didn't pull evidence directly from the question. Can someone explain why, in this case, it doesn't matter if the answer doesn't come from the question? Thank you, in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

Feeding patterns are out of scope if they have no impact on judging the truth value of the conclusion, or judging the relevance of the evidence.

The conclusion is about whether or not this bird species subsists primarily on vegetation.

If we're investigating whether "more than 50% of a given bird species's diet is vegetation", would the stuff the bird eats in the afternoon / evening / night be relevant to that investigation?

Of course!

That's always the litmus test for in scope / out of scope. Does it have any impact on the truth value of the conclusion (or does it have any effect on the relevance of the author's evidence to her conclusion).

The correct answer to Flaw questions will frequently bring up totally new ideas.

Flaw answers either say:
1. this is flawed because the argument MADE THIS ASSUMPTION
2. this is flawed because the argument is VULNERABLE TO THIS OBJECTION
3. this is flawed because the argument MADE THIS SHADY MOVE

Whenever we see
"takes for granted / presumes / assumes / fails to establish"
they're giving us a #1 style answer.

Whenever we see
"fails to consider / ignores the possibility / neglects the possibility"
they're giving us a #2 style answer.

Either one of those could bring up new things, but it's especially likely in the #2 style.
We're essentially reading those and asking ourselves, "If this were true, would it constitute an objection to this argument?"

f.e.
Melissa applied to University of Oregon. Clearly, she wants to go to a good school.

A correct answer could say
(D) neglects the possibility that University of Oregon has been continually recognized by US News & World Report as having systemic deficiencies in terms of the quality of education it provides.

A lot of that wording sounds new, but is it relevant to judging whether "University of Oregon is a good school"? Sure.

Hope this helps.