Q8 - A leading critic of space exploration

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Flaw

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: Explorers are LIKELY to survive the trip to Mars.
Evidence: The backup system makes a fatal catastrophe unlikely at any given stage.

Any prephrase?
This is a tough nut to crack. Our debating stance is "Given that [dying is unlikely at any given stage], how can we say that it's LIKELY that explorers would die on the trip to Mars?" When you see the argument core recycles an adjective, look out for Part vs. Whole. The author is basically saying that because "Death is unlikely" at each stage of the trip, "Death is unlikely" for the entire trip. As previous posts have elaborated, individual events may be likely, but stringing them together may create an unlikely probability. If there's only a 30% chance of rain on Monday and on Tuesday, then rain is unlikely "on either of those days". But that doesn't mean rain is unlikely for that two-day stretch. There's a 70% (7/10) chance of sunshine on each day. But for BOTH days to have sunshine, you'd multiply 7/10 by 7/10 and get a 49/100 probability. So there's a 49% chance we have sunshine over that two-day stretch, and a 51% chance we have rain (at least once).

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:
A) Bad move answer --- Did the author infer something is true of a whole? Her conclusion is that "death is unlikely" for the whole trip to Mars. Is her premise that "death is unlikely" for each part of the trip to Mars? Yes.

B) Bad move answer --- Did the author conclude that something CANNOT occur? Nope. She concludes death is unlikely to occur. No need to keep reading.

C) Bad move answer --- Did the author conclude what MUST be the case? Nope. She's just concluding that the risk of something has been exaggerated, not that there's NO risk.

D) Bad move answer --- Did the author conclude that something WILL work? Nope. Not definitive conclusion.

E) Bad move answer --- Did the author reject a view? Sure, kinda. She rejects the view that "death is likely on a trip to Mars". Is her evidence saying "the people who think death is likely have made a sketchy argument"? No. Her evidence is about a backup system.

Takeaway/Pattern: When the author's conclusion is a rebuttal "You're wrong", always take the time to articulate the conclusion using the borrowed language. Here, if we force our brains to say "It is false to say explorers are unlikely to survive" (aka, "the explorers are likely to survive"), we stand a better chance of hearing the idea repetition between Part and Whole. This is made tougher to spot as well because we have to recognize "surviving the trip" and "fatal catastrophe" are the same idea, just negated. When Flaw answer choices describe a bad move, take the time to match up each half with the Conc and the Prem. It will help you find flaws you didn't spot and quickly eliminate answers that don't match what happened.

#officialexplanation

[verrapin]

I think I'm really missing something here because I just can't see how (A) is the answer. I remember I struggled on this one during the test because I didn't like any of the answer choices at all.

Hmm, ok, re-reading it just now, is it something like this? He says there would be well-engineered (so we know it'll probably work) backup systems at every stage, but then says that almost guarantees that there won't be any catastrophe during the trip. However, the backup systems only cover engineering issues, eh? There could still be radiation, freak collisions, first contact with the Borg, etc.

Is that what is going on in this question? Usually I don't like to approach it in the way I did above; usually a more abstract (and so more applicable to other LSAT questions) approach is what I like.

So put another way, is it "he assumes that because ONE component of the journey (the engineering systems) will be most likely be catastrophe-free, the journey as a whole will most likely be catastrophe-free"?

Ok, I think I am seeing it now. Is my thinking along the right lines here, or is there something else I should've seen? Or is my thinking above wrong? Or anything else...

Ahh man, this really disturbs me that I *completely* missed this question.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

This is a very tough question, and I'm sure if I saw this during the exam, it'd be a question I'd be thinking about afterwards.

The test-writer would likely claim that the gap exists between these two components:

A fatal catastrophe is quite unlikely at any given stage --> It's an exaggeration to say the astronauts are unlikely to survive the trip.

I imagine the test-writer sees this as a much more subtle version of the issue in these arguments:
Every shirt Jan packed in the suitcase is light --> Therefore, the suitcase must be light.
THe wall is made of square rectangles --> The wall must be square.

The author is assuming something about the entire trip based on components.

Mathematically speaking, imagine you have a one percent change of having trouble at any one stage, and imagine you have 80 stages in the trip. Furthermore, there could be other reasons why what is true of one stage isn't true of the whole. Of course, what adds to the vagueness (and thus the assumptions the author is making) of the term unlikely.

Again, this is a super subtle example of this type of issue, and one that's very difficult to discern in a minute or less. I think the key to success on this q is being able to see the wrong answers -- I would say that none of the other answer choices are, upon careful inspection, in the realm of possibility.

[interestedintacos]

One other interesting thing to note-this question was placed right after a parallel flaw question with a whole to part flaw. It's almost like the test makers placed it there on purpose to make it a little easier-having just seen a similar flaw should have made it pop out when it comes again

[LSAT-Chang]

Or the test takers could have decided to write this right after that previous whole to part question just to confuse the heck out of the test takers and trying to make us think that it is unlikely to have two answers in a row that describe the same flaw --

[shirando21]

why can't B be correct?

[ohthatpatrick]

Whenever a Flaw answer choice is in one of these formats:
Infers X from the fact that Y
Concludes X on the basis of Y
Infers, from the claim that Y, that X
Takes for granted that Y means X

... you can evaluate whether the answer choice is legit by matching the X-phrase up with the argument's conclusion and the Y-phrase up with the argument's premise.

For (B), the conclusion of the argument needs to match "something cannot occur".

The conclusion is:
"Saying explorers are unlikely to survive the trip exaggerates the risk."

Is that a strong match for "something cannot occur"?

No, "something cannot occur" would sound like "Humans can't get to Mars", or "No accident would occur if humans tried to travel to Mars".

Saying that people are exaggerating the risk isn't saying that something CAN'T occur, just that someone has misrepresented the risk.

So (B) dies before we even read the 2nd half of it because the conclusion phrase doesn't match the argument's conclusion.

=======

However, dig a little deeper with (B) so you get even better at talking your way through these general-language answers.

You have to match up the general answer choice language with the specific language from the argument.

(B) says that the author's premise was that "something is unlikely to occur".

That's accurate; the author says that "a fatal catastrophe is quite unlikely to occur at any given stage of the trip".
Something = "A fatal catastrophe at any given stage"

According to (B)'s language, the conclusion of the argument says that "something cannot occur". So if we plug in the same 'something' from before, it sounds like:
"A fatal catastrophe cannot occur at any given stage of the trip".

This, as we said, is a poor match for the author's actual conclusion.

Meanwhile, with (A), the premise needs to match "something is true of each of the parts".

We can match that with "A fatal catastrophe cannot occur at any given stage of the trip"
Something = "a fatal catastrophe is unlikely to occur"
is true of
each of the parts = "at any given stage"

So, according to (A)'s language, the conclusion of the argument would have to be
Something = "a fatal catastrophe is unlikely to occur"
is true of
of the whole = "on the trip to Mars"

Even though the conclusion didn't explicitly say "a fatal catastrophe is unlikely to occur on the trip to Mars", this is close enough to what the author DID say:
"those who think explorers would be unlikely to survive the trip to Mars are exaggerating the risk".

Hope this helps.

[fetshaw]

I understand how A is correct, but I'm having trouble understanding why D is wrong. Just because there are safety procedures in place doesn't mean that something won't go wrong.

[ohthatpatrick]

Hopefully you read the previous post, but as a quick recap, when flaw answer choices say that the author ...
Infers X on the basis of Y
or
Draws a conclusion about X based on evidence about Y

.. you can determine whether the answer is correct or not simply by asking yourself whether X matches the conclusion and Y matches the premise.

For (D), it says that the conclusion was "Something will work".

What was the actual conclusion?
"Critics who say explorers are unlikely to survive the trip to Mars have exaggerated the risk"
or more succinctly
"Explorers are likely to survive the trip to Mars"

Is that a fair match for "something will work"?

No. Saying that something is less risky than others believe or saying that something is likely to work is NOT a fair match for "something will work".

The author is NOT certain that explorers will survive the trip to Mars.

So that's enough to kill off (D). The conclusion half of (D) doesn't match the author's actual conclusion.

(The premise half of (D) isn't great, either. "Something could work" is not a strong match for "failure is unlikely at any given stage")

Here's the type of move (D) is describing:
Giving a girl flowers can cause her to kiss you. Therefore, when Ben gives flowers to Beth, she will kiss him.

=== other answers ==

(C) says that the conclusion is about "what must be the case". Again, the real conclusion is that "surviving the trip to Mars is likely" or "the trip to Mars is less risky than some people claim". Neither of these is so definitive that we can match it to "what MUST be the case". So (C) dies right there.

(E) has a decent conclusion half. The author DOES reject a view, saying that "critics have exaggerated the risk". But the premise has nothing to do with claiming that critics have offered an inadequate argument.

(The flaw this choice describes is known as Absence of Evidence ... and this argument is NOT an example of that flaw)

Hope this helps.

[redcobra21]

Thanks for the great explanation, Patrick. That helped a lot.

I get in theory why answer (A) is correct. But I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around how it is flawed to say that if a fatal catastrophe is unlikely to happen at any given stage, a fatal accident is unlikely to happen during the trip. If I were to say that it's unlikely for me to break my leg at any point in the race, isn't it the case that it's unlikely for me to break my leg during the race? I suppose that you could say that I might be more likely to break my leg at the end of the race because I am tired, but I feel like that's covered by the argument since it has already been established that it is unlikely for me to break my leg at any point, whether it be beginning, middle or end.

Am I missing something? Thanks!

[mattkita22]

Thanks for the great explanation, Patrick. That helped a lot.

I get in theory why answer (A) is correct. But I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around how it is flawed to say that if a fatal catastrophe is unlikely to happen at any given stage, a fatal accident is unlikely to happen during the trip. If I were to say that it's unlikely for me to break my leg at any point in the race, isn't it the case that it's unlikely for me to break my leg during the race? I suppose that you could say that I might be more likely to break my leg at the end of the race because I am tired, but I feel like that's covered by the argument since it has already been established that it is unlikely for me to break my leg at any point, whether it be beginning, middle or end.

Am I missing something? Thanks!

The problem is he is using the stages at which they would stop at, saying they are safe, as his reason that the entire trip is safe. What about lift off, in between stages, etc? The stages alone will not make the entire trip safe, just those certain stages.

[ywan1990]

This question has been killing me off for quite a while. And I reckon it definitely takes some leap of imagination to imagine a scenario which really makes (A) sound reasonable. So here is what I have come up with:

The key word in stimulus is 'fatal' in the last sentence. So indeed in every individual stage, the explorer will not encounter fatal catastrophe. BUT he may encounter, say, some sort of sickness whose intensity accumulates over time (i.e. over several stages).

Then, indeed it could be case that fatal catastrophe would not happen in ANY given stage. But the contribution of some minor disease, for example, may amount to a fatal one. So the trip as a whole will be fatal.

[bd8112]

Hi,

I just wanted clarification on something Mike Kim mentioned above about the mathematics of this flaw. I think in order to see why (A) is correct, it's pretty essential to understand how probabilities combine in a set of independent events.

Somebody who understands statistics please chime in here if I'm totally off base, but this explanation satisfies my intuition:

If there is (let's say) a 1% chance of a fatal catastrophe at each discrete stage of the journey to Mars, the likelihood of a fatal catastrophe on the journey as a whole becomes increasingly (I think exponentially?) more likely as the number of stages in the journey increases.

To demonstrate this, I considered a coin toss: If you flip a coin once, there is a 50% chance of getting heads. But if you flip a coin a ten times, it is almost certain that the coin will land on heads at least once.

Is this the reason why a fatal catastrophe may be unlikely at any given stage, but not necessarily unlikely over the course of the whole trip?

Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

Yes, you've nailed the mathematical concept.

Say that you're condemned to death by a firing squad. Good news for you, THEY'RE going to be blindfolded! Bad news for you, they get to fire 1000 times.

Even though each individual shot is likely to miss, it's still likely that at least one of those bullets hits you!

If you want some actual probability math, consider something with a 90% success rate. There's only a 10% risk that doing X will kill you.

So you're quite unlikely to die from doing X.

However, now assume that you have to do X five times over.

The probability you survive it the first time is 90%.

The probability you survive it the second time is 81%.

That's because when you chain together multiple events, you multiply their probabilities together.

9/10 (survive the 1st time) * 9/10 (survive 2nd time) = 81/100

Do X three times and we now have a 72.9% survival rate.

You can see how a few more iterations of this would get us below 50% survival rate. It would make the probability of surviving X five or more times UNLIKELY.

Hope this helps.

[bharbin1544]

Under the timed test, I struggled with this question. I chose B in a panic since I felt as though I had spent too much time on it already. But during Blind Review, I immediately found error in B. The stimulus as a whole is not saying that something "Cannot" happen, merely that it is unlikely to happen. No other answer choice did it for me except A. When I had the time to sit and think in depth about the argument, I could readily see that the problem was that the argument was drawing a conclusion about the whole of the trip based on what was likely to happen (or not happen) during its parts.