Q8 - Two paleontologists, Dr. Tyson

[MayMay]

quick summary: Dr T: looks at evidence of footprint to say it shows human characteristic.
Dr R: rejects dr. T's conclusion. why? because if the footprints were human, then it'd show awkward manner of walking.

question 8 asks what can weaken Dr. T.
so we're looking for something that says it's probably not humans.

SO for 8, what about choice (C)?
wouldn't that just make certain that early humans in fact did not walk in an awkward manner? meaning, the footprints cannot be that of humans because hey look- at site G, there are human footprints without that awkward walking pattern.

[ohthatpatrick]

This is a really tricky problem. I agree that (C) does weaken Dr. T's conclusion. This is one of those unusual cases in which there are two answers that weaken/strengthen, but one of them weakens/strengthens MORE.

Consider this quick analogy:
Most students at Jefferson High now use a tablet to take notes. Average GPA at Jefferson High has risen over the past few years. Thus, taking notes on a tablet seems to help students perform better academically.

Which would provide the most support?
(A) A majority of students at Lincoln High also are now using tablets, and their GPA's are also improving

(B) Average GPA for the students at Jefferson High who do not use tablets has not risen over the past few years.

Again, it's a causal pattern. Again, (A) would strengthen the argument, because a correlation that shows the supposed cause (tablets) associated with the observed effect (higher GPA) definitely does strengthen the argument.

But ... LSAT would find it MORE crucial to rule out alternative causes at Jefferson High than to provide additional circumstantial evidence elsewhere.

(B) gives us "the control" group ... people who aren't exposed to the supposed cause do NOT experience the effect.

Even an answer that said something like, "The overall quality of instruction has not improved at Jefferson High over the past few years" would beat an answer such as (A).

So while bringing up a seemingly parallel situation (like that of Lincoln High ... or of Site M in Q8) can strengthen or weaken, it is not as powerful an idea as one that relates directly to the situation at hand (to Jefferson High, in this example, or to Site G in Q8).

The problem is that when we reference some analogous situation, we're not sure they're totally fair to compare, so an analogy can only strengthen or weaken so much.

So getting back to Q8 ...

(C) definitely weakens a bit, because it seems to suggest that there were human-like footprints around the same time and location that DID have a more human-like stepping pattern. But there are unknowable aspects of this comparison.

First of all, these are "footprints shaped like a human's", not "a human's footprint". So it's possible that some other animal made these prints.

It's also possible that something about the terrain of site M would cause the animal leaving footprints to walk one way, while something about the terrain of site G might make the same animal exhibit a different stepping pattern.

Meanwhile, (B) just supplies an alternative explanation for the footprints discovered at site G.

When it comes to this pattern:
i. premise = observed phenomenon
ii. conclusion = explanation for that phenomenon

there are two main avenues for evaluation/attack:
1. Alternative explanations for the phenomenon
2. The plausibility of the provided explanation

(C) would seem to attack the plausibility of the provided explanation. "Why would humans be cross-stepping at site G but not doing so at site M?"

(B) provides an alternative explanation for the phenomenon. "The backwards prints at site G were left by bears with feet similar to humans, except the bears have reversed footprints."

LSAT seems to consider supplying/denying alternative explanations to be more powerful ideas for this fact pattern than just supplying matching/mismatching analogies.

Hope this helps.

[MayMay]

wow thank you so much!!!
I didn't realize the LSAT differentiated between the two kinds of "strengthen-ers."
thank you for such a detailed explanation!!!

[Alvanith]

I guess there are some subtleties that make Answer B more appealing.

Dr. Rees said the footprints were weird because if they were left by humans then they would have had to walk in a cross-stepping manner like placing the left foot to the right of the right foot.

In Answer B we are told that certain species of bears had feet that were just like the opposite of human feet: compared to human feet, the biggest toe of the bear feet was the outside toe and the smallest toe was the innermost toe. Imagine the footprints when these bears walk, aren't they just like the cross-stepping manner? Although we can't say these footprints are absolutely belonging to these bears, but it is nearly like a perfect match...

[WaltGrace1983]

I guess there are some subtleties that make Answer B more appealing.

Dr. Rees said the footprints were weird because if they were left by humans then they would have had to walk in a cross-stepping manner like placing the left foot to the right of the right foot.

In Answer B we are told that certain species of bears had feet that were just like the opposite of human feet: compared to human feet, the biggest toe of the bear feet was the outside toe and the smallest toe was the innermost toe. Imagine the footprints when these bears walk, aren't they just like the cross-stepping manner? Although we can't say these footprints are absolutely belonging to these bears, but it is nearly like a perfect match...

It doesn't need to be perfect. That's why strengtheners/weakeners suck

In my opinion - which could be wrong - I don't think that the walking pattern is actually that relevant and here is why: we have very little information about it. Maybe humans did in fact walk that way back in the day. The more important issue in this problem is that, just because something looks like human footprints doesn't necessarily mean that it is a human footprint.

Think about it this way...

Show human characteristics: heel and a big toe adjacent to next toe
→
Early hominid (human) footprints

No one ever said anything about the actual alignment of the toes. Maybe the big toe is in the middle? Maybe its on the opposite end of where it is now? Who knows, right?! The point is that the big toe is adjacent to the others and there is a squarish heel; therefore = human footprints. Hmmm....

(A) This gets at the walking pattern. While this would totally undermine Dr. R's reasoning for rejecting Dr. T's conclusion, it doesn't do very much to Dr. T's conclusion. Why? Because it still gives us no indication about whether or not the footprints are human prints! As I said, humans may have walked funny! Were the prints human or not?!

(B) "Bears had feet...like human feet." Great start! Gives us an alternate explanation: maybe Dr. T is mistaking the bear prints for human prints. "Except that...outside toe...biggest toe...innermost toe...smallest toe." Hmmm. This is certainly different from our feet now. HOWEVER, we have no information about what the feet were like then. What do we know? Just that big toe = adjacent to other toes. Tricky tricky LSAT. This fits perfectly. It shows that , although the big toe is adjacent to the other toes, it still may not be human prints. Thus, it accepts the premise, denies the conclusion. Bingo.

(C) Again, we know nothing about the walking motion! Maybe humans walked that way. We need to know if those prints are humans or not!

(D) "Some details of some footprints..." Big deal - so SOME details of SOME footprints got erased. So what? We aren't even talking about details - we are talking about the general outline of the feet. In addition, this statement is far too weak to do anything.

(E) We are talking about this footprint and this gives us no reason to believe that it was an animal hoof.

[Alvanith]

I guess there are some subtleties that make Answer B more appealing.

Dr. Rees said the footprints were weird because if they were left by humans then they would have had to walk in a cross-stepping manner like placing the left foot to the right of the right foot.

In Answer B we are told that certain species of bears had feet that were just like the opposite of human feet: compared to human feet, the biggest toe of the bear feet was the outside toe and the smallest toe was the innermost toe. Imagine the footprints when these bears walk, aren't they just like the cross-stepping manner? Although we can't say these footprints are absolutely belonging to these bears, but it is nearly like a perfect match...

It doesn't need to be perfect. That's why strengtheners/weakeners suck

In my opinion - which could be wrong - I don't think that the walking pattern is actually that relevant and here is why: we have very little information about it. Maybe humans did in fact walk that way back in the day. The more important issue in this problem is that, just because something looks like human footprints doesn't necessarily mean that it is a human footprint.

Think about it this way...

Show human characteristics: heel and a big toe adjacent to next toe
→
Early hominid (human) footprints

No one ever said anything about the actual alignment of the toes. Maybe the big toe is in the middle? Maybe its on the opposite end of where it is now? Who knows, right?! The point is that the big toe is adjacent to the others and there is a squarish heel; therefore = human footprints. Hmmm....

(A) This gets at the walking pattern. While this would totally undermine Dr. R's reasoning for rejecting Dr. T's conclusion, it doesn't do very much to Dr. T's conclusion. Why? Because it still gives us no indication about whether or not the footprints are human prints! As I said, humans may have walked funny! Were the prints human or not?!

(B) "Bears had feet...like human feet." Great start! Gives us an alternate explanation: maybe Dr. T is mistaking the bear prints for human prints. "Except that...outside toe...biggest toe...innermost toe...smallest toe." Hmmm. This is certainly different from our feet now. HOWEVER, we have no information about what the feet were like then. What do we know? Just that big toe = adjacent to other toes. Tricky tricky LSAT. This fits perfectly. It shows that , although the big toe is adjacent to the other toes, it still may not be human prints. Thus, it accepts the premise, denies the conclusion. Bingo.

(C) Again, we know nothing about the walking motion! Maybe humans walked that way. We need to know if those prints are humans or not!

(D) "Some details of some footprints..." Big deal - so SOME details of SOME footprints got erased. So what? We aren't even talking about details - we are talking about the general outline of the feet. In addition, this statement is far too weak to do anything.

(E) We are talking about this footprint and this gives us no reason to believe that it was an animal hoof.

Thanks for your comment! I can't believe there would be a reply after such a long time:)

Yep! I agree with you that walking pattern is not quite relevant!

After a second review, I would like to say some new stuff for this one, using Manhattan methodologies...

Argument core: some footprints show human characteristics -> the footprints are clearly from humans.

Thoughts: looks like the stimulus assumes assumes that no other creatures that are non-human can leave human-like footprints!

B directly attacks this assumption.

For C, as you said, we don't really know the pattern a human would walk at that time, maybe they walked differently from us, so we can't say which footprints are "more human"

[WaltGrace1983]

Thanks for your comment! I can't believe there would be a reply after such a long time:)

Yep! I agree with you that walking pattern is not quite relevant!

After a second review, I would like to say some new stuff for this one, using Manhattan methodologies...

Argument core: some footprints show human characteristics -> the footprints are clearly from humans.

Thoughts: looks like the stimulus assumes assumes that no other creatures that are non-human can leave human-like footprints!

B directly attacks this assumption.

For C, as you said, we don't really know the pattern a human would walk at that time, maybe they walked differently from us, so we can't say which footprints are "more human"

Yea exactly! Plus, in addition to that, I think that (C) is actually a (very slight*)weakener for Dr. Rees' point. Dr. Rees says "No way! They cannot be humans! This is because these prints are unexpectedly criss-crossed!" Well guess what? There are some human-like prints that DON'T show this cross-stepping manner.

However, the question still remains, "are these tracks human or not?" We don't know! That is why I say this is a *very slight* weakener to R's point, because the main assumption here is that if it LOOKS LIKE human feet it IS human feet. (B) attacks this assumption by saying that not everything that looks like human feet actually IS human feet.

(A) is definitely a weakener of R's contention though, by the way.




...I'm such an LSAT nerd.

[Mab6q]

This question really got to me. I originally choose B over C because of the alternative explanation in B seemed great. However on my review I thought C was better because we were not told anything about the bears in B. Were they around at that time and that location. However, I can the issue brought about in C: we don't know if they really are human prints.

Ultimately, this is a poor question in my opinion since both ACs have serious issues.

[ohthatpatrick]

I agree, it's not a perfect question or perfect credited response.

We don't quite know NOTHING about the bears ... I think by saying "certain species of bears HAD feet very like human feet" is meant to be interpreted as "certain species of bears ... that lived around the same time".

If the answer choice had used present tense, it would be a lot harder to make that leap to early hominids, but I think the use of the past tense is meant to be referential to the ancient time period being analyzed/interpreted.

You're definitely right that (B) doesn't give us any proof that bears who had human-like feet lived in the same area as these footprints.

I kinda disagree with some of the previous discussion that the whole cross-stepping aspect is irrelevant. It may be unnecessary, since you can certainly argue that (B) attacks an assumption that "human-like footprints --> human footprints".

But the LSAT authors were DEFINITELY (in my mind) trying to make (B) pop even better as an alternative explanation by making it conform to BOTH pieces of info we have:
- footprints show human characteristics
yet
- weird "cross stepping" pattern

(B) suggests that the bear hypothesis is MORE plausible than the human hypothesis because a bear's footprints would ALSO appear human-like, but it would resolve the confusion of the supposed "cross stepping". A bear's NORMAL footprints would look like a human's UNEXPECTED cross-stepping.

[gaheexlee]

I agree, it's not a perfect question or perfect credited response.

We don't quite know NOTHING about the bears ... I think by saying "certain species of bears HAD feet very like human feet" is meant to be interpreted as "certain species of bears ... that lived around the same time".

If the answer choice had used present tense, it would be a lot harder to make that leap to early hominids, but I think the use of the past tense is meant to be referential to the ancient time period being analyzed/interpreted.

You're definitely right that (B) doesn't give us any proof that bears who had human-like feet lived in the same area as these footprints.

I kinda disagree with some of the previous discussion that the whole cross-stepping aspect is irrelevant. It may be unnecessary, since you can certainly argue that (B) attacks an assumption that "human-like footprints --> human footprints".

But the LSAT authors were DEFINITELY (in my mind) trying to make (B) pop even better as an alternative explanation by making it conform to BOTH pieces of info we have:
- footprints show human characteristics
yet
- weird "cross stepping" pattern

(B) suggests that the bear hypothesis is MORE plausible than the human hypothesis because a bear's footprints would ALSO appear human-like, but it would resolve the confusion of the supposed "cross stepping". A bear's NORMAL footprints would look like a human's UNEXPECTED cross-stepping.

I had eliminated B because I assumed when the stimulus said "a big toe immediately adjacent to the next toe" that the footprint looked much like a human's footprint with the biggest toe being the innermost toe. So when B said the bear's biggest toe was the outermost toe, I thought the bear's footprint irrelevant to the question at hand.

Just to confirm, the assumption I made wasn't called for, right? The stimulus never stated where the big toe was located, just that it was located next to another toe.