Q9 - Phoebe: There have been many

[tzyc]

Is the reason answer (C) correct because Quincy concludes what Phoebe says is speculative? (which means no evidence)
I chose (A), thinking Phoebe mixes up correlation with causation...(Earthquakes→strange lights) If (A) said "takes a causal relation to be a correlation", would this be the correct answer too??

[maryadkins]

Is the reason answer (C) correct because Quincy concludes what Phoebe says is speculative? (which means no evidence)

Yes! Not necessarily NO evidence, but that her evidence isn't convincing.

(A) is wrong b/c Quincy does the opposite. She says the correlation is NOT necessarily causation.

If (A) said "takes a causal relation to be a correlation", would this be the correct answer too??

It would have to say something like, "Takes what Phoebe claims to be causation as a mere correlation," or something. But yes, she goes from causation to correlation, not the other way around.

(B) is wrong because she never mentions data.

(D) is out--she doesn't offer a new explanation.

(E) is something she doesn't do.

Hope this helps!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

In this stimulus Phoebe provides a terrible argument that mistakes a correlation between two phenomena for a causal relationship where ball lightning is caused by earthquakes. Quincy responds by pointing out that no evidence has been offered to support the causal relationship.

Correct Answer
Answer choice (C) describes Quincy’s response that no evidence has been offered to support anything more than a correlation between the earthquakes and the instances of ball lightning.

Incorrect Answers
(A) describes the flaw committed in Phoebe’s explanation, but not the method by which Quincy responds to Phoebe.
(B) suggests that Quincy challenged the correlation between the earthquakes and the instances of ball lightning. However, Quincy does not challenge this part of Phoebe’s argument.
(D) is unsupported. Quincy does not offer an alternative explanation.
(E) is unsupported. Quincy does not suggest that the evidence offered by Phoebe is irrelevant. A correlation between the two phenomena does offer some support for Phoebe’s conclusion, but Quincy argues that it is insufficient to substantiate the causal relationship put forward by Phoebe.

[dean.won]

Isnt quincy offering a new explanation by saying its nothing more than a coincidence??

Or is it not since she only says its "skeptical"?

[sumukh09]

Isnt quincy offering a new explanation by saying its nothing more than a coincidence??

Or is it not since she only says its "skeptical"?

Quincy is basically saying she doubts that there's an explanation between the earthquake and lights other than the two phenomena being a mere coincidence. However saying something is a "coincidence" isn't really the same as offering an explanation.

[griffin.811]

Matt I like your (B) explanation of B.

I was going to say that I think there is data being provided here (lightning occurred around the same time, near epicenters, etc..). The issue is that Q never questions this data. In fact, it seems as if she accepts it.

She instead attacks the correlation = causation argument, stating that she doesn't believe the quakes caused the lightning.

[mimimimi]

I think the key to this question is "speculative." Answer (C)'s "unsubstantiated" matches it perfectly. But I actually chose a wrong answer on this question because the word unsubstantiated initially threw me off. It is rare to see flaws being described as unsubstantiated. It sounds like questioning the premise, which LSAT almost never does. I guess that is the trap being placed here.

[keonheecho]

How does quincy saying that the association between lights and earthquakes are not anything more than a coincidence not an alternate explanation? is this answer choice incorrect because it is not how the premise relates to the conclusion -and is merely the conclusion itslef?

[eiwon21]

Hello,

I also had a problem eliminating "D." Why can't we take Quincy's claim that the "association is coincidence" to be giving a different explanation from Phoebe's?

Or is it that we need to analyze the ENTIRE structural argument by Quincy (starts out as "skeptical that..." = Ans. C's "Criticizes Phoebe's explanation" ; ends with "extremely speculative" = "unsubstantiated") rather than A PART of Quincy's rebuttal?

If we are allowed to choose an answer based on what Quincy is doing at ANY GIVEN POINT in his response, per the first sentence of Quincy's response, I don't understand why D would be a wrong answer choice. Is the question asking for the WHOLE argument structure of Quincy's response rather than what is happening within it?

Thanks!