#17 - Photographs show an area of Europa, a moon of Jupiter,

[ataraxia10]

So the "presence of such a sea" is the "reason to believe that there may be life on Europa," not that "the early development of life" is the "reason to believe that there may be life on Europa." And that is why the "presence of such a sea" and not "the early development of life" is the subsidiary conclusion to the main conclusion?

[James Finch]

Hi Ataraxia,

Yes, that's correct. It's a conclusion/hypothesis based upon some evidence that there is a warm sea on Europa, not a know fact (like the buckling of the icy surface). This conclusion is then combined with the information that warm seas are a "primary factor" for life existing to ultimately conclude that life may exist on Europa.

Hope this clears things up!

[OneSeventy2019]

PowerScore,

Like many others, I chose E instead of A. I had recognized that "there is a warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface" was indeed a sub-conclusion but also that that it did not DIRECTLY support the arguments main conclusion. What I had quickly diagrammed (in my head) was something like this:

Premise - Photographic evidence about buckling Ice

(leads to)

Sub-Conclusion - Warm sea water underneath

(leads to)

Sub-Conclusion - Warm water is indicative of life

(leads to)

Main Conclusion - There is probably life on Europa

Thus, I thought the "gotcha" that the LSAT was trying to pull was that this phrase wasn't technically supporting the "overall" conclusion since it was both functioning as and serving for another sub-conclusion. I know that my error was in not identifying "warm water is indicative of life" as a standalone premise.

Anyways, my question is that is the reason that this "warm water is indicative of life" is NOT a sub-conclusion just because this fact is in no way derived from the fact that warm water is underneath the sea? I think I was just thrown off my that a sub-conclusion was combined with a standalone premise in the middle of the prompt so close to the overall conclusion.

Thanks!

Sentence 1 serves as a premise.
Sentence 2 is a conclusion based upon the evidence given in sentence 1.
Sentence 3 begins with another premise that is combined with sentence 2's information to give us our main conclusion.

[KelseyWoods]

Hi OneSeventy!

Sub-conclusions always have to have support for them (that's what makes them conclusions!). So, yes, the statement that a warm sea is "a primary factor in the early development of life" is not a sub-conclusion because there is no support for it. It definitely isn't supported by the statement "there is a warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface"--remember that if a statement supports another statement, it has to answer the question "why should I believe this statement?" If I ask "why is a warm sea a primary factor in the early development of life?" and you tell me "Because there is a warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface"--that makes no sense! If something doesn't answer the question "why should I believe this statement?" then it isn't a premise supporting that statement.

It's actually fairly common for a sub-conclusion to be combined with a premise in the middle of an argument, rather than having just a chain of sub-conclusions, one after the other. So be on the lookout for this type of argument structure in the future!

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[Emilymarie]

Hi there! Could you please explain why answer choice D is wrong? I was stuck between A & D and can definitely now see why A is right, but I'm struggling to see what's wrong with D. Are we considering the conclusion to be just the last part of the final sentence (there is reason to believe that there may be life on Europa), and so in that case the first part of the final sentence could also be a "consideration" in the final conclusion?

[Adam Tyson]

That's correct, Emilymarie! The last sentence present a premise before the comma and a conclusion after the comma (indicated by the word "so"), so the warm sea is not the only consideration.

But also think about prephrasing and what we should have been looking for before we read any of the answers. The warm sea gets support from the photos, and it gives support to the possibility of life, so our prephrase should be "it's a conclusion, but not the main conclusion; it's an intermediate conclusion, aka subordinate conclusions, aka subsidiary conclusion." When we see that our prephrase is a match for answer A, any other answer should pale in comparison!

[lsatdaynnight]

Hi,

I read the explanation for this question and am still having a difficult time understanding how the claim in question is a subsidiary conclusion. I selected answer choice E as I thought the claim that "there is a warm sea beneath Europa's icy surface" acts as a support for the subsidiary conclusion that "the presence of such a sea is thought by scientists to be a primary factor in the development of life."

I do not understand how "this photographic evidence indicates that there is a warm sea beneath the surface" is an argument. Does it not just act as support to the the statement that "the presence of such a sea is thought by scientists to be a primary factor in the development of life" leading to the main conclusion that "there is a reason to believe there may be a life on Europa"?

Thank you in advance for the explanation.

[Adam Tyson]

The key word here is "evidence," lsatdaynnight - evidence is support for something, like a premise that supports a conclusion. The evidence - the support - comes from the photographs, and that photographic evidence supports the claim that there is a warm sea beneath the surface. Thus, since "there is a warm sea beneath Europa’s icy surface" is a claim that has some support, it is a conclusion. The author then uses that conclusion to support another conclusion, that there is reason to believe that there may be life on Europa. So the bit about the warm sea both gets support and gives support, and that's exactly what a subordinate conclusion is all about!

Oh, and "The presence of such a sea is thought by scientists to be a primary factor in the early development of life" is not a conclusion at all because the author never gives us any support for it. There is no evidence that scientists think that, there's just the claim that they do think it. Thus, that sentence is only a premise - support for the main conclusion, but not supported by anything else. It's just added to the subordinate conclusion, and together those two claims support the main conclusion.