#10 - History provides many examples of technological

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Weaken—CE. The correct answer choice is (A)

This stimulus begins with a surprising fact. According to the author, workers whose conditions were highly unpleasant without certain technology were resistant to adopting the technology. Therefore, the author concludes, people are more motivated by social inertia rather than a desire for comfort or safety. To weaken the conclusion, we want to provide another reason that might motivate the workers’ negative attitude toward technology. We do not necessarily need to determine the specific alternative in order to have a helpful prephrase. The knowledge that we are looking for an alternative explanation is sufficient to guide our analysis of the answer choices.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. It accepts that the workers are hostile to new technology, but rather than social inertia driving the hostility, it is the fear of job losses. It provides a reasonable justification for the workers’ dislike of technology.

Answer choice (B): This answer choice supports the argument. Adopting new technology is a challenge that people may not adjust to due to social inertia. If all your friends use Facebook, even if there is a better product, the stimulus tells us that the social inertia will provide too strong of a challenge to switch.

Answer choice (C): This answer choice does not actually impact the argument, because the stimulus does not state a rule for all technological innovations. It only states that there are examples of times where workers’ were hesitant to adopt technology.

Answer choice (D): The stimulus does not address the speed of technological innovation. It does not distinguish between workplaces that slowly introduce new technology, and those that force it quickly.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice gives another positive for technological innovation, increased productivity. It does not provide us with an alternate reason for workers’ dislike of new technology. If anything, it provides a reason workers should like technology, rather than avoid it.

[catherinedf]

Hi,

I'm looking at question 10 from section one of the Oct 2011 LSAT - "History provides many examples..."

I'm having a hard time understanding the question's arguement about social inertia (also not quite sure what that means) and hence can't quite figure out why the correct answer is (a). Can anyone help?

Thanks!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Catherine,

Thanks for the question. That last line about social inertia means that keeping things the way they are or have been is a stronger force than, in this case, possible improvements brought about by technological innovations. In essence, the author says that the more powerful cause of people not adopting the new technological innovations is the social inertia.

Answer choice (A) undermines this causal conclusion in classic fashion, namely by supplying an alternate cause. In (A), the author suggests that it wasn't social inertia that caused the technology to be resisted, but rather a fear of losing jobs (in the author's view, if you think a new technology is going to cause job loss, you'd be less likely to willingly adopt it).

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[catherinedf]

Hi Dave,

That's really helpful - thanks!

Catherine

[wwarui]

Hi,

Please could you clarify what the stimulus means? I do not understand why A is the response to this question.
Thanks!

[Robert Carroll]

w,

The conclusion of this argument is the second sentence. The author is therefore saying that the examples show that inertia is more powerful than the desire for comfort or safety. This is a weak argument because we don't know all the effects of the technological innovations that were resisted. Even though people might have had poor working conditions without the innovations, the innovations themselves might not have helped improve those conditions, or they might have had some negative effects that would outweigh their benefits. Importantly, whatever the effects were, the author is making a very strong claim about what people perceive to improve their comfort or safety. The author offers only one possible explanation - social inertia explains the resistance, and there is no other reason people whose working conditions were miserable would have for resisting technological innovations.

Answer choice (A) provides a reason for people's resistance that counters what the author said. Because the author's conclusion said "This shows that social inertia is a more powerful determinant of human behavior than is the desire for comfort or safety," where "this" is the fact in the first sentence, anything that uses that fact to come to a different conclusion will weaken the argument.

Robert

[mN2mmvf]

Hi, I was a little confused by this question. Couldn't not wanting to lose your job be a form of "social inertia"?

[James Finch]

Hi M,

"Social Inertia" is a difficult phrase to parse, as it's applying a physics concept to human behavior, but I would read it in the context of the argument in the stimulus as something along the lines of "an irrational opposition to any kind change, regardless of whether the consequences of said change would be good, bad or mixed." In focusing on the irrational aspect, the threat of job loss mentioned in answer choice (A) is a rational reason to oppose the cause of that job loss, in this case technological innovations.

Hope this helps!

[reticulargirl]

When I look at (A), it seems to me that the answer reinforces the argument because fear of losing one's job could be a safety concern. However, stimulus provides that social inertia is a more powerful determinant of behavior than desires for comfort or safety. I thought (E) operated similarly in that social inertia is a more powerful determinant than employee productivity (comfort, perhaps?).

Likewise, B and C reinforce the argument.

I went with D, thinking that gradual adaptation could overcome inertia?

A totally weird question and I clearly got it wrong.

[Alex Bodaken]

retigulargirl,

Thanks for the question. I think you may have gotten the argument a little mixed up here

As you note, this is a weaken question, one in which the conclusion states "This shows that social inertia is a more powerful determinant of human behavior than is the desire for comfort or safety." So, we are looking for an answer that indicates that this isn't true, i.e., that the desire for comfort or safety is a more powerful determinant of social behavior than social inertia.

As you say below, the fear of losing one's job, cited in answer choice (A), absolutely could and should be seen as a comfort/safety concern - and that it precisely why (A) ends up as the credited answer here. If (A) is true, than it provides evidence that people are in fact being motivated by comfort/safety concerns, which weakens the conclusion that indicated that these concerns are not powerful motivators of social behavior.

Hope that helps!
Alex