#12 - Criminologist: The main purpose of most criminal

[Claire Horan]

Thanks for your great explanation, Jwheeler! That thought process will help you be surer of your answers in the future.

[TurtleLawyer]

It's my understanding that this was a Sufficient Assumption question (Justify the Conclusion). It seems like the Mechanistic approach described in the LR Bible doesn't work on this question.

Would you be able to show me how to solve this question using the Mechanistic approach, or is that approach just not usable for this question?

[Adam Tyson]

The mechanistic approach is best applied when the conclusion brings up something that is obviously new, not mentioned anywhere in the premises. In that case, the prephrase will be built around the structure of "if (info from premises), then (new thing in conclusion)".

In this argument, nothing stands out as obviously, glaringly new, so I probably would not take a purely mechanistic approach...BUT, we can, because there is something new (although perhaps a bit subtle).

The new idea in the conclusion is "try to become increasingly involved." We know from the premises that criminal organizations primarily focus on profits, and we also know that certain technologies promise to cause big profits. "Criminal organizations" are mentioned in the premises and the conclusion, as are biotech and IT ("these areas"), so we don't need to mention any of those things in the prephase or the correct answer.

Following that mechanistic structure, we could come up with "if (someone's purpose is profits and something leads to big profits), then (that someone will try to become increasingly involved in that something)." And there we have answer D! The mechanistic approach works even on this question, where the "new" or "rogue" element may be very subtle.

Like I said, I wouldn't take a mechanistic view of this stimulus myself, but that doesn't mean that approach cannot be used. When you are stuck for a good prephrase on a Justify the Conclusion question, give it a shot, even if it's not at first totally obvious what the new thing is.

[TurtleLawyer]

Thank you so much Adam. You just made me realize that I had understood the Mechanistic approach incorrectly.

Previously, I thought that we could ignore elements that appear more than once. In this question the "generating profit" part comes up twice so I thought my correct answer wouldn't have it (which is why I eliminated D). In reality, if I understand correctly, the correct answer won't include elements that we've seen in BOTH the premise(s) and the conclusion. But an element showing up in the premises many times is not enough to remove it from our list of elements we'd expect to see in the correct answer.

So for this question: "becoming increasingly involved" is our new elements that we don't see anywhere, so our correct answer probably needs this.

"criminal organization" and "Biotech /IT" are in BOTH the premises AND the conclusion, so don't expect them in the correct answer.

"generating profits" shows up twice, but it only shows up in the premises, and not the conclusion, so we should expect to see that in the correct answer.

So the correct answer will link "becoming increasingly involved" with "generating profits", hence D.

Thanks Adam!!

[ladybug8712]

Hello, can someone please help explain why (E) was wrong?

I was also shaky on D because it keeps saying 'any' and i thought that this made the answer too broad and all encompassing.

Can someone please clarify? Thank you!!

[ladybug8712]

Hello, can someone please help explain why (E) was wrong?

I was also shaky on D because it keeps saying 'any' and i thought that this made the answer too broad and all encompassing.

Can someone please clarify? Thank you!!

[James Finch]

Hi Lady Bug,

The big issue with (E) is that it involves a couple of extra assumptions beyond just the answer choice in order to actually justify the conclusion. The first assumption is that "the ongoing revolutions in biotech and IT" involve only legal activities. The second is that those activities are "sufficiently profitable" for the criminal organizations, which creates a undefined threshold that may or may not be met by the "enormous profits" mentioned in the stimulus. So (E) has far too much wiggle room for the conclusion to still be false.

(D) works because it directly links the premise about the criminal organizations to getting involved with the exact tech revolutions described in the stimulus, by creating a conditional principle that encompasses larger groups to which both the criminals and the tech revolutions would belong.

Hope this clears things up!

[rek230]

V,

Remember that a Justify the Conclusion answer can prove more than is necessary, as long as it proves at least what is sufficient to make the conclusion true. If every organization whose main purpose is to generate profits became involved in any technological revolution that promises to generate enormous profits, then any criminal organization would also do it (because every organization does). So answer choice (D) proves the conclusion.

Robert Carroll

Hi! Could answer B be correct if this was a necessary assumption question? Just wondering because assumption questions are a weak spot for me and I'm trying to wrap my head around them.
Thanks!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi rek230!

Yes, I think answer choice (B) could be seen as a necessary assumption for the argument. If we use the Assumption Negation Technique on it (negate the "at least some" to "no") and say that "no criminal organizations are or will at some point become aware that the ongoing revolutions in biotechnology and information technology promise to generate enormous profits," that would definitely hurt the conclusion that criminal organizations will undoubtedly try to become increasingly involved in these areas. The Assumption Negation Technique is great for helping you to wrap your head around Assumption questions!

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[rek230]

Yes that does help, thank you so much!