#10 - Premiums for automobile accident insurance are often

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning-CE. The correct answer choice is (C)

In this stimulus the author presents two things that are correlated, and then draws a causal conclusion from them. This argument is a classic fallacy. Just because there is a higher percentage of red cars involved in accidents, this does not mean that the red cars cause the accidents. For the conclusion to follow, the argument must demonstrate that the red color actually causes accidents, but it only demonstrates a correlation between red and accidents. Read this stimulus and react to it with your own commonsense; can getting rid of red cars really prevent accidents? Attack the conclusion.

Answer Choice (A): This answer choice is incorrect because the argument does not claim that insurance companies have or do not have the right to charge higher premiums. It simply mentions these rates as a premise to support its causal conclusion. This answer is not a part of the argument; therefore, it cannot be a flaw in the argument.

Answer Choice (B): This answer choice is incorrect because it also deals with the higher premiums. If this fact were true, then it may justify the higher premiums for red cars. However, the argument has already justified these premiums in a different way, by stating that the red color of the car causes accidents. Therefore, this answer is unrelated to the argument.

Answer Choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. Now, the causal connection between red color and accidents has been destroyed. If bad drivers prefer red, then they are the cause of the accidents, not the red color. Therefore, if the red cars were banned, these drivers would just have to buy other cars and lives would not be saved or accidents reduced.

Answer Choice (D): This answer choice is incorrect because it tries to tempt you by naming something that is missing in the argument: an exact percentage. However, in this argument we do not need to know an exact percentage; it is irrelevant. As long as there is a "higher" percentage of red cars, the correlation between red cars and accidents exists. The flaw in the argument is mistaking this correlation for a cause and effect relationship.

Answer Choice (E): This answer choice is incorrect, but it is tricky. The argument does make a big assumption in the conclusion, jumping from automobile accidents to lives being saved. However, the argument does not assume that every accident results in loss of life, as this answer choice states. Also, the flaw is not in this assumption, but in the cause and effect conclusion. If you attack the stimulus as you read it, you should see it.

[Iam180]

Can you please explain how the sentence "a greater percentage of red cars are involved in accidents than are cars of any other color." exactly a correlation?

Does this translate as; "if you have a red color car the chances of getting into an accident is higher" and "if you are in an accident the chances of the color car to be red is higher than any other car" hence there is the correlation hidden in the statement?

I got the question right and understand the causal conclusion but I cannot identify the quote above as a correlation.

Thank you.

[James Finch]

Hi Iam180,

The correlation is that red cars are involved in a disproportionate number of accidents. Correlation occurs whenever two things occur together at a greater rate than would be expected by simple random chance.

The stimulus goes on to take this correlation between red cars and accident rates and assumes a causal relationship in which a car having the color red would cause the effect of it being likelier that car will be involved in an accident. This assumption doesn't make much sense, and lacks any evidentiary support in the stimulus, so the argument is flawed. In addition, it seems very likely that the two things (red car and higher accident rates) are correlated because they share a common cause, which (C) gives (reckless drivers).

Hope this clears things up!

[cornflakes]

Hi Powerscore,

I selected E here - and understand why it is wrong and C correctly brings in an alternate cause. I think I went wrong after reading the stimulus and noticing the difference between accidents and deaths - this basically gave me a tunnel vision prephrase where I felt the correct answer had to describe that flaw. E does mention it, but it doesn't really describe the idea accurately because the author doesn't say or infer that every automobile accident results in the loss of life.

What I'm wondering is if the wording of E was changed to describe the same flaw about accidents meaning deaths, could it be the correct answer. For instance, if it said something like "makes an unsupported assumption that some automobile accidents that involve red cars result in death." This type of answer seems to more accurately describe the flaw the author makes in inferring that lives will be saved simply by reducing the number of accidents involving a certain type of car, when they haven't provided any definitive evidence to say that any of the accidents involving the red cars result in death (unless that's a common sense assumption we are supposed to infer, that car accidents are lethal).

This isn't to say that the alternate cause flaw doesn't also exist, but just asking if this hypothetical would suffice in a scenario where perhaps C was reworded in a way to make the answer inaccurate.

[Ryan Twomey]

Hey Cornflakes,

I didn't find that it was a glaring error to assume that car crashes cause deaths. You want to avoid using common knowledge on the LSAT, but car crashes do cause death. 35 thousand deaths per year are caused by automobile deaths in the US alone. Your answer choice would be improved by your switch in language, but I still do not believe that it would be correct, especially given how correct answer choice C is.

There was a correlation causation argument in the stimulus, and that is the main assumption in the argument, and thus that is the flaw in the argument. The argument is assuming that red cars are causing the accidents, and that when we take away the red cars we will take away the accidents and thus deaths will decrease. This is a bad correlation causation argument, and you are looking for the answer choice that best addresses that. Answer choice C addresses the possibility of an alternative cause and thus it is correct.

You did however, correctly addressed why E is especially wrong with the language of " every automobile accident results in a loss of life."

I hope this answers your question, and I wish you all the best in your studies!

Best,
Ryan

[cornflakes]

Hi Ryan,

I appreciate the response - I do understand that the primary flaw in the argument was the casual assumption of the red cars causing the deaths and by saying that the people driving the cars are actually causing the accidents, and subsequently the deaths, this is the flaw of the argument.

While it may not always be productive to go down a rabbit of hypothetical answer modifying and "what if", my comment about the modified version of E was in reference to a scenario where C is not offered - or C may be have been reworded to be incorrect. The reason I'm curious is because there are flaw in the argument questions where the most obvious flaw is not given in any answer, so you have to find an answer that describes another flaw.

I don't believe a higher proportion of accidents with one vehicle type over another gives us enough definitive information to infer that "lives will be undoubtedly saved" if we get that vehicle type off the road. Even if I concede to you that I should be aware that there are as many as 35K automobile deaths per year, who is to say that any of these must or are even likely to come from any of the accidents involving red cars? Maybe 90% of them are truck drivers falling asleep at the wheel? By contending that the modified answer does not describe a flaw, you would have to hold the position that at least one death must ensue from these red car accidents that are in greater abundance to non-red cars. This position, in my opinion, is one that is not defendable beyond a reasonable doubt, and trades more on plausibility than certainty.

What if there are 10 different shades of car colors that all car manufacturers produce in total - per your 35k number, lets say that there are 10x as many car accidents as deaths from those accidents, giving us 350K total accidents. Let's then say that red cars have 35,009 of those accidents, while the other 9 have 34,999 of them. Who is to say that some, or any, of the deaths from accidents comes from this 35,009? Sure, it is definitely plausible, assuming that there are no other variables at play that would disproportionately sort deaths based on car color. The point being is that we don't know for certain whether car accidents mean even 1 death, so even if to a smaller degree, I believe the argument is committing a flaw in making the assumption that I described above.

[Adam Tyson]

If we did not have answer C or something like it, cornflakes, and if we changed answer E as you suggested I think it could be viewed as describing a flaw in the argument. The shift from accidents to lives being saved is not an unreasonable one, but it does also allow for the possibility that red cars are primarily in minor accidents or other accidents that do not involve death. So you're right to notice that as a secondary flaw here (though as Ryan points out, not exactly a glaring error, and especially not in light of the glaring causal error).

Put in terms of an Assumption, the author is certainly assuming that accidents involving red cars sometimes result in deaths, and every Flaw can be viewed as a faulty or unwarranted assumption. I would say that this assumption is somewhat warranted, but still need not be true, so you're on to something there.