#17 - People cannot devote themselves to the study of

[janetyellen]

Hi! I understand how answer choice A is not the conclusion, but just wanted to make sure that the logical inference still holds (if we ignore the can study vs. must study issue...)

From the stimulus, we have

SNP --> L <--> RP
(can study natural processes --> leisure <--> resources plentiful)

if we turn the "all" statement into a "some" statement, we get SNP <-s-> L

Riding the some train (as described in the book), we get from SNP <-s-> L <--> RP to SNP <-s-> RP, which sort of lines up with answer choice A. "Whenever a society has plentiful resources, some members of that society devote themselves to the study of natural processes", which reads to me exactly like what we derived SNP <-s-> RP.

Except, I do acknowledge the caveat that "studying natural processes is different from CAN study natural processes". the answer choice is talking about actually studying, vs. CAN study. Ignoring this caveat, and the caveat that this is a ID conclusion not inference question, is A still a valid inference (if we add in a "can" in there)? Want to make sure i'm reading off my diagram correctly. thanks!

[janetyellen]

Also wanted to ask when we have "A is a result of B" should we diagram it as "A -> B" or "B -> A", it seems like it's "A -> B" in this context, but i'm not so sure.

For context, this is the sentence "these complex discoveries were the result of the active study of natural processes"

[Dana D]

Hey Janetyellen,

Another way to phrase "these complex discoveries were the result of the active study..." is to say that the active study caused the complex discoveries, or brought them about. If you have a cause and effect relationship, the cause must be on the left side of the logical diagram, and the effect on the right, like this:

Cause Effect

becuase you can never have the effect happen without the cause. So here, we would say:

active study complex discoveries.


Regarding your other question and diagram - we still couldn't make the inference presented in Answer Choice (A). You noted L RP, which would indicate that if people have liesure, then resources are plentiful - which is correct - but the double arrow also means that if resources are plentiful, people have leisure, and we don't necessarily know that to be true. The diagram should just be L RP.

If we know L RP, then we know plentiful resources (RP) are a necessary condition - they can exist with or without liesure, meaning that the existance of RP alone tells us nothing else about society. Perhaps members of society can devote themselves to the study of natural processes, but perhaps not - we know they need liesure to do so, and the information in answer choice (A) - that there are plentiful resources - is not enough information for us to say whether or not there is also liesure.

If you're having trouble identifying sufficient and necessary conditions, try asking yourself which condition tells you information about the other. The sufficient condition will always tell you more information. So here, if I tell you people have can devote themselves to the study of natural processes, what else do you know must be true? You know they must have leisure, because you're told people can't possibly devote themselves to studying NP unless they also have leisure. That means SNP leisure, because SNP cannot exist unless there's also leisure.

In comparison, if I tell you people have leisure, what else do you know? Nothing really. You know they need this to study natural processes, but you don't actually know if people are studying natural processes or not. Leisure can exist whether or not people are studying natural processes, so it is the necessary condition, becuase it's independent of the sufficient.

I find that questioning stimuli like this makes it much easier to diagram conditional relationships, especially when you're dealing with complex relationships, or "unless" situations.

hope that helps!