#9 - People are usually interested in, and often even moved

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Resolve the Paradox. The correct answer choice is (B).

In this Resolve the Paradox scenario we learn that while people are generally interested in and moved by anecdotes, which are not representative stories, rather than paying attention to statistics, they somehow manage to form accurate beliefs about society. What could explain this? How can we get accurate beliefs from listening to unrepresentative (so generally in accurate) stories?

The answer must be that people are not forming their beliefs based on those stories. Those beliefs must be coming from somewhere else, such as paying attention to the world around us and filtering those stories through our experiences and other, more reliable sources of information. Look for an answer that indicates that anecdotes are not the basis for our beliefs about society.

Answer choice (A): This answer undermines the value of statistical information for learning about individual characteristics, which tells us nothing about whether we are basing our beliefs on anecdotes or on some other sources of information. If anything this clouds the issue by making it unclear whether statistics, to which we pay little attention, would be valuable even to the extent that we did pay attention.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. If answer B is correct, then it makes at least some sense that we are not forming our beliefs based on anecdotes. Knowing that they are unrepresentative means we are not likely to rely upon them to form a general belief system, so we must be getting our more reliable information elsewhere.

Answer choice (C): Answer C appears to deepen the paradox, rather than resolve it. If more compelling anecdotes change our beliefs, and if those anecdotes are not representative of reality, then how have we managed to form generally accurate beliefs? There is no help here, so this is an incorrect answer choice.

Answer choice (D): While it might be nice to be able to use anecdotes to help make sense of statistics, the fact remains that anecdotes are unrepresentative and we aren't paying attention to statistics, so this answer should leave us still wondering how we managed to form accurate beliefs about society. This answer offers no resolution to that problem.

Answer choice (E): As with answer C, this answer makes the problem worse rather than resolving it. Anecdotes elicit emotional responses, and if that influences our beliefs, then how did we ever manage to form accurate beliefs? Also, this answer shifts terms from "beliefs about society" to "beliefs about other people," and so takes us away from the problem we are trying to solve.

[mjb514]

Can you please explain why D is wrong.

[Claire Horan]

Hi MJB514,

Answer choice (D) would not lead to fairly accurate beliefs about society. It basically involves both statistical information and anecdotes.

The stimulus says that people only rarely change their minds in response to statistical information, and if they listen to anecdotes, they will be "generally misleading." Given these premises, it's difficult to make much sense of (D), but a combination of something that has little influence over us (statistics), plus something that is misleading does not lead to accuracy.

I hope this helps!

[JustKeepStudying]

Could you please explain why (B) a recognition of anecdotes being unrepresentative leads to accurate beliefs about society? Is the only accurate belief about society that can be derived from the anecdotes that they are about unrepresentative cases? Other than that, does the stimulus suggest that they provide accuracy about society in any other way?

I chose D mainly because I could not find a correct answer in the other choices. But I recognize that D is wrong because it relies on people using anecdotes to describe statistical information, which we don't know occurs.

[Sky Brooks]

Hi JustKeepStudying,

The correct answer choice B) states that people recognize that anecdotes tend to be about unrepresentative cases.
This is the correct answer because if this is true, people do not base their beliefs about society on anecdotes.

It's not about what people base their beliefs on, but rather that they are not based upon anecdotes. This resolves the paradox in the stimulus and thus is the correct answer.

Hope that helps!

Sky Brooks

[Pragmatism]

Hi JustKeepStudying,

The correct answer choice B) states that people recognize that anecdotes tend to be about unrepresentative cases.
This is the correct answer because if this is true, people do not base their beliefs about society on anecdotes.

It's not about what people base their beliefs on, but rather that they are not based upon anecdotes. This resolves the paradox in the stimulus and thus is the correct answer.

Hope that helps!

Sky Brooks

So, I chose D because I had the following issues with answer choice B:
1) The stimulus mentions that the people who are moved by anecdotes rarely even pay attention to statistical information, much less change their beliefs in response to it.
2) The author concedes that basing ones beliefs about society would be fallacious because anecdotes are generally misleading insofar as reasonable inferences are concerned.
3) Taken these together, the author then concludes that these people tend to be fairly accurate in their beliefs about society.

If B is true, then it wouldn't add any clarity because the stimulus states that they rarely even pay attention to statistical information, much less change their beliefs in response to it. Furthermore, lets just say it was true that most people recognize that anecdotes tend to be misrepresented, how does that give resolve the paradox to yield any closer to the accuracy concluded, when they are much less to change their beliefs in response to statistical information (assuming they actually pay attention to it)?

Not to be a stickler, but assuming that the people don't use anecdotes to conjure their beliefs about society and it is another source they use to conjure up such accurate beliefs, I would find it nearly impossible for the alternative source, that is not statistically based, to provide a fairly accurate depiction about the beliefs about society. I could understand a selective few, or even near half, of the people speculating and coming close to an accurate belief, but answer choice B states most people recognize that anecdotes are unrepresentative cases, yet it gives no confirmation as to how that helps them reach the fairly accurate belief.

I would love your insight.

[Dave Killoran]

If B is true, then it wouldn't add any clarity because the stimulus states that they rarely even pay attention to statistical information, much less change their beliefs in response to it...Not to be a stickler, but assuming that the people don't use anecdotes to conjure their beliefs about society...

I see answer choice (B) operating in a different fashion. To me (and LSAC), it links the idea that even though people are interested in anecdotes, they understand they aren't representative and thus they don't use them as the basis for their opinions. If that's the case, when they hear a story they also realize it isn't representative, and so they may well adjust their views accordingly and consequently towards what is representative (this interpretation explains the "moved by" part). This helps explains how they end up having fairly accurate beliefs. At worst then, the anecdotes are just entertaining fluff they enjoy hearing but have minimal impact, and at best the anecdotes are entertaining stories that people could use to say "that's not the way things really are."

All that aside, this isn't my favorite stimulus and answer choice pairing since it feels a bit loose.

Thanks!

[jm123]

I didn't like answer choice B because of the word most. I said if 51/100 people recognize that anecdotes tend to be about unrepresentative cases then it won't do much to help resolve the paradox. However, the stimulus says people "TEND" to have fairly accurate beliefs about society. Tend would be equivalent in meaning to most, wouldn't it? Can we always say frequently is equivalent to most?

I chose D and D is incorrect because even if that were true, the stimulus still says that people rarely even pay attention to statistical information. So even if it is made more comprehensible, so what, people rarely pay attention to it anyways.

[Adam Tyson]

I like your reasoning about answer D here, and you are correct that "tends" means the same as most or usually. The word "frequently," however, is less precise, and does not necessarily indicate a majority of the time. I might say that I frequently host webinars, but that doesn't mean that I do them more often than not, or on most days, or that I do them more than someone else does. It's a very subjective term, like "many" and "often."

[gwlsathelp]

If I could add anything to the conversation, it would be that "statistical information" is a red herring.

I noticed that many of the responses to this question pertain to its use and how it fits into the whole. A lot of the stimulus, physically, is taken up by the first sentence/premise. Indeed, the stimulus even sets it up to where moving, interesting, individualistic anecdotes appear to be the antithesis to the ignored, unconvincing, assumedly representative statistics. I think that after reading the last sentence, my brain is searching for whatever is going to connect statistics to people having fairly accurate beliefs about society; however, that's not what the argument is pointing out. It's pointing out how if anecdotes are so persuasive and convincing, even though they are inaccurate and unrepresentative; how do people not have misleading views about society? That's where B comes in. If most people know that it's unrepresentative, then people are less likely to generalize that case.

*Note: that tidbit about the LSAT usage of "tends", and how it essentially means "the majority" is very helpful.