#19 - Archaeologist: Neanderthals, a human-like species

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, Wulflov,

Your analysis is good; there are certainly different ways to attack a conclusion. In this case, you could find information that would cast doubt on:

• The purpose of the fires.
  
  OR
  
  Whether the Neanderthals preserved meat by smoking at all.

However, in this problem, a safer and more restricted analysis would focus on the former issue (the purpose of the fires) rather than the latter (whether they smoked meat). The reason why I suggest focusing on this narrower issue is that it is far more integral to the argument itself and plays a prominent role in the premises. The author supplies information about the fuel used for the fire and suggests that the fact this fuel generates more smoke than heat implies its purpose must be smoking.

If we start to consider larger issues such as whether Neanderthals smoked meat, we might find ourselves on a bit of a wild-goose chase. Usually, it's advisable to remain as close to the explicit facts in the argument as possible.

In addition, the narrower issue of the purpose of these fires is itself part of a broader conclusion. To paraphrase:

• The Neanderthals (1) probably preserved meat (2) by smoking it (3) by using these fires.

As you can see, the narrowest possible reading of this conclusion—(3) whether these fires were used for smoking—is a core component of every successive larger issue.

Thus, my "moral of this story" lesson from this discussion would be when dealing with strengthen and weaken questions, try to keep your focus as tight as possible on the core point at issue/flaw in the reasoning. You can always broaden your scope if necessary.

I hope this helps!

[ksikanon]

I've read through these explanations 5-6 times, and I'm still not understanding why (A) is not a weakener. Can someone explain it in simpler terms?

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

If you don't mind, ksikanon, I would like to turn this back around on you for a moment. What is it about answer A that you think DOES weaken the argument? If we understood a bit more about where you were coming from, we could probably give you a more helpful answer to your question by analyzing your analysis. In order for an answer to weaken a conclusion, it has to bring up new information that introduces some doubt about the conclusion. What is it about answer A that makes you doubt the conclusion about Neanderthals smoking meat?

Once we know more about where you are coming from, we'll review your analysis and let you know where we think you may be off track. We'll look forward to hearing back from you soon!

[ksikanon]

For sure, Adam! So, the stimulus argues that neanderthals probably preserved their meat through smoking because burnt lichen grass, which produces a lot of smoke but not as much heat as wood fires, have been found in (the ever-ambiguous) "many" fireplaces.

To weaken this argument, my prephrased answers were:
(1) they had more advanced forms of fire, indicating that they didn't need to preserve their meat through smoking
(2) burnt lichen grass is indicative of something else entirely - like they use it for ceremonies.

The reason why (A) is grinding my gears is that it appears to fit my first prephrased answer: there is another potential source for preserving meat than the lichen grass. I'm realizing as I write this that I'm making an erroneous assumption that more heat or light is indicative of a better way of preserving meats, but I still find that (A) appears to suggest an alternative cause.

[James Finch]

Hi Ksikanon,

It looks like you made a mistake on your first prephrase. Having access to "more advanced form of fire" (I'll take this to mean "access to materials that gave off more heat than lichen/grass when burned") would strengthen the argument by allowing us to infer that the Neanderthals used the lichen/grass for something other than heat, like smoking meat.

Let's look at answer choice (A): if there were other fireplaces used to produce heat (by burning material other than lichen and grass) near the fireplaces with lichen and grass, this suggests that the Neanderthals had specific fireplaces for heat and others to smoke meat (similar to how furnaces are used to heat houses, not smokers, and vice versa).

Answer choice (B) says that the lichen and grass were the best materials on hand for the Neanderthals to produce heat, which would mean that we couldn't tell whether they were burning them to produce heat or for some other purpose, undermining the only evidence given that they smoked their meat.

Hope this clears things up!

[LSAT2018]

I think I see what you're getting at: just because there was nothing else available in that area at that time to make a hotter and brighter fire, how can we assume that the Neanderthals weren't using the fire for smoke?

Well, we can't know for sure that they weren't! However, this is a weaken question, meaning all the answer choice needs to do is to hurt the conclusion drawn in the stimulus. It does not have to totally crush it and prove it wrong or anything like that, it just needs to lend any amount of support against the conclusion.

(B) does this by attacking our archaeologist's main premise: that the fire of lichen and grass makes a lot of smoke, but is not as hot or bright as a wood fire. The archaeologist takes this to imply that the neanderthal was choosing to use the lichen and grass because of the smoke, instead of picking the hotter and brighter fire. (B) tells us that the Neanderthal actually didn't have a chance.

It does not prove 100% that the Neanderthals weren't smoking the meat, but it does hurt the argument.

Hope this helped!
Steven

But for weaken questions, we don't usually argue with the premise, because we accept them as a fact. And the answer seems to be doing this. What are your thoughts on this?

[Adam Tyson]

Answer B does nothing to undermine the premises, LSAT2018, but only attacks the link between the premises and the conclusion.

The premises here are:

1. Burnt lichen and grass were found in Neanderthal fireplaces
2. Lichen and grass are good for smoke but not as good for heat and light as wood would be

Answer A is consistent with both of those premises. It's not saying that lichen and grass WERE good for heat and light. It's just saying that nothing better (like wood) was available. Lichen and grass still weren't as good as wood, but they were all they had, so they had to make do with them. If that's the case, then the presence of lichen and grass in the fireplaces tells us nothing about smoking meat, because perhaps they were just using the best option they had for light and heat.

[Shylock237]

This question is actually so ridiculous, but I finally figured it out! (The fact it took this long should attest to how ridiculous it is)

I think most people are getting tripped up by A because they think the mystery material creates more heat than lichen-grass fires, which is unsupported (it only creates more heat than smoke, both those amounts could be far below what lichen-grass fires create)

However, B only eliminates PLANTS. Who cares about plants? The stimulus said that the lichen-grass fire does not produce as much heat or light as a wood fire. This is what caused me to choose wrong. Wood comes from trees, and trees could be considered plants (though that's a bit of a stretch for the LSAT imo). Thus, eliminating plants, and thus wood, gives the lichen another purpose.

E) hunting? Nah. D) some groups? Not enough. C) who cares where the lichen came from?

[Robert Carroll]

Shy,

Trees are definitely plants. You can take notice of that on the test - in other words, LSAC will consider it common knowledge that "plants" includes, among other things, "trees". There can be some tricky cases - did you know that mushrooms aren't plants? I recall having learned that in school somewhere, at some time (certainly not law school!), but I had to actually look it up online to confirm. That sort of knowledge of biology is something I feel pretty confident saying is well beyond what LSAC expects - if the difference between "fungus" and "plant" matters on the test, the stimulus (for Logical Reasoning) or passage (for Reading Comprehension) will contain the information you need to know.

This case, as I said, is different. You can safely assume a tree is a plant.

With that said, I think that clears up the confusion. Let us know if you have any further questions!

Robert Carroll

[Lily123]

I'm having a really hard time telling the difference between causal & conditional arguments. I know this isn't conditional but could it be considered causal (smoking meat caused them to make these dim smokey fires)? If so, is there something in the stimulus I can look for that would confirm it's causal?