Possible and Probable Causes vs Certain Causes

[Lsat180Please]

Hi! When it comes to strengthening and weakening stim with Possible and Probable Causes, what is the best/ strongest way to attack these? I know that our normal methods of attack (showing an alternate cause, or the cause without the effect, or the effect without the cause) are no longer as powerful because the degree of certainty has been changed. With the remaining avenues of attack, showing the relationship is reversed, the data is bad, or the relationship is actually the result of a third cause, when would each method be most effective? Can you give examples (or good references to a test or in your book)? As Jon and Dave discussed last night, these forms of causality are becoming more prevalent and I want to make sure I can handle them the best way possible! Thanks so much!

[Lsat180Please]

As a follow up to this question, I am running into questions that present a stimulus where A led to B and B led to C. Can we conclude that A causes C? (indirectly/ directly) or is this a flaw because we do not know A's specific impact on C. Thanks again!

[Dave Killoran]

Hmm, good question! It would really take several hours to break this down in the manner you describe, but fortunately I don't think that's required here. They key is already inside what you said: "I know that our normal methods of attack...are no longer as powerful because the degree of certainty has been changed." I italicized that section because it points out what's occurring here, namely that the correct answers to these problems still do the same type of things, but they aren't as decisive as what you see in "clean" causality. In other words, the methods may be less powerful but they still work. So you still are looking for answers that act in the same way, but the door opens because the force of the original relationship has been lessened. That just means more uncertainty in the answer choice language, such as lower levels of force in the word choices (maybe an answer choice is dialed down and uses "likely" instead "always" or "almost certainly").

What's happening in LR is an increasing level of vagueness and lower levels of certainty. the logic underneath is still the same, but it feels "squishier" because they aren't as forceful with the language as they used to be. If you recognize that, it's way more than half the battle!

Side note: in your A-B-C scenario, you'd still know that A leads to C

Thanks!

[Lsat180Please]

that was extremely helpful. Thank you so much!