#25 - Statistician: Changes in the Sun’s luminosity

[lsatfighter]

For #25, the question stem is asking us to find a flaw in the meteorologist's counterargument, right? I understand why E is correct, but I also want to know why A is wrong. Can you please explain what makes A wrong and why E is better than A?

[James Finch]

Hi LSAT Fighter,

The issue with the meteorologist's rebuttal is that they simply reject out-of-hand the evidence given by the statistician because it doesn't align with what the meteorologist has been taught to believe. It's effectively an appeal to authority ("any trained meteorologist"), which (E) captures. (A), however, doesn't actually describe what is occurring: there isn't a "partial explanation" given by the statistician, nor is this the reason that the meteorologist gives for rejecting the statistician's conclusion. Instead, it is the appeal to authority, which is what we should prephrase before even looking at the answer choices, allowing us to quickly hone in on the correct one.

Hope this clears things up!

[alexis.la]

Hi there, I understand where the meteorologist went wrong. The statistician basically said "contrary to meteorologists' beliefs, the sun controls earths temperature" and the meteorologist says "no, ask any meteorologist".

He is appealing to authority- but I wouldn't describe his response as an appeal to authority fallacy. Because as I interpreted it, this is a fallacy when the authority is speaking on an issue outside of their area of expertise. So, while the meteorologists response is poorly constructed, as a professional meteorologist isn't he/she "allowed" to use their authority on... meteorology? In my opinion the appeal to authority fallacy would be "Your wrong statistician, because Albert Einstein says ____ on the issue". Einstein is an authority, but in physics, not meteorology.

Where am i going wrong in my understanding of this fallacy? Because I didn't pre-phase this as the flaw, I just knew his argument was unfounded. Am I mixing up appeal to authority with appeal to expertise?

[Adam Tyson]

An Appeal to Authority and an Appeal to Experts can be seen as the same flaw, alexis.la. They are both about claiming that someone must be correct by virtue of who they are, rather than because their position is supported by evidence. Even in an area in which they are the experts, it's a flaw to say "the experts say it's true, so it must be true." Experts can be wrong, after all!

The reason that is not the real flaw here is that the Statistician already acknowledged that the Meteorologists disagree with their position, and therefore the Meteorologist hasn't given us any new information to counter the position of the Statistician. Their position is just "but we say so, so you must be wrong." Where's the evidence? There is none!

So yes, the Meteorologist is relying on expertise alone, which is bad, but the flaw is that their reliance on experts fails to respond to the Statistician's evidence.

[Henry Z]

(A), however, doesn't actually describe what is occurring: there isn't a "partial explanation" given by the statistician, nor is this the reason that the meteorologist gives for rejecting the statistician's conclusion.

I chose (A) because I thought it matched the argument. Here's how I read it: "essentially controls" in the stimulus means being one of the major factors, hence a "partial explanation" given by the statistician. The meteorologist rejects by saying it cannot "be controlled by a SINGLE variable", thus saying the Sun's luminosity, as a single variable, can not be the complete explanation of land's temperatures on Earth. The meteorologist doesn't say it's "incorrect" that the Sun essentially controls the land's temp, just that the Sun is not the only thing that controls.

What's wrong with this understanding?

[Robert Carroll]

Henry Z,

"Essentially" is just about the opposite of a partial explanation. The statistician seems to think that luminosity is just about the only factor relevant. That's the statistician's point.

Further, the way you describe the meteorologist's argument doesn't sound flawed, and this is a Flaw in the Reasoning question. If the meteorologist is saying that the explanation is only partial, and the explanation is only partial, as you think, then what's wrong with the meteorologist's argument?

Robert Carroll

[Henry Z]

Henry Z,

"Essentially" is just about the opposite of a partial explanation. The statistician seems to think that luminosity is just about the only factor relevant. That's the statistician's point.

Further, the way you describe the meteorologist's argument doesn't sound flawed, and this is a Flaw in the Reasoning question. If the meteorologist is saying that the explanation is only partial, and the explanation is only partial, as you think, then what's wrong with the meteorologist's argument?

Robert Carroll

Thanks for your reply, Robert.

"Essential" is always a tricky word to me. I actually asked about it specifically in a RC question (viewtopic.php?f=1288&t=26209) and was told that it doesn't mean NO.1, that is, it "does not imply that any one essential thing is more important than any other essential thing." So in this case, I interpret luminosity as one essential factor, there may or may not be other equally or even more essential factors that control (read: influence) the land temp.

The flaw, imo, is that the statistician's partial explanation (luminosity as one factor) is rejected by the meteorologist simply because there're other factor, or "variables", hence fails to consider that there may be more than one factors/variables that control the land temp.

[Henry Z]

Henry Z,

"Essentially" is just about the opposite of a partial explanation. The statistician seems to think that luminosity is just about the only factor relevant. That's the statistician's point.

Further, the way you describe the meteorologist's argument doesn't sound flawed, and this is a Flaw in the Reasoning question. If the meteorologist is saying that the explanation is only partial, and the explanation is only partial, as you think, then what's wrong with the meteorologist's argument?

Robert Carroll

Thanks for your reply, Robert.

"Essential" is always a tricky word to me. I actually asked about it specifically in a RC question (viewtopic.php?f=1288&t=26209) and was told that it doesn't mean NO.1, that is, it "does not imply that any one essential thing is more important than any other essential thing." So in this case, I interpret luminosity as one essential factor, there may or may not be other equally or even more essential factors that control (read: influence) the land temp.

The flaw, imo, is that the statistician's partial explanation (luminosity as one factor) is rejected by the meteorologist simply because there're other factor, or "variables", hence fails to consider that there may be more than one factors/variables that control the land temp.

To add, I prefer (A) also because I don't see how appealing to authority in (E) describes the meteorologist's reasoning. She doesn't say "just because any meteorologist says so, statistician is wrong". Instead, her causal assumption is that because the system is complicated, there can't be a single controlling factor. The reason given is the complicatedness, not the authority.

I see the citation of "any professional meteorologist" as a red herring also because she herself is a professional meteorologist. To me, it doesn't change much from "as a professional meteorologist I will tell you..." to "any professional meteorologist will tell you...".

[katehos]

Hi Henry!

I'm not Robert, but I will certainly do my best to answer your questions

Quickly, regarding the word "essential," you make a good point about interpreting the word to mean one (of potentially many) essential factor(s). However, this depends on the context! The way the statistician's argument is phrased is very different from something like "X is essential for Y." The statistician uses "essentially" in this stimulus in a way that is much more akin to what Robert said.

Alright, on to the good stuff! Let's unpack the Meteorologist's response. After a quick glance, we can immediately spot the conclusion: they disagree with the Statistician. But why? Well, the Meteorologist says that they disagree because "any professional meteorologist will tell you that ... no significant aspect can be controlled by a single variable." The Meteorologist doesn't do any
of their own analysis, all they do is say that they disagree because professional meteorologists (an authority) disagree.

With this in mind, let's discuss more about answer choice (A). I'm going to take a slightly different approach on this one, since it looks like you've already reviewed some of the other explanations on here (though it's important to note that those explanations are wonderful and very accurate)! (A) describes the flaw as rejecting a partial explanation only because it is not complete, not because it is incorrect. But, does the Meteorologist really do that? They disagreed entirely with the Statistician, they didn't put any qualifiers on it (for example, something like "while you're correct that luminosity might influence land temperature... any professional will tell you that the luminosity cannot be controlled by only a single variable). For this reason (and the others described by different folks), we can eliminate (A)!

In terms of the appeal to authority you mentioned in (E), I think perhaps some of the confusion arises from which person is actually saying which statement. The Meteorologist says that "any professional will tell you that... no significant aspect can be controlled by a single variable." This statement is not the Meteorologist's from the stimulus, rather, it is what the Meteorologist says professional meteorologists will assert. So, we can see that the Meteorologist's disagreement stems from the current views of the authority figures in a specific scientific field. Additionally, we can see how this is a huge oversight on the Meteorologist's behalf, since the Statistician already accounted for it! This has been mentioned by others, but I think it's worth mentioning again, since it truly exemplifies why (E) is the right answer: not only does the Meteorologist appeal to authority, but they also fail to evaluate the counterexample to what meteorologists currently accept!

I hope this makes sense, feel free to ask any follow up questions if it doesn't
Kate

[dshen123]

Can someone please tell me why is B wrong? I thought Statistician talks about the relationship between luminosity and temperature (2 variables) and the meteorologist talks about the climate (a system)? Thank you