#11 - Psychologist: Specialists naturally tend to view their

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (E).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice.


This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[Legallyconfused]

Hi there!

I picked the right answer, but I just wanted to discuss answer C. I know that answer C is describing circular reasoning (when the premise and conclusion are the same idea). I am honestly just confused about the structure of this argument, and that is why I could not completely cross off C until I saw E. E is definitely the better answer because it is stating the incorrect principle of the psychologist's argument: If a group of people may have a motive for doing something, then we should disregard the claims they make because they are most likely making those claims in pursuit of that motive.

I want to try to label the parts of the psychologist's argument, so that I may officially cross out C.

Sentence 1: Evidence or is it also Context?
Sentence 2: Conclusion
Sentence 3: Intermediate Conclusion/Evidence or just Evidence?

I am confused on how to label sentence 3 because of the word, "probably."
I am honestly not sure this labeling is correct. I am having such a difficult time labeling the parts of this argument for some reason. Either way, the conclusion (sentence 2) obviously is different from sentence 1 and sentence 3, so I guess that is how I can rule out circular reasoning.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[Christen Hammock]

Hi Legallyconfused!

You're right that Answer Choice (C) describes circular reasoning, and that there is no circular reasoning present in the stimulus. The author presents the geneticists' motive as giving us a reason to doubt their conclusions. This isn't a great reason, but it does present a justification for the author's conclusion that is distinct from the conclusion itself! Keep in mind that circular reasoning is often used by the LSAT as a wrong answer precisely because it's so difficult to write a non-obvious argument that employs circular reasoning.

As to your characterization of the three sentences, you're on the right track! Sentence 1 is a broad premise. Sentence 2 is our conclusion. Sentence 3 is an intermediate conclusion that applies the principle in Sentence 1 and helps support our Sentence 2 conclusion that we are justified in being skeptical. Great work on deconstructing this question!

[emilyjmyer]

Why is A incorrect?

It seems like based off of the geneticist example, the author is making a conclusion about all specialists.

[katehos]

Hi Emily!

While the Psychologist is certainly using a claim about specialists as a whole to support their conclusion regarding being skeptical, the flaw itself is not that the Psychologist generalizes on the basis of an unrepresentative sample. The first sentence in the stimulus regarding specialists is a premise for the argument, with the conclusion being that skepticism of geneticist's claims is amply justified. If the argument were structured in the opposite way, with the geneticists being used as a premise for a conclusion that ALL specialists view their specialties as fundamentally important, then perhaps answer choice (A) would hold more weight. Alas, that's not the case with this stimulus.
The last part of answer choice (A) helps us understand why exactly it's not the correct flaw, as the Psychologist does not use any sort of sample or survey to come to a conclusion about specialists (or a conclusion about specialists as a whole at all). In fact, we don't know how the Psychologist even originated the premise! So, we cannot say with any real certainty that this premise came from an unrepresentative sample (maybe the Psychologist conducted a study on all specialists from all industries and found this to be a statistically significant trait? We don't know!). Surely, generalizations can oftentimes be an error (and perhaps this is a minor one), but the trouble is that we don't know and it's not the main flaw in the argument.

The flaw comes in with how the Psychologist uses this premise to make sweeping claims about being skeptical of geneticists, without analyzing any evidence that the geneticists relied upon. Effectively, this is an ad hominem attack on genetic specialists - a huge flaw! So, we can see how answer choice (E) is correct.

I hope this helps
Kate