#12 - Shark teeth are among the most common vertebrate

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

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

This is a very straightforward paradox. Among vertebrate fossils, there are more shark teeth
and fewer shark skeletons than would be expected, given that the teeth and skeletons existed in
proportionally equal numbers while the sharks were alive. Some readers may note that sharks have
many teeth and even many sets of teeth, which would explain the abundance of teeth. However, this
does not explain the relative lack of skeletons, and the correct answer will be consistent with both
sides of the paradox.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. This answer addresses all that we need.
Most vertebrates’ skeletons and teeth are made of bone, which fossilizes relatively well. Shark teeth
are made of bones, but their skeletons are made of cartilage, which does not fossilize as well as bone.
Since shark teeth fossilize better, it is unsurprising to find a relatively high proportion of shark teeth
fossils and a relatively low proportion of shark skeleton fossils.

Answer choice (B): This answer provides additional context for the paradox and suggests that the
teeth and skeletons are often geographically linked. However, it does not help explain the disparity
between the relative number of fossilized teeth and fossilized skeletons.

Answer choice (C): The difficulty of distinguishing various kinds of fossils from one another is
irrelevant. The stimulus states that fossilized shark teeth are among the most common vertebrate
fossils, which implies that these have been successfully distinguished from fossils of other kinds of
teeth. Do not infer that the paradox is resolved because the classification is difficult; this is not the
same as providing evidence that the teeth were misclassified.

Answer choice (D): As noted above, this fact would explain the abundance of teeth. However, this
does not explain the relative lack of skeletons, and the most effective answer will address both sides
of the paradox. Fortunately, we have already seen answer choice (A) will suggests both how teeth
could be preserved and how skeletons might not be.

Answer choice (E): If anything, (E) adds to the paradox. If the processes for fossilization of both
teeth and skeletons are equally common, then why is there such a disparity in the comparative
frequency of shark teeth fossils and skeleton fossils? This answer does not resolve the apparent
paradox.

[netherlands]

The choice between A and C were difficult for me on this one.

I think it's definitely reasonable to believe that if sharks' and other animals' teeth were difficult to differentiate from others then there's a possibility that there are not a plethora of sharks' teeth and therefore the puzzling/current ratio of sharks teeth to skeletons is false.

But ( in trying to stick with the mantra of understanding the test rather than arguing my own point) that seems like an answer choice that would maybe be better if this were a "weaken" question, asking us to weaken the claim that sharks' teeth outnumber their skeletons. I don't know why - but it just feels that way. That categorizing something incorrectly often seems to be a correct weakening answer choice - because it reveals the flaw behind the argument.

Whereas "resolving" is supposed to show how both claims did happen - not disprove one of them. And "A" allows us to understand how both came into play ( lots of sharks teeth not a lot of skeleton) vs "C" that attempts to disprove part of it.

Also, I think that you said something in the explanation towards the idea that - just because their difficult to differentiate doesn't mean that they're impossible to. Which I guess, could also have made this a poor answer choice even if this had been a weaken question, because we can't prove that they WERE CATEGORIZED INCORRECTLY only that they were difficult to categorize correctly.

I think I'm dragging this discussion on because I remember another logical reasoning question with an argument that babies who weren't given prenatal care were more likely to be born prematurely - we were supposed to weaken the claim and the correct answer choice was along the lines of - the nurses were incorrectly labeling any premature baby as one who hadn't received prenatal care when they didn't have medical records - which is why i moved immediately towards "C" when I first read this shark question. And I think a big difference between the two of those is that the nurse one explicitly stated that they labeled them incorrectly, whereas this shark one only stated that they were difficult to categorize but not explicitly that it was done incorrectly.

Any commentary or guidance is always appreciated!

[Dave Killoran]

You've summarized (A) and (C) pretty well, actually. I think you were mostly talking out loud there to see if your analysis is correct, and it is.

With C and the babies question, note how (C) just says they are quite difficult to distinguish, but not that there's any certainty that large scale mis-classification is occurring. In the babies question, the correct answer says that "low birth weight babies were routinely classified" incorrectly (from the June 1999 LSAT, LR2, #24). That changes the force of answer choice (C) by making it certain something is being done wrong, and leads back to the discussion we were having in a different post about details, and how small differences can have a big impact.

Thanks!