#24 - Studies have found that human tears contain many of

[lsat2016]

Hi Sherry,

however, the author has not established that the hormones cause stress, just that these hormones are present during times of stress.

Isn't "producing" an indicator of a causal relationship??

Thank you!!

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi,

The claim ""the human body produces tears in times of emotionally stress" does indeed convey a causal relationship between "stress" and "tears": stress clearly causes the human body to produce tears. There is no evidence, however, that every stressful situation would result in tears, which is why the relationship is not conditional.

Hope this answers your question!

Thanks,

[dbpk]

Hi,

The claim ""the human body produces tears in times of emotionally stress" does indeed convey a causal relationship between "stress" and "tears": stress clearly causes the human body to produce tears. There is no evidence, however, that every stressful situation would result in tears, which is why the relationship is not conditional.

Hope this answers your question!

Thanks,

I have a question about this distinction between causal and conditional logic! When I read the first sentence "human tears contain many of the same hormones that the human body produces in times of emotional stress", I understood it as "when you have emotional stress, the body produces hormones--diagrammed as emotional stress-->hormones

Is this a conditional or a causal diagram?
If conditional, wouldn't that lend support for answer B?
If causal, isn't it the case that hormones are necessarily produced upon experiencing emotional stress, making it "required for the production of a given phenomenon (emotional stress)"? I thought this would also support answer choice B which confuses a necessary condition (hormones) for a sufficient condition (emotional stress)

Thank you very much!

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, dbpk,

There is indeed overlap between the ideas of conditional and causal reasoning. For example:

• If the occurrence of a cause always results in the occurrence of a certain effect, we could infer the truth of the conditional statement "cause occurs effect occurs"

However, as you have likely observed, causal and conditional reasoning are not completely analogous. For instance, causal reasoning often encompasses varying degrees of likelihood that conditional reasoning seldom deals with. In addition, and most important, causal reasoning implies that the cause is in some sense responsible for the effect. In pure conditional reasoning, there need not be such a relationship between the sufficient condition and the necessary condition. For example:

• If this airplane is an Airbus, it isn't a Boeing.

This is a valid conditional statement (and "real world" true), but there is no causality involved.

In this argument, however, there is overlap between conditional and causal concepts. For instance, it would be fair to understand "emotional stress hormones" as both encompassing conditional concepts and causal concepts. However, it is safe to observe that this particular structure is far more causal than conditional.

Why do we reach this conclusion? Let's consider the evidence:

• "Body produces hormones during times of stress." The key word here is "produces": the occurrence of one event (stress) leads to the occurrence of another (hormones).
• Because tears contain many of these hormones, they must remove these hormones from the body. Again, we have an idea of one event (crying) leading to another event (reduction in hormones).
• Because they remove these hormones, they must reduce stress. Finally, in the conclusion, the cause-effect construction appears again.

Throughout the premises and conclusion, the construction is overwhelmingly causal—one event leads to another, and another, etc.

Therefore, if we had to make a semi-blind prephrase, we could expect to see something causal in an answer choice. The credited response will more likely involve a discussion of the causality than an abstraction into a conditional structure.

But let's take a closer look at answer choice (B). What could the possible sufficient and necessary conditions refer to? Consider the first phrase in (B): "confuses a condition that is required for the production of a given phenomenon"

According to this answer choice, this is the correct description of the premise that the author misunderstands. So what could this phrase describe?

• Are the hormones required for emotional stress? No, there is no such evidence in the premises.
• Is the emotional stress required for the hormones? No, the emotional stress could be considered sufficient for the hormones, but by no means necessary.
• Is the crying required for the reduction in hormones? No, there could be other ways for the hormones to be reduced. Similar to the emotional stress/hormone relationship noted above, the crying could be considered sufficient for a reduction in hormones.
• Is a reduction in hormones required for a reduction of stress? No, we've got no such relationship here in the premises.

Thus, with the first phrase of answer choice (B), we can observe that there is no possible match between this answer choice and the information in the stimulus.

To recap: start by noting the causal structure as the decisive factor. If necessary, note that the conditional candidate also does not match up correctly.

I hope this helps!

[dbpk]

In this argument, however, there is overlap between conditional and causal concepts. For instance, it would be fair to understand "emotional stress hormones" as both encompassing conditional concepts and causal concepts. However, it is safe to observe that this particular structure is far more causal than conditional.


But let's take a closer look at answer choice (B). What could the possible sufficient and necessary conditions refer to? Consider the first phrase in (B): "confuses a condition that is required for the production of a given phenomenon"

• Are the hormones required for emotional stress? No, there is no such evidence in the premises.
  
  
  To recap: start by noting the causal structure as the decisive factor. If necessary, note that the conditional candidate also does not match up correctly.

Hi Jonathan,
Thank you so much for your response! I'm a little confused by your explanation. You note that it would be fair to diagram "emotional stress hormones" as embodying BOTH conditional and causal relationships. But later you say that there is no evidence that hormones are required for emotional stress. According to the diagram, hormones would be a necessary condition for emotional stress. I agree that the argument overall is much more causal than conditional, but does that matter if this particular relationship (emotional stress hormones) portrays a conditional relationship that could satisfy B?

I was also wondering if a causal argument could have a necessary condition given that when the author expresses such a relationship, s/he is asserting that the effect MUST occur as a result of the cause. If so, doesn't this support the idea that hormones are necessarily produced during times of emotional stress? And do you have to identify either the causal or conditional structure as the "decisive factor" or is it possible for an argument or even a premise to have both?

Thank you very much!

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, DBPK,

Great question, and you're right! What I meant to indicate was that hormones are not a required precondition for the occurrence of emotional stress. They might be considered a required result of stress. What you might observe here are the heavy issues of causality implicit in even a perfunctory discussion of these ideas, even when superimposed onto conditional statements. In other words, as always, tread carefully with causality.

Yes, as noted, if necessity is implied in a causal relationship (rather than some lesser degree of probability), you could interpret a causal relationship as a conditional statement, but as you just observed even in my lack of clarity in my description of the hormones/stress relationship, you would have to be very clear about what is actually necessary. To be clear:

• emotional stress occurs production of hormones follows

Would I suggest that causality supercedes conditionality? Not necessarily, but I would venture to suggest that conditional flaw answers for overtly causal arguments are probably red herrings, as it was here. Causality is far less neat and tidy than is conditional reasoning, so if you encounter causality, opt for that as your prephrase.

For a good example of overlap between conditional and causal principles, consider the very first example we use of causal reasoning on a Weaken problem, discussed here:

• lsat/viewtopic.php?t=11065

Thanks for following up! Keep up the good work, and please reply with more questions.

[cascott15]

So I picked C because I thought the flaw was in the blanket conclusion that crying reduces stress. What if crying actually causes even more stress?

Am I the only one who thought the flaw was about crying?

[Erik Shum]

Hi Cascott,

I certainly can't speak for everyone but I bet a lot of test takers focused on that possibility. I bet it is a common error.

Try to focus on the entire string of variables and how they relate to one another, and what assumptions are made in the stimulus.

Tears contain hormones related ("produced in times of") stress.
Shedding tears remove those hormones from the system.
Therefore crying must reduce stress.

The conclusion assumes that removing hormones related to stress will reduce stress. The stimulus does not provide us with that connection between the hormones and stress.

This may be a slow way of working through a problem initially, but breaking down a stimulus into all of its logical relationships can help you identify where the stimulus's logic fails.

I hope that helps.

[ShannonOh22]

Hi there,

Can I please have someone explain why A is incorrect? I deduced that the argument was more causal than conditional in nature (though it walks a fine line), and in choosing A I thought I was correctly identifying a common causal flaw - the presence of an alternate cause for the stated effect. In my prephrase, I figured the answer would have something to do with stress, and the elimination thereof, by some process other than "crying". There is clearly an unjustified leap from the presence of hormones in tears, tears being shed, and that resulting in a conclusive "reduction in emotional stress". I felt A encapsulated this pretty well, and while I fully understand how E is also correct, I can't put my finger on why A isn't!

Please help me see where I'm going wrong here! Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

Let's approach this like an Assumption question, ShannonOh22, and see if that helps clarify things. The author has concluded that crying reduces stress. His evidence? That crying reduces the total amount of certain hormones in the body, hormones that are also produced by stress. What must he be assuming here?

The missing piece of the argument is that the less hormones means less stress. We've been looking at that causally - that the author thinks the hormones cause the stress, rather than the other way around - but for now lets just focus on the correlation aspect. When stress is up, there are more hormones, so the author thinks when hormones go back down, stress goes back down.

Now, why is that a problem? What's wrong with that argument? It assumes, without justification, that because two things are correlated, removing one will remove the other. "Removing" or "reducing" indicates action, which indicates cause, so we are back to looking at the problem as being an unjustified causal relationship between stress and hormones.

With that in mind, does answer A describe why the argument is bad? It doesn't, because it doesn't address that hormone/stress relationship. Instead, it suggests that perhaps crying could reduce stress for other reasons. But the problem isn't an alternate cause for the reduction of stress - the problem is that the author thinks crying DOES reduce stress! The flaw will not tell us HOW that happens, but that it doesn't have to happen in the first place!

And now, because I love analogies so much, and just in case that explanation didn't get the job done for you or for some future students checking out this thread, here's an analogy that I hope will help.

"When my dog gets sick, she poops in the house. The poop has in it some of the hormones that her body produces in times of sickness. Thus, pooping must help her get well."

Is the flaw that she can get well by resting and taking medicine? Or is it that the hormones in the poop may be an effect, rather than a cause, of her illness? Think on that lovely image, and carry on with your studies!