#19 - Smith: Meat in the diet is healthy, despite what some

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

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

Smith’s argument is noticeably weak:

Doctors know a lot about health. Doctors eat meat. Therefore meat must be healthy. The flawed logic in this case is the presumption that the doctors’ knowledge about what is healthy would translate to their actions. Since some doctors do not lead healthy lifestyles, they are not all ideal role models.

The question stem requires that we find the choice which best reflects this flawed reasoning. Only correct answer choice (E) does so; Smith presumes that doctors will not do anything contrary to what they know to be healthy.

Answer choice (C) refers to a flaw called "circular reasoning." Basically, that occurs when the author assumes their conclusion is true when they are trying to support it. For example: "I must be telling the truth because I'm not lying." In this argument the conclusion ("I must be telling the truth") and the premise ("I'm not lying") are the same! The author is basically just going in circles without providing actual support for anything.

Answer choices that describe circular reasoning are very common on the LSAT, and they are frequently incorrect. The test makers like to throw them in there because they know they confuse test takers and can be attractive when you're unsure what they actual flaw is. So make sure that before you choose an answer choice that describes circular reasoning, that you truly have circular reasoning in your stimulus!

[heartofsunshine]

Hi there,

I chose E as the correct answer but want to make sure the reasons why I eliminated the other answers are correct.

(A): seems irrelevant, no attack in the argument was present
(B): There was no atypical cases given
(C): This one was trickier for me.. no assumption was made. Rather a conclusion in the first sentence followed by reasoning to prove the conclusion.
(D): I am thinking this one isn't correct because there was no conflicting advice in the stimulus by authority members
(E): directly relates to the stimulus.

Thank you!

[KelseyWoods]

Good job, heartofsunshine!

Your analysis is spot on. Answer choice (C) refers to a flaw called "circular reasoning." Basically, that occurs when the author assumes their conclusion is true when they are trying to support it. For example: "I must be telling the truth because I'm not lying." In this argument the conclusion ("I must be telling the truth") and the premise ("I'm not lying") are the same! The author is basically just going in circles without providing actual support for anything.

Answer choices that describe circular reasoning are very common on the LSAT, and they are frequently incorrect. The test makers like to throw them in there because they know they confuse test takers and can be attractive when you're unsure what they actual flaw is. So make sure that before you choose an answer choice that describes circular reasoning, that you truly have circular reasoning in your stimulus!

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[andriana.caban]

Hi!

If the stimulus said: "Meat in the diet is healthy because most doctors eat meat and all doctors subscribe to the fact that it is healthy", would (C) then be correct?

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Andriana,

Your reworking of the argument would not make answer choice C correct. Answer choice C is describing circular reasoning, in which the premises incorporate directly what the conclusion states. Here, what the conclusion states is that "meat in the diet is healthy." The premises you've used in your alternative argument do not restate that claim directly. Rather, your premises focus on what experts (doctors) do and what those same experts think (that it is healthy). Doctors' actions are irrelevant, because doctors might not do what they would recommend others do. Doctors' opinions are relevant (they're experts on health, after all, so we can expect that they have some factual basis for their opinions), though such opinions will not be enough by themselves to prove the conclusion.

For answer choice C to be correct, you'd need an argument that reads something like, "Meat in the diet is healthy, because we know that meat is good for health" (i.e., where one of the premises [in this example the only premise] essentially restates the conclusion).

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[balikbayan]

I still dont know why E is better than D. I chose D because I thought when it mentioned different authorities it was about the line "despite what some people say". I know this is probably where i got it wrong. But the lsat sometimes gives answers like this so I thought this might be better than E.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi balikbayan,

Answer D is describing an appeal to authority flaw. The way that this flaw generally appears on the LSAT is when some type of expert is cited in an argument, but what the expert is discussing is outside the expert's area of expertise. For example, relying on the opinion of biology professors regarding whether government social programs are wasteful (which was an answer on an actual LSAT question containing this flaw) would be outside their area of expertise.

Here, doctors have the relevant expertise as far as human health, so using their expert opinion to support an argument about health would be appropriate and not a flaw. Even if there are some differences of opinion, it would still be reasonable to use the what the majority of experts in the relevant field believe as support for what is considered healthy.

The real problem/flaw in this argument is that the argument doesn't rely on what the majority of doctors believe regarding whether meat is healthy, which is what it should do. Instead, the flaw is that the argument only relies on what most doctors do (i.e. eat meat), based on the (highly questionable) assumption that doctors never do anything that they know to be unhealthy. This flaw is best captured in Answer E.

Also, don't assume that the phrase "despite what some people say" in the argument is referring to authorities (like doctors). There is no indication that this is the case. I suspect that you are trying to force the details of the argument to fit Answer D rather than selecting the answer that best matches the flaw in the argument. Prephrasing the answer (in this case, the flaw in the argument) can help avoid this temptation.