PT33.S1.Q18-- the use of space-based satellites PART 2

Darklord

help

So here was my reasoning for this question, but I still couldn't quite fully understand why A is right and C and E are wrong:

A-- right because "people" includes "environmentalists", "fail to consider" includes "ignore", but I think that "tend to" means "most" (according to some tutors I have read/talked to) so how can we deduce that "most people" ignore?

B-- wrong because no evidence of one thing "outweighing" the other (it just says good stuff and bad stuff about satellites without actually balancing the two)

C-- wrong because, like B, we don't know if it is "largely" beneficial (aka more beneficial than it is negative) but I am still kinda stumped about the word "usually" here-- I initially rejected C because we don't know about what technology "usually" does in general, but this is also the reason why I rejected A (since A said "people tend to") and A ended up being right. Anyone have some better insight here?

D-- wrong because no evidence of the situation being "worse" (same reasoning as B )

E-- wrong because #1-- we don't know if it is "unforeseen" (but not sure about this reasoning because "fail to consider" can also include "unforeseen" ignorance of something), #2-- "often" is too strong (but not sure about this reasoning either because "often" only connotes frequency and not quantity like "most" according to the Powerscore LR Bible)

Any help/explanation here would really be appreciated on this tricky problem!

jmarmaduke96

Hi there!

In general, "tend to" means that the individuals in set X are more likely to take action Y than to not take that action. This can, in some cases, be correctly interpreted as a "most" arrow. I do not think that in every scenario "tend to" can be perfectly captured by a "most" arrow, but that is getting into some territory that the LSAT doesn't cover and doesn't require you to know.

In the case of answer choice A, I think that "tend to" could be translated as "most often." In all likelihood, you could translate this as a "most" arrow and be okay, but I don't think that it is perfect here. What A is saying is that if you are a person, you are more likely than not to do a certain action (action X). To be clear, that means every person in the world could sometimes abstain from action X and sometimes partake of action X and still be perfectly consistent with the principle. Answer choice A is just saying that people more often choose to partake of the action than to abstain.

If it were translated into a most statement, that people --m--> action X. I would understand that to mean that at least 51% of people partake of action X. It is not immediately clear from this arrow if members from the set that partakes and the set that abstains can move into one another's set, so long as it remains true that 51% continue to partake of the action. Although, like I said, that much is likely not relevant. If you want a more thorough explanation, just let me know and I am happy to provide it!

However, getting back to the question at hand, that would be my explanation for why "tend to" does not present an obstacle for A being correct. I think that it would be more obvious if the test writers had said "some," so that it was clear only one person would be needed to satisfy the principle. Obviously, they wanted to make this question harder.

Turning to answer choice C, I think that it helps to reword the argument ourselves. The first two sentences (premises) basically say that the satellites are good for the environmentalist's cause. The last sentence (conclusion) states that it is not surprising that the environmentalists ignore the problems that the spaceflights could cause. If you had to distill down the principle that would underly this argument, it would come out something very much like A, "there are many people who ignore bad aspects of things that can be beneficial for them." If this principle were not in play, then the conclusion would not seem to follow at all. In some ways, A is beginning to encroach on the grounds of a necessary assumption. To be clear, as it is currently written, it is not a NA, but if it were framed differently it could be.

Hopefully breaking down what the argument is saying helps. C is claiming that technology usually has some poor effects on the environment. Keep in mind that we are looking for an answer choice that underlies the argument as a whole. C, at its most charitable reading, is only operating beneath the conclusion. I'm not sure that it even underlies the conclusion, but that is beside the point. Let's say for the sake of argument that C does underly the conclusion, it is wrong because it does not underly the argument. Notice how this is different from A, which does underly the reasoning in the argument as a whole, going from the premise to the conclusion.

In terms of answer choice E, I think that it is wrong for the same reason as C. If you eliminated all of the premises from the argument and only left the conclusion in place, then maybe E would underly the conclusion (certainly it would do a better job than C). However, we do not want an answer that gives us a principle that underlies the conclusion, we want an answer that underlies the reasoning.

I hope this helps, let me know if I can clarify anything!

Darklord

help

Wow thank you @jmarmaduke96 for the thorough explanation! I wish this could be my last remark, but unfortunately, I am still not sure if I fully understand what you were saying. Here is what I think you were trying to say (please correct me where I am wrong):

1. "tend to" does not make A incorrect because in principle-in-answer-choices questions like this one, having a "most" idea in the principle in support of a stimulus that only mentions one example is not inconsistent with the principle. This is because principles are general rules that apply to a large number of events, and thus, one event that agrees with a "most" principle is able to fall under that principle. In a sense, distinctions in quantity are not as important to keep track of in principle questions (unless they are blatantly inconsistent with one another).

However, a question I have noticed in past discussion boards is that "ignore" is not the same thing as "fail to consider" because "ignore" is done on purpose and the stimulus gives no evidence that the environmentalists actually knew about the negative consequences beforehand. What do you think?

1. I think what you are getting at is that C is wrong because in principle-in-answer-choices questions, if we are given an argument, we need to look for a principle that can underlie the argument as a whole. Thus, for this stimulus we need a principle that can connect the premise (that space-based satellites help environmentalists) with the conclusion (that environmentalists fail to consider the bad consequences of such satellites). C is wrong because it doesn't mention how the good stuff leads people to fail to consider the bad stuff.

However, couldn't C be right because it mentions the conclusion (tech has negative consequences) and something in the premises (tech can be "largely beneficial")? These two ideas together could imply that reasoning, just as the stimulus did. In addition, could you elaborate on why you think C does not even underlie the conclusion?

1. E is wrong because (using the same line of reasoning I expanded on in regards to C) although it covers the conclusion by talking about tech having bad consequences (stimulus talks about satellites doing bad stuff for the environment), it says nothing about the good stuff these satellites do that cause environmentalists to fail to consider these negative consequences.

Again, thank you for your help! I couldn't be grateful enough!

jmarmaduke96

Hi! Happy to help!

Sorry if my explanation was confusing, I believe that we are saying similar things with respect to why "tend to" does not take A out of the running for being the correct answer choice. I would just emphasize that distinctions in quantity are still important to keep track of. However, like you said, they are not as important because the principle is suppose to be illustrating a general rule that the stimulus is just one instantiation of.

As far as the distinction between ignoring something and failing to consider it, I think that you are correct. The former indicates a level of intent that the latter does not. Nothing in the stimulus speaks directly to the intent of the environmentalists. But I think that there are two points to consider here:

1. based on the language of the stimulus, "ignore" does make more sense. For example, "people really think that many of the results of X would be fantastic, so of course we shouldn't be surprised that they don't consider the bad," that is basically the stimulus. The language at the end, after saying how much the people like the results of X - "of course they wouldn't consider the bad" seems to fit very nicely with the idea of them ignoring the bad. These are just context clues, I suppose it could be that they were just ignorant.

However, the stimulus makes it clear that we should expect the people to not consider the bad. That would have to be a pretty strong principle that we should assume total ignorance on the part of all of the environmentalists. Furthermore, one of the bad consequences is damage to the ozone layer, which is itself environmental. It seems strange that the environmentalists would know absolutely nothing about that. None of this is MBT or anything, but given the language of the stimulus, I do think that the notion of the environmentalists ignoring the bad evidence is supported at least as well as the notion of them being ignorant of it.

1. The other point to keep in mind is that we are not looking for a perfect answer choice. The test writers can come up with whatever answer choices they want. If they choose to give us four answer choices that need about 25 assumptions to get them even close to being the correct answer, and then one answer choice that only needs 1 small assumption to be correct, then the latter is obviously the correct answer. If nothing else, they can fall back on the language of the question stem "The reasoning above most closely conforms to which one of the following principles."

As far as answer choice C goes, yes, I think you stated it correctly. The big issue is that is does not underly the argument as a whole. I do not think that the "largely beneficial" bit from C can be found in the premises either. In fact, I think that bit is enough to make C incorrect on its own. Do we have any indication that the technology will be largely beneficial? I think that for something to be largely beneficial, it has to do more good than harm. We do not have an indication that is true from the stimulus. We know that the good brought about by the spaceflights is that some environmental problems can be caught before they reach the crisis stage. The bad is serious damage the ozone layer. So we have to make a comparison between these two in order to say that the spaceflights are largely beneficial. But what are the environmental problems that the flights ameliorate? Let's say that there is a fungus spreading that is killing off howler monkeys. Without the information from these flights, scientists can't predict the spread of the fungus and howler monkeys will go extinct. That would be very sad indeed, I like howler monkeys.

However, serious damage to the ozone layer could cause global warming to drastically accelerate past the ability of humans to do anything about it. Certain regions of the world could become uninhabitable for humans leading to overpopulation, lack of clean drinking water, spread of disease and more. As much as I like howler monkeys, I think that under this version of events, which is entirely consistent with the stimulus, the spaceflights do a lot more harm than good. Therefore, I do not think that we can say that they are largely beneficial.

As far as whether or not C underlies the conclusion, at a bare minimum you have to make the same assumption that you do for A. You had objected to "most" or "tend to" in answer choice A because we only know about "some." Answer choice C says "usually" when we only know about "some." So, the same assumption is needed for both answer choices. However, if you make the assumption, C still only possibly underlies the conclusion, whereas A underlies the argument as a whole.

As far as E goes, yes! It is ignoring the premises of the argument and therefore cannot possibly underly the argument as a whole. Good job!

Sorry for the earlier confusion, I hope this was more clear! Feel free to let me know if I should clarify something else!

Darklord

Ok, this makes sense thanks!