PT11.S4.Q19 - the proposal to extend clinical trials

Sarah889

The argument breakdown is as follows:

P1: Surgical procedures differ in one important aspect from medicinal drugs.
P2: This one important aspect is that a correctly prescribed drug depends for its effectiveness only on the drug's composition, while the effectiveness of even the most appropriate surgical procedure is transparently related to the skills of the surgeon who uses it.
C: The proposal to extend clinical trials to new surgical procedures should not be implemented.

So we are looking for the flawed reasoning. I was able to eliminate B, C, and E, but my worry is that I also eliminated A (the correct answer) and chose D, not because I liked D, but by POE.

Would someone be willing to explain to me why A is the correct answer? The argument is saying that the extension should not happen, and it seems that A would only add a premise, rather than constitute a flaw. Is the flaw because the stimulus only mentions one important point at which they differ, and A is pointing out a second important point?

(Also, on a side note, has anyone ever come across a flawed reasoning question where the answer was "the argument is flawed because they didn't cite any scientific evidence"? I am usually quick to eliminate these because, logically speaking, an argument works with the evidence it is given and draws conclusions from that. Sometimes they are terrible conclusions, but regardless, one does not need scientific evidence to validate a terrible argument. If we are speaking scientifically, empirical evidence is clearly important. But, for our purposes, I just don't see how a lack of scientific evidence can ever be the logical flaw in an argument. I chose D for this answer, already suspecting it was wrong, but I did so by POE. Any thoughts on this?)

Thanks!

Wind-Up Bird

I was trying to find a PDF of the test to help answer the question, but I only managed to stumble upon a Kaplan explanation. Without seeing the answer choices, I'm not entirely sure if it'll be helpful... Also @mods let me know if posting this breaches any forum rules.

(A) The key word in this choice is “intrinsically.” The argument dismisses the value of clinical
trials for new surgical procedures on the grounds that the effectiveness of such a
procedure is “transparently related to the skills of the surgeon who uses it.” Even so, it is
reasonable to expect that some surgical procedures may prove to have harmful effects in
and of themselves, regardless of the surgeon’s ability.

(D) There’s clearly a qualitative difference between administering drugs and performing
surgery. Specific scientific evidence proving the dissimilarity is unnecessary

• In flaw questions, it can be useful to keep in mind the limitations of the test format.
Every argument has to be put forth in a single paragraph. So it’s unreasonable to
demand detailed documentation in support of every piece of evidence.

Wind-Up Bird

Also, on a side note, has anyone ever come across a flawed reasoning question where the answer was "the argument is flawed because they didn't cite any scientific evidence"? . If we are speaking scientifically, empirical evidence is clearly important. But, for our purposes, I just don't see how a lack of scientific evidence can ever be the logical flaw in an argument. I chose D for this answer, already suspecting it was wrong, but I did so by POE. Any thoughts on this?

To answer your side note, I don't think I've ever seen a correct flaw answer choice that features "not citing evidence for the argument." I'm curious... What exactly did A and D say?

Sami

In the stimulus the conclusion is that "extending clinical trials to New surgical procedures should not be implemented.
This is supported by the fact that "surgical procedures" differ in one important respect __________".

This stimulus is very similar to other LSAT stimulus where we don't actually know if the subject in the conclusion, new surgical procedures, is the same as the subject that is being discussed in the premise, surgical procedures in general. They sound similar; but are they? One is new and other one is just about surgical procedures as they have been so far.

Here is another example:
Support: Vitamins helps boost immune system so Vitamins should be given to cancer patient as their immune system is low.

The problem is that the subject (regular people vs cancer patient) could be different in a relevant manner and we just don't know.

The method of reasoning for this argument is "argument by analogy". The author is assuming that because both procedures are surgical, what is applicable and relevant in the surgical procedures in general will also be relevant to these new surgical procedures. But here is the flaw: "that similarity" is an assumption and unless stated otherwise you cannot say they are similar.

Answer choice "A" gets to heart of that issue:
That surgical procedures might be intrinsically "more harmful" than the best treatment available. In other words the two surgical procedures, new vs the regular, differ in an important respect - the new one is more harmful. And therefore the analogy of it being effective based on skills of surgeon may just not hold.

Answer choice "D" Is talking about the dissimilarity between surgical procedures vs. medicinal drugs. Which although relevant doesn't get to the heart of the flaw that the author makes about comparing two similar things, surgical procedures that may actually be different. Also, the flaw is never "you didn't cite evidence". That may be what the argument is lacking. But you want to focus on How the author actually supports his argument; i.e. what method of reasoning is he using and where is he going wrong. In this case his support may not be relevant to the subject matter stated in the conclusion (the new surgical procedure).

BinghamtonDave

I’m not really a fan of this question and answer choice (A) because of some sloppy language that I will get to shortly. I don’t believe this question would stand on the modern exams. So what, in plain English is going on here?

Step 1: what is out conclusion? The conclusion is that there should not be clinical trials for new surgical procedures. More specifically, the conclusion is that the proposals to extend clinical trials to these new surgical procedures should not happen.


Step 2, what is the support? What is offered in support of this conclusion? The author offers us evidence that borders in my estimation on a nonsequitor. The author simply relays information about what differentiates the effectiveness drugs and surgical procedures. The author tells us that effective drugs depend on the composition of the drug. Surgical effectiveness depend on the surgeon doing the work. Pause here for a second: who is to say that clinical trials must include effectiveness at all? I know this is by common sense standards a pretty ordinary assumption, but what if a clinical trial was actually trying to root out which things weren’t effective? For instance, does an apple a day really keep the doctor away?

Step 3, so what is wrong with this connection? So I think like many flaw questions this is telling us something explicitly. It is telling us that because surgical procedures rely on the skills of those who do the surgery, we shouldn’t extend clinical trials to the new variety. This would be a regular-old “takes for granted” premise to conclusion construction. A variation on this assumption would be that because surgical procedures rely on something subjective and seemingly difficult to replicate, the new varieties of them shouldn’t be extended into the realm of clinical trials. This makes sense if we take into account the nature of a clinical trial. In clinical trials, variations and differences are very important to either correct for or keep constant. The author is implicitly telling us to imagine relying on such factors as whether or not the surgeon is tired or almost got into a car accident on the way to work and is still shaken up, or the surgeon has the flu in a clinical trial. This is in practice different than relying on drugs in a clinical trial.


Step 4: So why is this flawed? Well, as stated above it takes a lot for granted. It probably assumes that the benefit garnered by the inclusion of surgical procedures in clinical trials is outweighed by the problems. It relies on this assumption on the grounds of a difference between the two methods of treatment stated above. So we are forced to ask, even with relying on surgeons, couldn’t surgeries provide us with something useful?


What makes this question hard in my estimation is not getting to the point where we are so far, but it is going into the answer choices. In my estimation, this question does something that still occurs on the LSAT. An analogy up front might be useful to see this. Imagine I was the manager of a department store like Macy’s and I told my employees that they would be suspended if their drawers were off at the end of their shift. Colloquially, my mind goes to the fact that if their drawers were short they will get suspended. But we must keep in mind that if their drawers were over they would get suspended also. My mind was focused on the idea that clinical trials including surgeries might offer us something positive, but the credited answer choice took a look at the other side of that assumption.


Answer choice (A) plays on this assumption. (A) is telling us that the new procedures might be found to be “intrinsically” harmful. And that if this is considered, it might change the course of our conclusion.

My problem with (A) is twofold: first it is vague. “Might be found” is supposed to mean “might be found via clinical trials”? Furthermore, what is this “best treatment previously available”? Is this supposed to be something that we readily assume clinical trials have already given us? I don’t know. Furthermore, if it is the “best treatment available” then would all others by definition be lesser than?

My second set of problems with (A) is the utter silliness and not-real-life applicability of what the answer choice means. The argument is in a nutshell: we shouldn’t do surgeries in clinical trials because surgeries rely on tons of variables. The credited response of what is wrong with that argument is that it ignores that surgeries might be found to have intrinsic problems that we evidently find via clinical trials. So, appealing to this internal logic, our argument overlooked the idea that not allowing clinical trials would actually not allow us to know which ones are intrinsically dangerous? That seems strange, but does in some degree play on the department store/drawer over example above. While I started searching for something the argument overlooked about the positives of clinical trials featuring these new surgeries, the answer choice gave me a negative they might offer.


Let’s pause a second to consider another analogous argument to see what exactly is going on here. Are you familiar with the program many home improvement stores have that allows you to take a small amount of paint home and paint a sample wall? These are essentially trial runs for paint, to see how a particular color schemes works for you. Whether you like the paint or not depends on the color, which is self contained. What our author is arguing against in this passage is not that small can of paint trial program, but a trial program in which you bring home a painter and allow them to paint a sample wall. The author in our passage is saying that because the painter’s job relies on such things as experience, skills, etc we should not extend these programs to painters.

I am open for correction on this matter but answer choice (A) seems to be telling us in our analogous argument that the author overlooks the fact that allowing the painter in might yield particular insight into the dangers the painter might bring in also. The painter might have pink eye or a cold or the painter might be using tools that contain remnants of lead paint that might be harmful to children or small animals.


I think it is at this point that we get to the true lesson of this question. When the LSAT tells us that something shouldn’t be done and our minds immediately run to the benefits of doing that thing that the argument is overlooking, the argument might be overlooking negatives we can find from doing that thing also. Think of this as a way in which the LSAt pulls a cross-over basketball move on us.

Sarah889

@Sami and @BinghamtonDave and @"Wind-Up Bird"

Just to make sure I understand what you all are saying-- this argument makes 2 assumptions:

1) The surgical procedures that the author mentions in his/her premises have the same characteristics as the new surgical procedures.

2) Clinical trials are aimed at effectiveness, rather than other goals--like research or preliminary understanding. "Effectiveness" could technically be an afterthought if the goal of the clinical trial was merely to experiment or broaden one's understanding.

So then, is the idea of A that, the more harmful they are, the more the reason to test them in clinical trials? So that the clinical trials can expose this harmfulness? And they can then resort back to this best treatment that was previously available?

Is that the correct interpretation of A? Because originally it seemed as though A was supporting the author's argument by providing another reason why these clinical trials should not be extended to new surgical procedures. If they are intrinsically harmful, then of course we should not try them out. Is that just me buying into a version of assumption 2?

Thanks for your responses. This question is definitely beginning to become clearer to me.